Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) | Plot, Cast & Horror Facts

Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) is a supernatural horror film directed by Bill Condon and the sequel to Candyman (1992). It was written by Rand Ravich and Mark Kruger from a story by Clive Barker, whose short story “The Forbidden” inspired the first film. Tony Todd returns as the Candyman, and the story moves from Chicago to New Orleans. There, schoolteacher Annie Tarrant (Kelly Rowan) summons him to disprove the legend that killed her father. She then learns that her own family is tied to Daniel Robitaille, the man the Candyman once was. Veronica Cartwright, Bill Nunn and Timothy Carhart co-star, and Philip Glass returns as composer. Gramercy Pictures released it on March 17, 1995. Critics mostly rejected it, though it has a few defenders. It was followed by Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999).

At a glance

Release date	March 17, 1995 (US)
Director	Bill Condon
Writers	Rand Ravich and Mark Kruger (screenplay); Clive Barker (story)
Based on	Characters from “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker
Starring	Tony Todd, Kelly Rowan, Timothy Carhart, Veronica Cartwright, Bill Nunn
Runtime	95 minutes
Rating	R (US)
Box office	$13.9 million (US)
Franchise	Candyman: sequel to Candyman (1992)

Plot summary

Three years after the Chicago murders, Professor Phillip Purcell (Michael Culkin) gives a lecture in New Orleans on his book about the Candyman. He reveals that the Candyman’s real name was Daniel Robitaille, the son of enslaved Africans born after the Civil War. Challenged by the audience, he jokingly summons him in a mirror. Afterward, Purcell is confronted by Ethan Tarrant (William O’Leary), whose father, Coleman, was murdered while investigating killings that matched the legend. Ethan blames Purcell for his death. In a bar restroom, the Candyman kills Purcell, and Ethan is arrested as the suspect.

Ethan’s sister Annie, an art teacher, tries to calm her student Matthew, who says he has seen the Candyman. To disprove the legend, she says the name in a mirror. Her husband, Paul (Timothy Carhart), becomes a victim, and the Candyman tells Annie she is pregnant. Coleman’s friend Honore Thibideaux (Matt Clark) tells her Daniel’s story. Daniel had an affair with a white woman, Caroline, and was killed for it. Caroline’s father taunted him with her mirror, capturing part of his soul. Annie’s father believed that destroying the mirror would end the curse.

Spoiler section: the Tarrant family secret

The Candyman kills Honore, and the police begin to suspect Annie. Matthew’s father, Reverend Ellis (Bill Nunn), shows her that Daniel was born in the same house she grew up in. Annie also finds the graves of Daniel and Caroline and the name of their daughter, Isabel: Annie is their descendant. Detective Levesque is killed after mockingly summoning the Candyman, and Ethan is shot trying to escape. Annie’s mother, Octavia (Veronica Cartwright), is killed for denying the family’s history. In the flooded basement of the old slave quarters, Annie finds Caroline’s mirror and shatters it, destroying the Candyman. Five years later her daughter, named Caroline, starts to chant his name before Annie stops her.

Production and behind the scenes

Bernard Rose, who directed the first film, had other ideas for a sequel. According to Virginia Madsen, Rose wanted a prequel showing the Candyman and Helen falling in love. She said the studio turned it down because it didn’t want an interracial love story. Madsen also objected to making the Candyman a slave’s son, saying the character was educated and raised as a free man. In 2020, Bloody Disgusting reported on another unmade follow-up, Candyman II: The Midnight Meat Train. Rose would have directed this story about a mythic figure haunting early-1990s London, loosely drawn from Barker’s Books of Blood story set on the subway. Rose said that where the first film was about race, this one would be about gender, with killings like Jack the Ripper’s. The studio found it too risky. The only element of Rose’s draft to survive in the finished sequel is Purcell, the one surviving character from the first film. Filming took place in New Orleans and Los Angeles.

Release and reception

Originally set for release by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment on February 17, 1995, the film was pushed back a month and opened on March 17. It debuted at No. 2 with $6,046,825 from 1,605 theaters, then dropped to $2.8 million and $1.4 million over the next two weekends. It ended its run with $13,940,383 in the US.

Reviews were mostly negative. It holds 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus says it doubles down on gore “while largely abandoning the subtext and wit that made the original worthwhile.” Caryn James of The New York Times called it a “sluggish, predictable, low-rent sequel.” Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it a D, writing that it “undermines its revenge-of-the-repressed premise with racist scare tactics.” Roger Ebert gave it two stars and was left with questions about the character’s mythology. There were positive notices too. The Austin Chronicle‘s Marc Savlov praised Todd and Glass’s “wonderfully resonant score” and called it a “sequel that actually outperforms the original.” Richard Harrington of The Washington Post called it a “compulsive chiller.”

Legacy and influence

Farewell to the Flesh expands the Candyman’s backstory, naming him as Daniel Robitaille and adding his love for Caroline, the mirror and a living family descended from him. Later critics have been kinder than the original reviewers. In Little White Lies, Sam Thompson called it an underrated sequel that shares the original’s “dream logic.” The series continued with Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999). Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021) is a direct sequel to the 1992 film and returns to the Chicago setting.

Trivia

Filming started on August 16, 1994, and wrapped on October 19, 1994.
Tuesday Knight reportedly declined a role. She later said it was the only horror film she regrets turning down.
In 2001, music from this film and the original was released as The Music of Candyman, the first release on Glass’s Orange Mountain Music label.
MGM released it on DVD on August 28, 2001. Scream Factory’s Blu-ray followed on January 6, 2015, with a Condon commentary.

Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh