Candyman is co-written and produced by Jordan Peele and co-written and directed by Nia DiCosta and stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Anthony McCoy a local Chicago artist who is looking for inspiration for his next project so he decides to look up an old Chicago housing district called Cabrini-Green which is said to be haunted by the ghost of the Candyman who is said to appear if you say his name 5 times in a mirror but some ghosts never really rest when the living starts to look them up.
Candyman is a movie that in the end did very little for me, don’t get me wrong this is not a bad movie but it was just one that when it was over didn’t really grab me in the same way that Malignant did.
But there are some strong positives first of all I can see what Peele and DiCosta are going for in terms of crafting this new version of the story (there was a previous movie in 1992 which starred Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen which is also referenced here) and they really try to frame this new version around the history of racial violence in the United States and how those cycles continue on over the centuries in different ways be it outright beatings or lynchings or how housing projects that home mainly communities of colour are swept aside in high rise developments and left to rot and all of that I thought was interesting.
As is how the Police are framed here through DiCosta’s eye, the blue lights flashing back and forth and the use of their shadows is an interesting idea presenting them less like officers doing their job but a Borg like hive where Resistance is Futile and you will be dealt with even if you do what they ask you to do and even some of the casting of the officers was interesting in terms of their large physiques and almost blank faces that show little emotion.
Also the film has a good cast, Mateen II is proving to be one of the most interesting actors working today and he is a great anchor point in this film but he is doing something different in each performance I’ve seen him do and it makes me all the more interested to see him in the Matrix Resurrections at the end of the year, Vanessa Williams (part of the Simpsons sign of evil countdown) has a small role here while Teyonah Parris was good as Anthony’s girlfriend as well.
And lastly there are some fun horror kills here firstly with the blend of art galleries and bloody violence that was done in a way that I sorely wish 2019’s Velvet Buzzsaw had done as I actually was interested here whereas that film did it in a way that bored me senseless and later on in a bathroom.
And yet despite all of those positives this film when it was over and I think about as a whole didn’t really grab me and I feel that this on the whole despite those individual positives all of those elements just didn’t come together into a satisfying whole for me, maybe I would’ve enjoyed this more if I had gotten to see this in a dark cinema space instead of at home in the afternoon in broad daylight but it is what it is.
And so that was Candyman and there are some good things here that I liked but on the whole it didn’t come together for me to really love it, 2 out of 5.
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