With the announcement that a new Candyman film will be shot almost 21 years after the release of the franchise’s last, Candyman: Day Of The Dead, and with horror virtuoso Jordan Peele as one of its writers and producers no less, we wanted to revisit the original three of the series and find the 10 scariest moments amongst them all.
The films were based on Clive Barker’s short story, The Forbidden, but with many interesting added elements like the Candyman’s real name and backstory. Combining raw gore with supernatural elements in an urban legend framework, these films offered audiences some tantalizing chills. Let us explore them (spoilers follow).
The Beginning Of ‘Candyman’
Now, this is not exactly scary eo ipso. If one watched it completely in isolation, without the rest as context, it could be characterized as a short film version of a combination of “The Hook” and “Bloody Mary” urban legends. What is terrifying is what aftereffect it accomplishes, what it does. You see, screenplays have usually a three-act structure: they start with a status-quo and move on to an inciting incident that disturbs the status-quo. A horror film especially does not start with the scares, but begins to hint them in at the second act’s start. However, this film frightens us from the very beginning, thus making us continuously apprehensive throughout, instead of a having a calm 20-minute opening.
The Candyman’s Backstory
In the first film Professor Philip Purcell narrates to Helen the backstory of the Candyman, how he came to be. While many would say that retaining the urban legend’s mystery, as well as the vagueness of Barker’s original character, would make the Candyman a far more chilling figure, the truth is that a strong motivation makes the character scarier, and overall, more interesting.
It shows that he has a reason not to stop, that horrible events turned him into a horrible monster. The details of his backstory of murderous racism also connect him to the Cabrini-Green area he haunts and the problems the residents there face.
Helen’s Becoming – “What’s The Matter, Trevor? Scared Of Something?”
At the closure of the first Candyman, Helen burns and dies from her wounds, while the Candyman is supposedly destroyed. After her funeral we see her former husband, now living with his younger girlfriend, grief-stricken and guilty over abandoning her. While crying in the bathroom, he unintentionally repeats her name a few times in front of the mirror (the method to conjure the Candyman); she appears behind him and guts him with the hook. This is not just frightening in itself, but also because of what it implies: more people can be added to the Candyman’s lore. He can pass on his curse.
“I Am The Writing On The Wall, The Whisper In The Classroom. Without These Things, I Am Nothing. So Now, I Must Shed Innocent Blood.”
This is a chilling and prevailing moment in the first film. Not only because Candyman has Helen hypnotized, under his spell and control, but also because of the intentions he reveals and what he implies about urban legends; about his legend. It is a vicious circle: the more people spread his legend and believe in it, the more powerful he becomes. However, if the unfaithful start increasing, he has his ways to sway them.
You cannot win! If people believe in him, he kills; if they don’t, he kills. Perhaps the lesson here is that it is much easier to create something evil than to destroy it; our words and actions have consequences.
“See How I Became The Reflection Of The Hatred.”
In the first film, we learn the origin story of the Candyman / Daniel Robitaille through a character that appears once or twice in the entire movie; it is told in the third person and delivered like some myth that was created long ago. While the story itself is intriguing and definitely effective, it still remains in the realm of urban legend, hence distant and vague; not real… yet. But in Farewell To The Flesh, the Candyman personally tells his story to Annie, while we watch it in a flashback. We get to see and hear about a harsh reality first-hand this time. It’s very real, hence much creepier.
Staged Wrong Place At The Wrong Time
This is not a moment per se, but an accumulation of moments, although there is a first time it happens. In the first movie, after Helen is hypnotized by the Candyman in the car park, she wakes up bathed in blood in Anne-Marie’s apartment with no recollection of how she got there. Anne-Marie is wailing over her baby’s crib and becomes furious upon seeing Helen, believing that she kidnapped (or worse) her son.
Helen takes from her a butcher’s knife while they struggle and the police walk in at just the right (or wrong) time. It happens again and again. It feels like the Candyman is not just framing people, but he also manipulates them into creating the perfect conditions for them to be afterwards framed in.
It Begins With A Nightmare… And The Nightmare Begins
Day Of The Dead starts with the protagonist having a nightmare about the Candyman attacking her in a minimalist, large white bathroom. As an idea, it might appear quite formulaic; a horror movie that begins with a nightmare, the protagonist wakes up and feels relieved only to realize later that the real nightmare is just beginning et cetera et cetera. What is brilliant and equally terrifying about this is not so much the scenario, but the atmosphere, the aesthetic; it is a very short scene, but in little time it conveys this lingering evil, this surrealist style that is also somehow campy for a great start to what is otherwise, unfortunately, the weakest movie of the three.
“In Death Lies Your Destiny.”
In Day Of The Dead, Caroline is out with David at a restaurant; she visits the restroom and stands in front of the mirror. One would think that by now this is predictable, but this was a beautiful exception. She washes her face and lets her hands linger on it for a few moments; when she slowly lowers them, her face is smeared in blood (the symbolism is on point).
The Candyman appears, as well as her mother’s ghost covered in blood from her slit throat with her eyes all black – haunted. This was one of the most disturbing visions of the trilogy.
The Honeybees
In the first film, towards the end when Helen decides to sacrifice herself to save Anne-Marie’s son, Anthony, the Candyman conjures his swarm of bees. They start coming out of his mouth and flying on Helen. This was pretty frightening in its own accord, the idea that he either carries within him at all times a swarm of bees that he can release at will or he just creates them out of thin air every time.
What may make your skin crawl is that this was not CGI – not at all. Tony Todd (the actor who played Candyman) had real bees literally put into his mouth; he was wearing a protective mouth piece, but still…
Hatred Breeds Hatred - The Lesson Of Candyman
The Candyman films are a great slasher franchise, but they are also something else: they refer to a shameful and painful history that still lingers and insists that it is given attention, no matter how much we want to pretend it is not there. That is what the Candyman represents: an accumulation of confused and hopeless feelings about a history of slavery, prejudice, racism, and death that we as a society have no clue how to handle. The truth is that if we do not properly address these issues and either insist that they don’t exist or talk about them with sensationalism and disrespect (like how people talk about the Candyman), those issues will never go away. This truth of our world is one of the scariest things about Candyman.