Do you dare say his name 5 times? Many who do don’t survive.
The notorious Candyman is a villian that many people can sympathize with. Candyman was an artist in the 1800’s named Daniel Robitaille and the son of a slave. He fell in love with the daughter of a white man that commissioned him to paint her. A lynch mob was hired by the father; they cut off his painting hand, covered him honey that was stolen from an apiary and was stung to death by the bees. They burned him on a pyre and spread his ashes on Cabrini-Green. It is in Cabrini-Green in present day 1992 that the legend of Candyman presents itself to a young graduate student Helen Lyle.
The success of the first Candyman movie spawned two more that follow a different story-line than the first. In the first, Helen Lyle is doing a thesis on urban legends. The most popular being the Candyman of Cabrini-Green. Legend says that if a person stands in front of a mirror and says Candyman five times, he will appear. When this happens the person is gutted from bottom to stomach by his hook han. Helen is naturally intrigued by the urban legend but also doesn’t believe it. Which is her first mistake.
He torments her due to the fact that she tried to disprove belief in him to the residents of Cabrini-Green. People start dying around her which leads people to think she is the murderer. Urban legends are hard to kill indeed.
In the following sequels, he starts to haunt his descendants. It turns out that Caroline Sullivan, the woman he had an illicit affair with was pregnant with his child at the time of his death. Annie Tarrant is one of the descendants who calls out to him in her classroom to try to disprove his existence. She is completely unaware of her connection to him until much later in the film. His spirit is trapped in a mirror from when he died which is why the legend of saying Candyman in front of a mirror summons him.
Recently, it was revealed that Jordan Peele would be producing a remake of the film, as told by Bloody Disgusting. On IMDb, it is in post-production and is expected to be released June 12, 2020. From the synopsis, we return to where it all began in the 21st century. This news is sweets to the sweet! We can only expect great things when Jordan Peele is involved.
If you want to tickle your horror bone, the first Candyman movie is on Netflix this month!
