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  • Candyman 2

  • Candyman 3

  • The trailer for the new film, Candyman 4

  • written by Jordan Peele has horror fans excited. 5

  • The film is being described as a spiritual sequel 6

  • to 1992's Candyman. 7

  • But what's the big deal? 8

  • Candyman is one of the scariest horror movies, 9

  • like in the top 10 scary movies 10

  • for a lot of horror fans, including me. 11

  • Just as an example, even though I am a very grown woman, 12

  • I will not say Candyman into a mirror five times. 13

  • Tananarive Due is an author and producer 14

  • who teaches at UCLA. 15

  • She says the original Candyman 16

  • Left a huge imprint on those of us who've seen it. 17

  • It is a very well acted film. 18

  • Tony Todd especially brings Candyman 19

  • to almost a level of sort of a Shakespearian 20

  • tragic antihero. 21

  • The cinematography is fantastic, 22

  • the story is fantastic 23

  • and it is a really, really scary urban legend, 24

  • this idea that you can invite evil into your house 25

  • and invite violence onto yourself 26

  • by just saying a name five times in a mirror. 27

  • Candyman. 28

  • Candyman. 29

  • Candyman. 30

  • Some people might know the urban legend Bloody Mary 31

  • which is very similar if you say that name several times. 32

  • But Candyman was originally from a short story 33

  • called The Forbidden by Clive Barker 34

  • and it was a very different iteration of Candyman. 35

  • It was set in the U.K. 36

  • Candyman was white. 37

  • He had never been subject to racism 38

  • or the effects of slavery like Candyman as we know it. 39

  • So that story was centered mostly around the idea 40

  • of the urban legend 41

  • and when Bernard Rose, the director and screenwriter, 42

  • decided to adapt this Clive Barker story, 43

  • he moved it to the U.S. 44

  • and instead of looking at a class divide 45

  • which was the original short story, 46

  • it became about race. 47

  • Due says the 1992 version has its issues. 48

  • It's walking a very delicate line racially. 49

  • It wants to have an impact and make a message 50

  • about unfair housing 51

  • and look at this terrible housing project, Cabrini-Green. 52

  • It brings up all these conversations 53

  • but it also brings up some imagery 54

  • that is kind of old school and troubling 55

  • like the black man chasing after 56

  • the beautiful white woman 57

  • which is an old image that hearkens 58

  • back to the beginning of cinema 59

  • with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in 1915. 60

  • Even at the time, there were obviously some filmmakers 61

  • and viewers who thought that the emphasis on how 62

  • dirty Cabrini-Green is and how scary the black men are 63

  • in the whole film, 64

  • not just Candyman but basically almost all of the back men 65

  • except for maybe there's a police officer. 66

  • But it's not a good look 67

  • and there are a lot of ways you can tell 68

  • that Candyman was sort of created for a white audience, 69

  • in a way that I think will be different 70

  • in the 2020 spiritual sequel, as it's called. 71

  • The urban legend is if you say his name five times 72

  • while looking in the mirror, 73

  • he appears in the reflection and it kills you. 74

  • I think that today's political times 75

  • also demand a new look at Candyman as a film not primarily, 76

  • it would seem, shot for a white audience 77

  • but a film that's really shot for everyone, 78

  • including black audiences. 79

  • Is Candyman real? 80

  • Well, I'm not gonna be the one to say his name 81

  • five times in the mirror to find out. 82

  • Why don't you find out if Candyman is real? 83

  • Technically, Candyman probably isn't real 84

  • but my attitude is, why take a chance? 85

  • This is insideedition.com.

Candyman 2

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