This infamous slasher with a hooked hand terrorized audiences in the 1990s and is scheduled to make a comeback in 2021, hopefully with a bang. Candyman is based on Clive Barker’s short story The Forbidden, and there have been three films in the Candyman franchise. The original Candyman was not only a box-office success for a slasher film, but it also received critical acclaim for its slow-burning premise. Over time, the figure has developed a cult following, with some fans despising him and others admiring him for who he is and his past. He was once a normal person named Daniel Robitaille, but he was soon the victim of violent prejudice and was lynched and killed by a swarm of bees.
He became a furious serial murderer after his death, who could be called by screaming his name five times in front of a mirror. Candyman and his method of murder dig their teeth into the viewer’s bones and become more potent as a result of the film’s relatability to modern-day social issues such as racial alienation and poverty. He has been compared to other horror legends like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Without further ado, let us take a look at the three Candyman films, followed by a deeper look at the next Candyman feature in August.
Candyman (1992)
Helen Lyle was researching urban legends when she came across the story of Candyman, a spirit that gets summoned when a person says its name five times in front of a mirror, only to kill the summoner with a hook that is attached to its right arm. She discovers a woman named Ruthie Jean and twenty-five others were killed by someone with the same modus operandi, presumably Candyman. Skeptical about the legend, Helen and her friend Bernadette attempt to summon the Candyman, but nothing happens, nor does he appear. Helen and Bernadette deduce that people use Candyman’s legend to cope with the hardships of life. Later they visit Ruthie Jean’s murder site and discover a room filled with offerings intended for Candyman to take. They also meet Ruthie’s neighbor and single mother, Anne Marie McCoy.
Later that night, while having dinner with Professor Philip Purcell, Helen learns that Candyman was born as Daniel Robitaille in the late nineteenth century to a slave man. He grew up to become a renowned artist who would paint portraits of wealthy white men and women. However, he fell in love with the daughter of one of his clients and fathered a child with her. When the wealthy and powerful father learned about it, he sent a mob to lynch him.
Daniel was captured, his right hand severed, and later, he was smeared and drenched in honey that was stolen from a nearby apiary. This attracted the bees that stung him to death. However, he died only after his soul got transferred into a mirror, and since then, he’s known as the vicious Candyman. His corpse was burned and the ashes scattered all over the land on which the notorious housing society of Cabrini Green was built.
Later, Candyman appeared to Helen at a parking garage and explained to her how she smeared his image and demeaned his legend. To perpetuate it, he must shed innocent blood. Helen then blacks out only to wake up at Anne Marie’s house. Poor Helen was drenched in the blood of Anne Marie’s Rottweiler, which had been decapitated, while Anne Marie’s infant goes missing.
Anne Marrie lost her calm and attacks Helen, but the cops arrest Helen because her acts of self-defense looked as if she was assaulting Anne Marie. Helen’s husband, Trevor, bails her out of custody, but later at home, Candyman slashes her neck, and she passed out once again because of excessive bleeding. Later Bernadette arrives at Helen’s house, but the Candyman kills her, and the blame for Bernadette’s murder falls on Helen, who gets arrested by the police and is taken to a psychiatric hospital and put in restraints. One month later, Helen’s psychiatrist, Dr. Burke, was interviewing her for her impending trial. However, in order to prove her innocence, she summoned the Candyman, who killed Dr. Burke and gave her a window of opportunity to escape. Back in her apartment, she sees that Trevor is living with one of his students named Stacy, with whom he has been having an affair for a long time now.
She then flees to Cabrini Green to rescue Anne Marie’s little son Anthony. Candyman tells her that Anthony will only be spared if she surrenders to him; seeing that she had no other options left and nowhere to go, she agrees to Candyman’s demand. He opened his coat to reveal a monstrous chest plagued with bees all over. He kissed her, and the bees poured out of his mouth to travel into her throat. Candyman then vanished, but Helen found herself near a mural of Candyman’s ex-lover, with whom she bore an uncanny resemblance.
However, Candyman wanted more, and he wanted the people of Cabrini Green to fear him. In order to achieve this, he tried to immolate both Anthony and Helen, but he himself got destroyed by the flames of the bonfire. Although Helen managed to save Anthony, she herself succumbed to the burns. Later, an extremely guilty Trevor looked into the mirror and called out Helen’s name five times. Her vengeful spirit appears and kills him with a hook. She had now become a part of the folklore.
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995)
Three years after the incidents of the previous film, a New Orleans schoolteacher, Annie Tarrant’s father, Coleman Tarrant, gets murdered while he was investigating three murders that shared the modus operandi of Candyman. A year after this incident, Professor Philip Purcell writes a book detailing the sequence of events and other facts, some of which were offensive to the Tarrant family, especially Annie’s brother Ethan.
