A social justice screed cosplaying as a horror film, the Candyman remake is a colossal disappointment.
Instead of talking like normal people talk, characters are mouthpieces for ideology: police bad, white people bad, gentrification bad. And that’s not subtext or metaphor, by the way. That’s all anyone prattles on about in this preachy mess of a film.
We begin in the 70s with a child, William, who’s witness to police brutality. He grows up to become an operator of a local laundromat, but to also conveniently offer the protagonist a massive exposition dump. So, essentially there to get everyone up to speed who hasn’t seen the first film. This happens in every remake, basically…someone takes up 10 minute of screen time to engage with younger demos so the writers don’t have to burden themselves by creating uniquely compelling deviations from the source material.
Our hero is Anthony, a self-loathing condo gentrifier artist dating a gallery director, whose apartment is impeccably antiseptic rather than having stuff strewn about like oh, most artists. He is is suffering from a creative block. This is unlocked by William telling him the urban legend (in both senses of the term) of the Candyman, which happened in the infamous now-former Chicago housing project, Cabrini-Green, which has been mostly razed to make way for…condos.
As an aside, the meeting between Anthony poking around what’s left of the projects and William, is as unnatural as you can get.
Anyway, Anthony is inspired enough to create a Candyman-inspired art piece called, what else? “Say my name.” And it’s instantly torn down like a social housing project, by a white art critic, who deploys a variant of “you people.”
The performances are game, and the music is pretty great.
Candyman’s beginning is pretty incredible, disorienting and creative – Chicago’s famous buildings – corn cob, Sears Tower – are turned upside down as the film draws the viewer in. Hell, shadow puppetry is used as a storytelling device as well, also super creative. What isn’t so creative is the clumsy, didactic dialogue or the flashback 20 minutes (!) in.
As far as reboots go, solidly in the middle of the pack. Which isn’t saying much.
Stick with the original Candyman, a racially charged gothic masterpiece which also happens to be the best horror film made in the 90s. And RIP, Tony Todd.
*** (out of 5)
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