The first time Candyman the hook-wielding ghoul appeared on the big screen was in 1992, and he was making mince out of the people in Cabrini-Green, the troubled housing estate in Chicago. Since then, residents have moved (or moved out) and more than a dozen buildings have been razed to the ground. Forgotten sequels have come and gone, but Candyman remains, because cult film characters are a more durable and certainly more valuable commodity than affordable housing.
The original “Candyman”, written and directed by Bernard Rose, is more gross than scary, but it has a real bite to it. The focus is on the son of a formerly enslaved man – Tony Todd plays the title demon – who was once punished by racists for loving a white woman. Now he wanders around cutting and rolling those who call him. Just look in a mirror and say his name five times (oh, go ahead) and wait for the blood to splatter. Among those who did it back then was a white graduate student who becomes an ardent victim. The pain wasn’t exquisite as Candyman had promised, but it had its moments.
Candyman seems to pause in the sharp, trembling repeat directed by Nia DaCosta. The time is the present and the place is the bougie community that arose around Cabrini-Green. There, in slim towers with designer kitchens and window walls, the rising avant-garde sips wine and enjoys the view. Beyond that, the city sparkles pretty and its evils are a safe distance (if not for long). The troubled camera oversees the scene, and Sammy Davis Jr. – a black civil rights touchstone who became a supporter of Richard M. Nixon – belts out his sticky ’70s hit “The Candy Man” dive”). ) It is a smart reminder and warning that the past always troubles the present.
Sometimes the past bites the present exactly where it hurts, and soon the initial calm is violently reversed. As the blood begins to gush and the number of corpses increases, the story takes shape, as does the somewhat tense domestic life of a painter, Anthony (a very good Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and a curator, the pointed Brianna (Teyonah Paris ). You soon learn that Candyman never left (well, he’s a valuable franchise item). Enter the horrors and screams and frightened laughs and the dependably indispensable Colman Domingo who shows up with a grin of a Cheshire Cat. There are also flashing police lights that are not as inviting as elsewhere.
