CANDYMAN (2021) A REVIEW
CANDYMAN (2021) A REVIEW: TRACEY FRANCIS
As a non-horror fan who gave up watching this genre before the release of the original Candyman in 1992, I was intrigued to see the 2021 version as it was directed by the young Nia DaCosta and co-produced by Jordan 'Get Out' Peele. Having recently watched the original version I started to research the background to this film. I wondered how they were going to examine the issues of gentrification and racial injustice within the horror genre in contemporary America, that the first film tried too even if the outcomes were problematic.
Candyman has been publicized as a sequel to the horror film Candyman (1992) but it definitely is not a remake, as the story continues in modern day gentrified Cabrini-Green with the reminiscence of 1992 in the background. This film was due to be released in 2019 but of course the pandemic stopped that, so when it was finally released it was seen as if it captured the zeitgeist of America post George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. However, it wasn't anything to do with zeitgeist, but the reiteration of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow Laws which are still ominipresent.
The main protagonist Anthony is an artist and lives with his partner Brianna in a gentrified apartment in Chicago. They are an upwardly mobile African American middle-class couple who are becoming a power couple, but Anthony needs inspiration to produce work so he goes back to take photographs in the derelict area of Cabrini-Green. This real-life area which was ‘once a new vision of affordable living, with apartments cherished by the families that lived there, that after years of neglect fueled by racism and negative press coverage turned them into an unfair symbol of blight and failure.' 1 Once there Anthony meets a local laundromat owner who he has a conversation with that leads onto the tale of Candyman who was an artist and son of an enslaved African with a horrific backstory. This is the inspiration that Anthony has been seeking.
Anthony, whose ego gets bruised when the praise he wants at the gallery opening isn't given for his mirror installation inspired by the Candyman myth, doesn’t realise that everything will change for him that night. His artwork is the beginning of the Candyman’s return, because after the event the gallery staff decide to test the myth by calling his name five times in Anthony's mirror. So then he is conjured, the killing and gore begins as Candyman is back. Fortunately, the gruesome murders are shown by an invisible killer whom we only see a reflection of and this for me was welcomed in order to get through the film. However, it is still full of gore. I had wondered what method DaCosta and Peele would use to show the elements of horror in a way that would be different, knowing their background – Peele being a horror fan and comedian, while Dacosta a Marvel fan. However, intelligence and creativity were used especially when Anthony slowly morphed into a decaying man, but that may have been a horror fan’s nod to Jeff Goldblum’s demise in The Fly (1986).
Gore aside, gentrification, class, gender and the centering of contemporary middle-class African Americans was for me a strong feature of the film. From the family dynamics between Brianna and her brother Troy to her status within the Art world made this version feel progressive but without forgetting the past and what hasn’t changed. Even though this narrative was not didactically stated, the interludes of the shadow puppet animation was a creative and powerful way to continuously build the reason behind the Candyman’s revenge.
A still from the animated teaser for Nia DaCosta’s Candyman
Without any spoilers or tales of more gore, the strength of this film is that it is layered with references to suppressed American history and culture, so you may need to see it again to catch what you would have missed the first time. DaCosta had a huge challenge to make this film work and I feel she has created a really strong horror film, which will definitely be written about and discussed for years to come.
Finally, an acquaintance who was a horror fan, lecturer and writer would have been shocked and surprised that I saw this film. But I would have loved to have heard their thoughts on this film. So I dedicate this short review to the late Dr Charlie Allbright (formerly Oughton).
Directed by Nia DaCosta
Screenplay by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld and Nia DaCosta
Bernard Rose (dir. 1992 motion picture entitled Candyman written by Clive Barker)
Clive Barker (Screenwriter and author of The Forbidden which Candyman was based on)
1 How Racism Turned Chicago’s Cabrini-Green Homes From A Beacon Of Progress To A Run-Down Slum:
Nia DaCosta is a writer and director based in New York City.
Her first feature film, LITTLE WOODS, starring Tessa Thompson and Lily James, had its theatrical release on April 19, 2019 through Neon Rated. She will be directing her second feature film, the Jordan Peele written and produced, CANDYMAN, this spring. The MGM film will be released June 12, 2020.
DaCosta has been supported by the Sundance Institute, New York Film Festival, the San Francisco Film Society and the Time Warner Foundation.
DaCosta was born in 1989, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Harlem. She is of Brazilian and Black-American descent. Though she originally wanted to be a writer, her first viewing of Apocalypse Now (1979) sparked her interest in filmmaking. This led DaCosta to research 1970s film, where she found inspiration in directors such as Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola. Citing Scorsese as a top inspiration, DaCosta enrolled at his alma mater, New York University Tisch School of the Arts. There, she met Scorsese while working as a TV production assistant.
In August 2020, DaCosta was hired to direct The Marvels, becoming the youngest filmmaker to direct a Marvel film, beating the record set by Ryan Coogler.
http://www.niadacosta.com/