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The Appropriate Tune - "Helen's Theme" by Philip Glass
Well well well. Here I thought that the days of having a movie adapted from a Stephen King story and one from Clive Barker were over, but then I decided completely on a whim to do a formal writeup of a film that I watched years and years ago, and it turns out that movie was a Clive Barker story all along! I know pulse-pounding moments like these are common on this blog, which is why the viewer base is so high, but it was still a pleasant surprise. What are the odds, right?
Anyway,
Released in 1992, Candyman was written and directed by Bernard Rose and produced by Steve Golin, Sigurjon Sighvatsson and Alan Poul through Propaganda Films, based on the short story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker. Virginia Madsen plays Helen Lyle, a student from the University of Illinois working on her graduate thesis on the nature and development of urban legends with her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons). During their investigation however, there is one name that keeps coming up: Candyman (Tony Todd), a supernatural serial killer who murders anyone who dares to speak his name into a mirror five times with his big fuck-off meathook (and that’s not a euphemism for his dick). Candyman is said to haunt the Cabrini Green housing projects, and indeed the residents there attribute a rash of murders in the area to him, including a woman named Ruthie Jean who was murdered by a man with a hook who allegedly came in through her bathroom window. Smelling the opportunity to up her thesis game, Helen decides to visit Cabrini Green and dig up some dirt on this whole sordid business. Something which on its own would not be advisable, but then she has to take things a step further and call him up. Now the Candyman has his sights on her, and before he kills her he’s going to make her life a living hell before he finishes her off for good. Also he’s really into bees, so I’m not sure why they didn’t call him Honeyman.
Let’s start with the cinematography, like Bernard Rose’s love for aerial shots. The movie opens on a top-down view of Chicago, just about every scene that takes place in the university begins with a top-down view of the campus, even Cabrini Green gets it at one point and I’m not exactly sure why beyond that it looks good and Kubrickian. There is some good camera work on the ground too, the shot of Helen peering out of a hole in the wall which has been spray painted to look like Candyman’s open mouth is definitely a visual to sell a movie on. It’s not on the level of a Jodorowsky or anything, but these little touches do help Candyman stand apart a bit from its supernatural horror.
Another one of those little touches comes from the score, composed by minimalist pioneer Philip Glass. Glass is perhaps best known for his work in avant-garde theater and cinema like Koyaanisqatsi, but over the years he’s sprung up in various film and TV projects, including Candyman’s sequel Farewell to the Flesh. On the whole I think Glass lives up to his reputation, his music really serves to give the film a level of grandiosity that you might not have expected., at least when you get into the film proper. For whatever reason the opening piece of music sounded off to me, more like the theme song to a cheap horror TV show than something by an acclaimed composer. It actually threw me off in the beginning, because I’m familiar with the work of Philip Glass and this wasn’t exactly Einstein on the Beach, but it quickly righted itself.
Righted itself on the music front at least, unfortunately I can’t say the same for the watchability. As has been made clear from the Rosemary’s Baby review back in the day I find these ‘misery porn’ kind of horror movies, where the protagonist is behind the eight ball for the entire film with no agency whatsoever to be extremely tedious, but I think Rosemary might have actually been more active than Helen in this movie. After the first act it’s like we’re put on rails waiting for the haunted house ride to end. There’s no attempt to investigate Candyman beyond the little backstory we’re given, no real attempt at combating him, she’s just the metaphorical (and at one point literal) punching bag for the rest of the film. That we get some Virginia Madsen sideboob at one point, and a generous amount to boot, does little to soften the blow. Unless you’re into decapitated animals and buckets of blood with it that is, in which case you should probably call a psychiatrist.
The whole ‘Helen as abuse sponge’ angle might have been tolerable though if our titular character were a Freddy Krueger type of villain, a malicious trickster who can bring a bit of gallows humor to the horror, but unfortunately he’s a retread of Pinhead without the unique visual aesthetic to distract you from him constantly dropping spooky obscure one-liners. Or they could have tied it into his backstory, and yes they are pulling the old Mummy trick by implying that Candyman is targeting Helen because she looks like his lost love (who he wants to psychologically destroy and then murder for some reason), but that’s only at the very end. Honestly it feels like an afterthought even though they telegraph it at the beginning of the movie as that whole past relationship angle is never really delved into at all, so Candyman is just acting like a weird psycho-rapist for no reason, which is on top of somehow being a murder ghost who needs to kill people in order for them to tell his story and thus continue to exist. Tony Todd does put the work in to make an otherwise indistinct villain more engaging, so props to him.
Ultimately Candyman gets a mild recommendation. It’s always a treat to get some diverse casting in horror movies, and those readers who came out of Hellraiser and Nightbreed wanting will find another scrumptious meal of gruesome imagery and BDSM fetish fuel from the mind of Clive Barker and adapted reasonably well by Bernard Rose. Personally though Candyman feels like a short story stretched just far enough that the cracks in the concept became noticeable, and the misery porn direction the plot went to made the experience tiresome by the end. If you’re looking for scary movies to watch this Halloween and you’ve gone through the big names already then pop Candyman in and see where the night takes you, but I think one viewing is going to be the limit.
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