The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster’s myth.
Well here is the start of my “Candyman” franchise review, well lets get on with it!
When I was a young child in school we had the Candyman legend, say his name five times into a mirror and he will appear, I think nearly every school had this legend or something like it (we also had the Bloody Mary legend of saying her name 3 times into a mirror). I’ll never forget the one time I did it and my friend jumped out of the cubicle shouting at me, let’s just say it was a good job I’d been to the toilet before I tried it.
When I got older and with that trauma buried deep in my memory bank I was shocked to see an actual film about “Candyman”, I was curious to see what it was all about and I wasn’t disappointed. I was absolutely terrified yet mesmerised at the same time, I just couldn’t take my eyes off the screen no matter what and I knew there and then that this was a film that would stick with me for life.
The casting of Tony Todd was genius, believe it or not Eddie Murphy was first choice for the role but they couldn’t afford him. I’m glad Murphy didn’t get it as Todd’s voice alone amps the character, his voice is so hypnotic, just like Sir Christopher lee or Vincent Price. Also the casting of Virginia Madsen as Helen was great too, again believe it or not if Virginia Madsen turned the role down it would’ve gone to Sandra Bullock. Eddie Murphy and Sandra Bullock in the lead roles, just think about that.
The setting and atmosphere are absolutely brilliant and the score for the film amps up the macabre feeling to 11. The dark atmospheric feeling to the film plays so well on screen, Director Bernard Rose did an amazing job with Clive Barkers story, it’s such a shame his career never took off like it should’ve.
“Candyman” is considered a classic Horror film by many fans and I wholeheartedly agree, it’s dark, moody and atmospheric with a great story, what more do you want?!
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
There is a Guy Fawkes mask hanging next to Helen’s bathroom mirror. Fawkes is an infamous figure in English history, who attempted to blow up the English Parliament on November 5, 1605. Every year the British celebrate Guy Fawkes Day by lighting bonfires and burning Fawkes in effigy.
Virginia Madsen claims that she was hypnotized for some of the film’s scenes.
Virginia Madsen is allergic to bees, so an ambulance was always on set while filming the bee sequence.
Real bees were actually put into Tony Todd’s mouth while they were shooting the climax. His only protection was a mouth guard that kept him from having the bees go down his throat.
The bees were bred specifically for this movie. They needed to make sure that the bees were only 12 hours old so that they looked like mature bees, but their stinger wouldn’t be powerful enough to do any real damage.
The architecture flaw of the medicine chests and people being able to sneak in, is something that Bernard Rose discovered in his research for the film and there was actually a series of murders that were committed this way.
“Sweets to the Sweet” which is written on the walls in two areas of Cabrini Green is actually a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Exterior, hallway and stairway scenes were actually filmed for a few days in the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects, though the producers had to make a deal with the ruling gang members to put them in the movie as extras to ensure the cast and crew’s safety during filming. Even with this arrangement, a sniper put a bullet through the production van on the last day of filming, though no one was injured.
Philip Glass was asked by director Bernard Rose to compose a score for his film “Candyman”. Glass accepted and wrote a “gothic” score for chorus and pipe organ. The final version of the film was a disappointment to Glass. He felt that he had been manipulated. What was presented to him as a low budget independent project with creative integrity became (in his opinion) a low budget Hollywood slasher flick. As a result, Glass with held his consent for the release of the recordings of the score for years, until 2001.
In a August 2011 interview with Cindy Pearlman of the Chicago Sun Times Tony Todd stated “I’ll never forget that I filmed that movie in a building on the South Side of Chicago. Building 116. Unit C,” he says. “That’s the Candyman pad!”
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