Nia DaCosta's highly anticipated revival of the Candyman franchise will hit theaters this August and audiences repeatedly keep circling one question: how is it connected to the other films in the series? The original Candyman was released in 1992 during a famous lull for the genre, and in addition to featuring a black horror villain for the first time since 1970s blaxploitation films, director Bernard Rose's classic effortlessly mixed horror with romance and social commentary. This also set it apart from other famous 1990s horror offerings such as slasher revivals Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer, which later came to dominate the genre. Candyman was a hit upon release and was responsible for turning Tony Todd into a household horror name, with his most iconic roles being the tragic slasher and William Bludworth in the Final Destination series.
With Jordan Peele serving as screenwriter alongside director DaCosta and Win Rosenfield, the revival's narrative seems to fit perfectly into the thematic content of the original, exploring the racial trauma behind the origin of the infamous slasher. The second trailer detailed a new origin for the titular killer, who was a man accused of placing razor blades in candy he handed to children. He is murdered by the police following this accusation, but was later revealed to have been innocent. Clearly the creative team is determined to create a film with the same impact and weight as the original.
Now audiences have a release date to look forward to, the only question left for many is what kind of a connection it will have to the original series. Luckily for fans, that question can be answered by the filmmakers themselves and certain aspects of the story. The original was followed by two subsequent Candyman sequels - Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh in 1995 and Day of the Dead in 1999. Neither movie was as commercially or critically well-received as the 1992 original, as thye largely abandoned the slow-burn psychological tension in favor of a more slasher-centric approach. Because of this, the franchise went on a long hiatus. This is one of the reasons 2021's Candyman will be a direct sequel to the original, ignoring the events of the sequels like 2018's critically and commercially successful Halloween.
This is evident from the lens which the story is told. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will play Anthony McCoy, an urban photographer who's inadvertently responsible for reviving the legacy of Candyman. But as fans will know, Anthony is also the baby stolen by Candyman and rescued by Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) at the climax of the first film, thus directly linking it to the original story. If that isn't enough evidence, the actress who played his mother in the film, Vanessa Estelle Williams, is also returning to reprise her role as Anne-Marie from the original.
On top of this, back in 2018 when the news was officially broken about Jordan Peele's involvement, Entertainment Weekly clarified the movie would be a "spiritual sequel" to the original. While spiritual sequels are usually films that aren't narratively tied to the original, it seems that in the case of Candyman, the spiritual aspect implies the other sequels would effectively be de-canonized, as Peele himself has called the film "the next chapter in the Candyman canon." Making a direct sequel to the original film is certainly a bold decision, and gives Candyman the chance to be every bit as tragic and terrifying as the legacy held by the original 1992 masterpiece.