Candyman (1992)

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Posted By: brian@brianschell.com April 10, 2023

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

There’s a lot packed into this, and it’s held up well. The practical effects, gore, and insects are impressive. The music is great. The casting is perfect. We both liked it even better this time around than seeing it when it came out.

Synopsis

Gothic organ music plays as we fly over the city streets as the credits roll. We hear the Candyman’s voiceover as we see bees swarming the Chicago tower.

We cut to Helen Lyle, who listens to a story about two teenagers that talk about the legend of Candyman. He has a hook instead of a hand, and he appears if you say his name five times in front of a mirror. Naturally, the teens try it. That goes badly.

Helen is at the University of Illinois, and she’s watching a course on urban legends. Trevor Lyle, her husband, is giving the seminar. Helen and Bernadette are working on their theses on that exact topic, and she’s annoyed that Lyle didn’t wait to use her research for the course.

Helen talks to two of the school’s cleaning ladies, Kitty and Henrietta, who know all about the Candyman. They tell a story about a woman who was disemboweled by a hook. She does more research and figures out that her building was built over the site of some of the legendary Candyman killings. She shows Bernadette that there’s even a “secret passageway” into the next apartment. This leads to the two of them saying the word five times in front of the mirror.

Helen and Bernadette want to go to the projects, but Bernadette is afraid of the ghetto. It’s not a safe-looking place, but they finally get to the room where the woman Kitty and Henrietta told them about died. She finds the same secret passage in this building as was in hers. She finds a room with a creepy mural on the wall.

They meet Anne-Marie, who agrees to talk to them. She knows all about Ruthie-Jean, who died in the apartment next door. She tells them, “He can come right through these walls, ya know?” She knows it was the Candyman.

All the academics have dinner, and Purcell, an older professor, says he wrote a paper on Candyman ten years ago. He says the legend first appears in 1890, and he was the son of a slave. He’d been sent to the best schools and was a talented portrait artist. A wealthy landowner hired him to paint his daughter, who soon became pregnant. The father paid hooligans to chase Candyman and saw his hand off. Then they smeared honey all over him until the bees stung him to death. They burned him up in a fire and scattered his ashes where that tenement stands today.

Helen goes back to the ghetto and talks to a little boy, Jake, who shows her a restroom where Candyman is said to have killed a young boy. Inside, she finds a toilet full of bees. Four hoods come in and knock her out; one of them identifies himself as the Candyman.

There’s a police lineup, and Helen identifies the man who hit her. Detective Valento says she’s lucky to be alive, and he believes this man is the one who killed Ruthie-Jean and the little boy in the restroom.

In the parking garage, Helen sees the real Candyman, and she has flashbacks to the scary mural. “You were not content with the stories, so I was obliged to come. Be my victim.”

Helen wakes up in Anne-Marie’s bathroom, whose dog has been brutally murdered and Baby Anthony is missing. The two fight and the police break in and arrest her. Helen is arrested, and they do a strip search of her. She’s covered in blood and looks really guilty. It’s all over the news.

Helen goes home to recover, and Candyman comes for her. “Do you believe in me? I have the child. Allow me to take you or he’ll die in your place.” Bernadette comes in, and Candyman kills her. Trevor comes home later and finds Helen with a knife in her hand. She’s arrested again. We see that Candyman has the baby in the room with the mural.

In the morning, Helen is taken to Dr. Burke, a psychiatrist. He says that she’s been on Thorazine for the past month while she awaits trial for first-degree murder. He shows her video footage of one of her encounters with Candyman, and she’s the only one who appears. She says she can prove her side of the story, all she has to do is call him, which she soon does. Dr. Burke is immediately killed from behind as the Candyman slices him open. She climbs out the window and escapes.

Helen rushes home to her apartment to find everything covered in plastic with the walls being painted by Trevor’s new girlfriend. They immediately think she’s crazy and dangerous.

She leaves and heads back to Candyman’s shrine, where she finds other paintings of the dead artist. She finds the Candyman asleep and stabs him, but that doesn’t hurt him at all. She offers herself to save Baby Anthony. “Come with me and be immortal.” He opens his coat and bees swarm out.

She wakes up. “It was always you, Helen” is written on the wall. She goes outside and hears the baby crying in the middle of the big stack of wood in the courtyard. Jake and others come outside and pour gas on the pile of wood. They set the pile ablaze, thinking Candyman is inside.

Candyman burns. Helen burns. Still, Helen crawls out far enough to save the baby, who is fine. Flaming bees erupt from the bonfire as Helen dies.

At her funeral, Trevor is surprised when a whole parade of black people comes to pay their respects. They throw Candyman’s hook into the grave with her coffin.

Grieving Trevor says Helen’s name five times in front of the bathroom mirror. Bad move! We cut back to Candyman’s lair, and there’s a new mural there now, this time of Helen.

Commentary

The organ music, by Philip Glass, went far beyond most horror films, and it elevates this one quite a bit all on its own.

Tony Todd said he was stung by bees 26 times during the space of the Candyman trilogy. It’s said that in his contract, he got an extra thousand dollars for each sting. This is also Tony Todd’s favorite role.

I’ve seen theories on this that say that after Helen got hit in the head in the restroom she imagined all the Candyman sightings; she’s just crazy. Between that possibility and the idea that he’s just a myth, rumor, or legend, make him a little hard to argue. Or he’s a real ghost. You get to decide.

I saw this originally when it first came out and not since. This was a lot better than I remembered this time around. The music is especially memorable.