Candyman (1992)

Since I am stuck at home (by choice), and there’s a remake and/or late sequel coming to the 1992 Candyman, why not check out the original? I was never much for horror movies before. Now, I somewhat like them when they aren’t all gore and jumpscares. Sure, this one may be trying to spook people with bees, but bees can be scary under the right circumstances. Just ask Nicholas Cage.

Anyway, it’s on Netflix, and now I’ve seen the 1992 Candyman. Is it as sweet as the title, and can I make a joke worse than that?

Grad student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is researching urban legends in Chicago. She gets a tip about the Candyman, a killer who hunts anyone who says his name five times into a mirror in a nearby housing project. Helen doesn’t believe much in urban legends, and she does find a lot of material there for her work. But, on a whim, she opts to say the Candyman’s name five times in front of a mirror to prove nothing happens. Sure enough, nothing does happen…right away.

See, the Candyman (Tony Todd) is very real, very scary, and very murderous. But he doesn’t want Helen to die. He has other plans for her, and he’ll need to ruin her life first before he goes any further. She really shouldn’t have gone around convincing people he wasn’t real.

Candyman as a movie is a bit different from what I’ve seen so far as I catch up on older horror movies I skipped in my youth in that, well, this one actually scared me more than most. Maybe it’s the fact that some of these movies, once you see or know the tricks, often through cultural osmosis, they don’t pack the sort of punch the audience might be hoping for. Or maybe it’s just that some things aren’t as spooky as I had thought they were. But Candyman, running just over 90 minutes, knows how to build tension. Aside from a very effective jumpscare in the beginning of the movie as one woman recounts a Candyman legend (complete with Ted Raimi of all people as the bad boy boyfriend of the victim!), the movie takes its time, telling Candyman stories and showing the results of Candyman’s actions before bringing the guy into the main narrative. There’s even a Candyman stand-in at one point, someone who isn’t the real thing but sure did make me give him a second look.

It also helps how Candyman himself is presented. Tony Todd is at least a head taller than most of the cast, only Madsen seems to see him more often than not, and his voice, distorted a bit by the audio, has a slow and hypnotic quality, and that’s before he opens his mouth and lets a swarm of bees fly out. And this was the early 90s, so they were using full practical effects. Those are real bees, and from what I’ve read, Todd got extra for every bee sting and Madsen is actually allergic to stings.

That said, this movie wasn’t really my thing. While it does a lot of things right, such as how the Candyman seems more inclined to ruin Helen’s life rather than kill her, much of it seems a little too familiar. The Candyman is unstoppable until he isn’t. Helen’s shifty college professor husband Trevor (Xander Berkeley) is screwing around with an undergraduate student of his, a revelation that would be more surprising if he wasn’t. And there’s a hysterical mother looking for her missing baby, taken by the Candyman. As much as the movie worked as well as it did, these sorts of cliches bugged me. I just couldn’t get into this one once the Candyman popped up and the tension just drained out of the movie.

But really, the first half as we wait for the Candyman’s arrival makes for a fine movie. If you are a horror fan, there are far worse than this.

Grade: B