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| Helen Lyle (Madsen) is a Ph.D. student from the University of Chicago who is researching ]s, and is married to her supervisor, Trevor (Berkeley). Following reports of child abductions, she investigates the story of the 'Candyman', a figure originating with a slave story linked to the run-down housing project Cabrini Green. A gang leader using the Candyman name assaults her while she is investigating the legend. His arrest leads to the loss of mystique surrounding the Candyman legend. This causes the true 'Candyman' (Todd), who is a figure both of fear and veneration as a type of avenger, to manifest himself in order to regain his power, which wanes when belief in him lessens. | Helen Lyle (Madsen) is a Ph.D. student from the University of Chicago who is researching ]s, and is married to her supervisor, Trevor (Berkeley). Following reports of child abductions, she investigates the story of the 'Candyman', a figure originating with a slave story linked to the run-down housing project ]. A gang leader using the Candyman name assaults her while she is investigating the legend. His arrest leads to the loss of mystique surrounding the Candyman legend. This causes the true 'Candyman' (Todd), who is a figure both of fear and veneration as a type of avenger, to manifest himself in order to regain his power, which wanes when belief in him lessens. | ||
| Candyman was an ex-slave turned artist who was commissioned by a wealthy white racist landowner to paint a portrait of his daughter. However, the Candyman and his subject fell in love with each other, and he would end up impregnating her. The landowner found out about it and was incensed, so he and a racist lynch mob hunted Candyman down, and together they beat him near senseless and chased him out of town. The lynch mob eventually pinned his exhausted body to the ground out in a field, where they cut off his right hand - his painting hand - with a rusty blade and then killed him by covering him in honey from a nearby beehive and letting the bees sting him to death. His spectre form now has a sharp hook in place of his right hand, and - because of the honey - his presence is now accompanied by an intoxicating sweet smell. The mob burned his body on a large pyre and spread his ashes over what is now Cabrini Green. Helen learns that anyone looking into a mirror and saying 'Candyman' five times in a row can summon him to right an injustice or have themselves taken to hell. | Candyman was an ex-slave turned artist who was commissioned by a wealthy white racist landowner to paint a portrait of his daughter. However, the Candyman and his subject fell in love with each other, and he would end up impregnating her. The landowner found out about it and was incensed, so he and a racist lynch mob hunted Candyman down, and together they beat him near senseless and chased him out of town. The lynch mob eventually pinned his exhausted body to the ground out in a field, where they cut off his right hand - his painting hand - with a rusty blade and then killed him by covering him in honey from a nearby beehive and letting the bees sting him to death. His spectre form now has a sharp hook in place of his right hand, and - because of the honey - his presence is now accompanied by an intoxicating sweet smell. The mob burned his body on a large pyre and spread his ashes over what is now Cabrini Green. Helen learns that anyone looking into a mirror and saying 'Candyman' five times in a row can summon him to right an injustice or have themselves taken to hell. | ||
Revision as of 15:12, 21 January 2006
- For the notorious Halloween child poisoner from Pasadena, Texas, see Ronald Clark O'Bryan.
Candyman is a 1992 movie starring Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Xander Berkeley. It was directed by Bernard Rose and is based on a short story by Clive Barker, though the film's scenario is switched from England to the United States (specifically, Chicago).
Synopsis
Helen Lyle (Madsen) is a Ph.D. student from the University of Chicago who is researching urban legends, and is married to her supervisor, Trevor (Berkeley). Following reports of child abductions, she investigates the story of the 'Candyman', a figure originating with a slave story linked to the run-down housing project Cabrini Green. A gang leader using the Candyman name assaults her while she is investigating the legend. His arrest leads to the loss of mystique surrounding the Candyman legend. This causes the true 'Candyman' (Todd), who is a figure both of fear and veneration as a type of avenger, to manifest himself in order to regain his power, which wanes when belief in him lessens.
Candyman was an ex-slave turned artist who was commissioned by a wealthy white racist landowner to paint a portrait of his daughter. However, the Candyman and his subject fell in love with each other, and he would end up impregnating her. The landowner found out about it and was incensed, so he and a racist lynch mob hunted Candyman down, and together they beat him near senseless and chased him out of town. The lynch mob eventually pinned his exhausted body to the ground out in a field, where they cut off his right hand - his painting hand - with a rusty blade and then killed him by covering him in honey from a nearby beehive and letting the bees sting him to death. His spectre form now has a sharp hook in place of his right hand, and - because of the honey - his presence is now accompanied by an intoxicating sweet smell. The mob burned his body on a large pyre and spread his ashes over what is now Cabrini Green. Helen learns that anyone looking into a mirror and saying 'Candyman' five times in a row can summon him to right an injustice or have themselves taken to hell.
Helen befriends a young mother, but then becomes implicated in the disappearance of her child. Helen becomes obsessed with finding the infant that she believes has been taken by Candyman. However, she also starts to doubt her own sanity. Her best friend is also killed by 'Candyman', and after discovering that her husband is having an affair she summons 'Candyman' to confront him. 'Candyman' offers Helen the chance to leave behind her troubles and join him (it is suggested that the white, blonde-haired Helen reminds him of the woman for whose love he was murdered).
Rejecting this, Helen discovers the infant in the heart of a giant bonfire built by the project's residents. Helen is fatally burned but manages to rescue the child and in the process defeats Candyman. A grief-stricken Trevor is later seen in his apartment with a new girlfriend. Looking into the bathroom mirror, he intones, "Helen, Helen, Helen, Helen, Helen." Helen, reincarnated as the new Candyman, appears behind him and says "What's the matter Trevor, scared of something?" before proceeding to kill him with her own hook. His girlfriend finds his mutilated body and screams, and the movie closes with a zoom-in shot of a painting of Helen on a wall in the Candyman's room in Cabrini Green.
Sequels
Two sequels were produced, each of which expanded on the backstory of the Candyman himself. Both starred Tony Todd as the Candyman, but generally retained little direct continuity from one film to the next. Although both retained some of the original film's urban legend motif, the Candyman is a much more typical slasher film villain in each successive sequel. Both sequels' subtitles (Farewell to the Flesh and Day of the Dead) are references to real-world festivals (Carnival and the Day of the Dead, respectively).
1995's Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh starred Tony Todd, Kelly Rowan, William O'Leary and Bill Nunn. The father of New Orleans schoolteacher Annie Tarrant (Rowan) was murdered in a Candyman-like fashion some years prior. When other similar killings begin to occur, her brother is accused and one of her students starts to see the Candyman. In order to disprove to herself that the Candyman exists, she says his name five times in front of a mirror, summoning him to New Orleans, where the killing begins in earnest. The film's climax reveals more details of the Candyman's genesis, and reveals that his name in life was Daniel Robitaille.
Candyman: Day of the Dead followed in 1999, and starred Donna D'Errico as an artist who learned that her great-grandparents were the Candyman and the white woman who he had been murdered for loving. The Candyman hoped to kill her so that she could be with him forever as a spirit like himself.
External links
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