Candyman made history as the first time that a black woman director topped the charts for movies in history. It has some strong credentials with Yahya Abdul-Maheen II, Teyonah Parris of Chi-raq, Madmen and soon to be Marvel royalty, and writing credits from the relative newcomer director Nia DaCosta (who has a whole slate of incredible films coming out) and professional wizard Jordan Peele. One wonders at times why this particular project, a reboot of a cult horror franchise, couldn’t have borrowed less intellectual property and set out on its own though. There are a lot of ornate moments in this film that seem to pay homage to a rich history of cinematic moments from the Candyman franchise that are lost on me. I’m not particularly sure what bees signify beyond being iconic for the character. Genuinely, I’m interested in the use of mirrors, the way that the protagonist is forced to come to terms with his own monstrousness, no matter how innocent he is, no matter how undeserving. It’s not an easy metaphor, this villain, despite all the Jungian philosophizing from the laundromat mechanic about racial trauma: is our protagonist assuming a racist cariacature as his mantel? Is this more of a Ibsen-esque inheritance of the sins of the father?
The invisible killings dispense with any ambiguity about the supernatural origins of the villain. We have no room to suspect split identities or a nefarious Scooby Doo real-world explanation. There will be no unmasking of a property developer or a wealthy businessman at the end. And that’s fine. Not everything needs to be ambiguous, but Candyman lacks some of the agency that typifies the work of Peele’s other movies. Instead, Abdul-Mateen (did you know he’s Morpheus in Matrix 4?) feels crushed under the weight of history and racial trauma in a way that makes the second act a little suffocating, providing no real catharsis.
The deaths are not always disciplined in the way that they flow from a central metaphor of theodicy. Some people who are killed are obviously deserving chauvinist pigs, low key racist writers, or sexy lambs for the slaughter, but others are pretty innocent, random white girls in high school who bully black kid with braids, random black boys at home without rhyme or reason. I don’t know if this is a throwback to the original franchise or if maybe there is some more high level commentary going on about the widespread knock-on effects of racism, but otherwise sterling writing fails when trying to explain the who and why of his victims. The guy at the laundromat even tries to pin reason to the attacks in his own childhood, but ultimately, his reasoning and that of the–conveniently placed–sociologist–whose story and twist are as convoluted and unnecessary as they come–are only tangentially related to the action occurring on screen.
Put another way: why Candyman throwing out candy at Abdul-Mateen? Why he hive-minding? For a victim of racial animus, he sure does like reaping indiscriminately. Is he contagious? I don’t have a great bearing on that. And furthermore, it feels like at a certain point, Abdul-Mateen’s character McCoy has a sense that he needs to confront Candyman and put an end to things and then the bottom falls out of this movie and, no, in fact there is no resolution.
