Staci Layne Wilson’s Candyman review says filmmakers Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele bring fresh blood to an old trope.

Director Nia DaCosta’s Candyman reimagining has been called a “spiritual sequel” to the 1992 film of the same name, and that it is. While it sticks to the stuff horror fans loved about the original—a vengeful, hook-handed ghost of a wrongfully lynched Black man (and his horde of homicidal honey bees) wreaking havoc in the infamous Cabrini-Green projects of Chicago—it adds new, different, and updated dimensions to the scary story.

Candyman takes place in present-day, a decade after the last of the infamous Chicago Cabrini-Green towers projects were torn down to make way for slick, pricy, gentrified artists’ lofts. Fine arts painter Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his gallery curator girlfriend Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris) have recently moved into one of the designer flats and are soon informed of the high rise’s bloody past.

Brianna’s brother, Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), tells them the 1990s-set tale of curious grad student Helen Lyle and her fatal run-in on the property with Candyman (nee Daniel Robitaille, played by Tony Todd, who has a cameo here) after she says his name five times in a mirror. Anthony is intrigued and hunts down a longtime Cabrini-Green resident, old-timer William Burke (Colman Domingo) who tells him about a 1977 Halloween scare in which a Candyman incarnate, Sherman Fields (Michael Hargrove), was secreting razor blades into the kiddie’s candies. He goes on to imply that it could be time for the restless spirit to find another human portal from which he can wreak some of his trademark hook-handed havoc, warning Anthony to be careful.

Cowritten with Jordan Peele (of Get Out fame, who also produced) and Win Rosenfeld (also a producer, and the writer of one Twilight Zone reboot TV series episode), DaCosta digs into POC issues, but doesn’t get overly political—it’s thought-provoking but first and foremost, Candyman is a horror movie.

While it is not as thrilling or suspenseful as the original, there is a lot of stylized gore and some truly intriguing set pieces (most of which involve mirrors, since that is the Candyman’s portal into our world). The use of stark, eerie shadow puppetry to convey the backstory of the legend gives the film the feel of a dark fable, and when the killer is shown, it’s usually briefly, and only then in reflective surfaces.

While Candyman lacks true suspense, it’s still one of the better “slasher classic” remakes and definitely worth a look for fans of the genre.

Rated R
1 Hour, 31 Minutes

If, after reading this Candyman review, you’re dying to see it, get times and tickets for a theater near you on Fandango.

Staci Layne Wilson’s Candyman review says filmmakers Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele bring fresh blood to an old trope.