On the day of the book’s signing, Candyman kills Purcell in the bathroom. The needle of suspicion points straight towards Ethan, who has had previous arguments with Purcell regarding the book. One of Annie’s students claims to have seen the Candyman, but everyone discredits what she believes as mere folklore, Annie summons the Candyman. The Candyman appears in New Orleans and begins his murderous spree. The first victim is Annie’s husband, Paul Mckeever. Meanwhile, one of her students named Matthew disappears.
It was in this film that Candyman’s backstory was explained in detail. Daniel Robitaille was chosen to paint the portrait of Caroline, the daughter of a wealthy landowner named Heyward Sullivan. However, the two falls in love and Caroline end up getting pregnant. Enraged by this, Heyward sent a mob that severed Daniel’s arm and drenched him in honey. A boy tasted this honey and shouted the word Candyman.
Following this, the crowd also chanted the name as Daniel was bitten to death by the bees. Heyward taunted a dying Daniel with a mirror that belonged to Caroline; this led Daniel’s soul to get trapped into the mirror. Later, Caroline hides the mirror and gives birth to a girl named Isabel. In a strange turn of events, it turns out that Annie was, in fact, a descendant of Caroline and Daniel or Candyman. The Candyman stalks Annie so that he can kill her, but Annie visits Honore Thibodeaux, who informs her that Caroline had come to New Orleans after her lover, Daniel, had been brutally killed by the mob. However, the Candyman appears before them and kills Honore Thibodeaux, but Annie manages to escape with her life. Back at the police station, the Candyman kills a detective, and even Ethan is shot to death while he was trying to escape his custody.
Annie’s guilty mother, Octavia, reveals that her husband Coleman Tarrant was attempting to link her family with the Candyman, but when she constantly denied that the Candyman existed, Coleman took the most extreme and crazy step and summoned the Candyman himself.
he Candyman proves his existence by appearing before Octavia and slays her. Later, Annie flees to Daniel’s birthplace, where she finds the mirror that Caroline had hidden. There, she also finds her student, Matthew. The Candyman reveals that the mirror is the source of his powers, but Annie destroys the mirror and annihilates Candyman, probably for good. Five years later, we learn that Annie has named her daughter Caroline, who is seen chanting Candyman’s name, but Annie interrupts her.
Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999)
In the year 2020, i.e., 25 years from the events of the second film, little Caroline McKeever has grown into a beautiful young woman and owns an art gallery in Los Angeles. Candyman strikes back at the eve of Day of the Dead from the grave to haunt Caroline. She is revealed to be the direct descendant of Caroline Sullivan and the reincarnation of Caroline Sullivan and Daniel’s daughter Isabel. Candyman wants her soul so that she could be with him forever. Since the ghostly serial killer is back, the town becomes plagued with gruesome and brutal deaths. Candyman not only kills her friends and associates but also kidnaps one of her friends named David de la Paz.
As usual, the police suspect Caroline to be the murderer and arrest her, but Candyman kills a cop while Caroline was in the car with him. This enrages the entire police department, and a massive hunt for Caroline ensues. A gang then abducts her and offers her to Candyman in the hopes that the murder spree would come to an end, but Candyman kills the gang instead. Candyman reveals how he killed her mother Annie, her father Paul, her uncle Ethan, and her grandparents Coleman and Octavia. However, Caroline destroys the paintings that Candyman had drawn as Daniel, which burns him from the inside and kills him for good.
Future of the Franchise
The new Candyman film is set to retcon the supernatural serial killer’s origin story. Naturally, it is an extraordinarily bold and compelling move that Universal Pictures has decided to take. The premise of the film has also been changed. In the present day, and ten years after Cabrini towers were pulled down, Anthony McCoy, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and his girlfriend, Brianna Cartwright, the owner of an art gallery, move in together into a fine apartment in Cabrini. The place is not what it used to be and is now a haven for the affluent millennials. Anthony soon learns the truly horrific and tragic story behind Candyman from an old Cabrini Green resident.
When Anthony uses these motifs in his paintings, he unwittingly opens a doorway for the macabre and violence to strike again. He would lose his sanity and unleash a terrifying wave of violence. Writer and director Nia DaCosta is set to bring out the fourth installment of the series, and he has chosen to drastically upgrade the lore so that it fits the taste of the contemporary audience. Tony Todd is destined to reprise his role, but the revamp storyline smells of contemporary yet age-old issues like police brutality and racism.
Experts believe the change is in tandem with current social movements like Black Live Matter Movement. Having said that, it is not that the film will have no connected traces with its predecessors. This film is going to be a direct sequel to the 1992 original film. Anthony McCoy is the same child whom Candyman had abducted and who was later rescued by Helen. The film is set to release this August.
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