Candyman (1992)

Candyman (1992) is an American supernatural horror film written and directed by Bernard Rose, based on Clive Barker‘s short story “The Forbidden.” Virginia Madsen plays Helen Lyle, a Chicago graduate student researching urban legends. She sets out to debunk the legend of Candyman, played by Tony Todd: a hook-handed ghost who appears when his name is said five times in a mirror. Rose moved Barker’s story from Liverpool to Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, turning it into a gothic tale about race, class and the power of stories. Todd’s elegant, mournful performance made the character one of the decade’s horror icons.

At a glance

Release date	September 11, 1992 (Toronto International Film Festival); October 16, 1992 (US)
Director	Bernard Rose
Writer	Bernard Rose (screenplay)
Based on	“The Forbidden” (short story, Books of Blood) by Clive Barker
Starring	Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons, Vanessa E. Williams
Runtime	101 minutes
Rating	R (US-rated version; the UK theatrical cut has alternate footage)
Budget	$8 million to $9 million
Box office	$25.8 million (US)
Franchise	Candyman franchise: followed by Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman (2021)

Plot summary

Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen), an anthropology graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago, is writing a thesis with her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) on how the residents of Cabrini-Green use the Candyman legend to cope with poverty and racial inequality. As a joke, the two say his name five times into Helen’s bathroom mirror, and nothing happens. Helen visits the site of a recent murder, meets a young mother, Anne-Marie McCoy (Vanessa E. Williams), and learns the legend’s backstory from a professor. Candyman was the son of a slave and became a gifted painter in the late 1800s. After he fell in love with a white woman, a lynch mob cut off his right hand, smeared him with honey so that bees stung him to death, and burned his body where Cabrini-Green now stands.

When a local gang leader using the Candyman name attacks Helen, the case seems solved. Then the real Candyman (Tony Todd) appears to her in a parking garage. Helen’s disbelief threatens his legend, he tells her, and he must shed innocent blood to keep it alive.

Spoiler section: the ending

Helen blacks out and wakes up in Anne-Marie’s apartment, covered in blood. The baby is missing, and she is blamed for a series of killings that Candyman commits around her, including Bernadette’s murder. She escapes from a psychiatric hospital and goes back to Cabrini-Green to save the baby, Anthony. In Candyman’s lair, a mural suggests that she is the reincarnation of his lost lover. When Candyman tries to burn her and Anthony on a bonfire, Helen kills him with a flaming plank and dies saving the child. Later, her unfaithful husband Trevor says her name five times into a mirror, and Helen’s vengeful spirit kills him with the hook.

Production and behind the scenes

Rose met Barker by chance and licensed “The Forbidden,” a story about class in Barker’s native Liverpool. With help from the Illinois Film Commission, Rose found Cabrini-Green, a notorious project surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods, and rebuilt the story around race in urban America. He has said he avoided the usual gang and drug clichÃ©s to show residents as ordinary people. Long-running rumors said Eddie Murphy had been the first choice for Candyman. Rose denied this in 2021, saying it was “not even a tiny bit true.” Todd developed the character’s backstory himself and said he had always wanted “my own personal Phantom of the Opera.” Madsen was first meant to play Bernadette, with Rose’s then-wife, Alexandra Pigg, as Helen. Pigg became pregnant before shooting, and Madsen took over the lead.

About three days of filming took place at Cabrini-Green, and the rest was shot on sound stages. Effects artist Bob Keen gave Todd the hook after a mechanical fake arm proved too stiff. Bee wrangler Norman Gary used more than 200,000 real honeybees. Todd negotiated a bonus of $1,000 for each of the 23 stings he received. For the climax, he held bees in his mouth behind a protective mouthpiece, and young bees that couldn’t sting or fly were used near Madsen, who is allergic. Rose had Madsen hypnotized for some scenes with Candyman to avoid the clichÃ©s of horror-movie screaming. Philip Glass composed the score.

Release and reception

Candyman premiered in the Midnight Madness program at the 1992 Toronto International Film Festival and opened in the US on October 16 through TriStar, earning $25.8 million. It became one of the 10 most-rented films in the country on home video in April 1993. Roger Ebert gave it three stars and praised a horror film “scaring me with ideas and gore, instead of simply with gore.” Janet Maslin of The New York Times noted its “unusually high interest in social issues” and praised Madsen and Glass’s music. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it Barker’s “worst to date.” It holds a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Its racial politics were debated even before release. Rose has said producers worried enough to arrange meetings with the NAACP, whose representatives asked why a Black actor shouldn’t play a horror icon like Freddy Krueger.

Legacy and influence

Todd played Candyman in two more films, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999). The sequels named the character Daniel Robitaille. In 2021, Nia DaCosta directed Candyman, a direct sequel produced and co-written by Jordan Peele, set in a gentrified Cabrini-Green. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays the grown-up Anthony McCoy, and Todd makes a brief return. Bloody Disgusting ranked Candyman No. 8 among horror’s greatest slashers. In 2001, the film was nominated for AFI’s 100 Years…100 Thrills.

Trivia

Todd is 6 feet 5 inches tall, and Slant Magazine singled out his “velvety basso profundo voice.”
Todd suggested giving Candyman an eyepatch, but Bob Keen rejected the idea.
The bonfire set was built by the team behind Backdraft and used 1,500 gallons of propane.
Producer Alan Poul favored Sandra Bullock for Helen if Madsen had not been available.
Glass has said the score “has become a classic,” and that he still gets checks for it every year.
Arrow’s 2022 4K release includes both the US R-rated version and the original UK theatrical version.