2025 October Horror Challenge #28 "Candyman"

So this movie is a classic from 1992. it's based on a lot of old folklore in Legends kind of put together and pieced together into a puzzle that made this character Candyman. As a kid I tried saying candyman's name four times five times in front of a mirror and he didn't appear and kill me so my time might be coming soon he might be in the other room and I'm probably going to say his name at least five times while I'm writing this review so you know it's been nice knowing all of you if I get killed by Candyman while I'm writing this review. Virginia masden is great in this movie as is Vanessa Williams as is the late great amazing wonderful spectacular Tony Todd who will be forever missed This is the second movie I've watched with Tony Todd in it I did watch Final Destination Bloodlines as well and he's in that one that's actually the last movie that he filmed before he died so it's kind of sad but it's cool to see him in his prime being the charismatic terrifying living nightmare that is Candyman. What can I say about this movie that hasn't already been said? I suppose I could talk a little bit about racism because the remake or reimagining or sequel whatever you want to call it of this movie that came out recently deals a lot with racism and this movie deals a lot with racism and it's always been based on oddly enough the torture that black people endured at the hands of white people which is what beloved was about and you'd think I'd be tired of watching movies about that after watching that traumatizing horrific thing but now I'm watching Candyman because it's one of my favorites and I wanted to revisit it and see something that was a classic that I knew I would enjoy today has been all about revisiting movies that I've seen before so that was the theme of this day. These are creepy. bees freak me out. I'm allergic to bee stings so every time I see a bee I tend to freak out and run away and it chases me and that I hide and then it finds me and then I run away again and people are like just stay calm it won't sting you and I'm like yeah that doesn't work it will sting you even if you're calm because bees do sting you when you're calm because when I was a little kid I didn't know to be afraid of bees so I played with bees thinking oh this is cute Look it's a little black and white insect or yellow and black insect and they stung me and then I swelled up to the size of a balloon and that's when I learned that you should stay away from bees. or at least I should. But there are lots of bees in this movie because the legend of Candyman is that a white man a rich white man wanted to commission a portrait of his beautiful wife so he hired a black artist to paint it and that artist ended up having an affair with the wife whoops and the wife ended up pregnant and of course the rich man was not happy about this so he had the black man tied up and dragged and tortured and then they coated him with honey and left him in a beehive for the bees to get him so he was probably stung thousands of times. What's with all the movies about torturing black people today When did that become the theme of the day I thought that was not supposed to be the theme of the day. anyway aside from the accidental theme that I keep running into today the movie is also about two graduate students in the '90s Virginia masden and Vanessa Williams play the two graduate students and these graduate students are writing a thesis about oral folklore traditions and specifically the legend of Candyman so they go around researching Candyman and interviewing people about the story of Candyman and people who claim to have seen Candyman or had friends who've seen Candyman or had friends who were killed by a Candyman and it's just fun to watch because I'm a grand student right now working on a thesis nothing is interesting as Candyman but hopefully my thesis won't get me into as much trouble as it gets Virginia Madsen into in this movie. while researching Candyman, of course, they discover that Candyman is real and he latches on to one of them and systematically ruins her life until she has to make a choice whether she should go on living or sacrifice herself to help save someone else and that's pretty honorable. It also ties in with smile too a movie that I watched yesterday because the ghostly parasite supernatural force in that movie takes over people's lives and systematically ruins them until they have nothing left and then once it's done feeding on their darkest fears it forces them to kill themselves and then it moves on to another host So Candyman kind of does a similar thing in this movie but I won't give it away because that would ruin the ending I'll and if you haven't seen this movie yet you should So I'll just say that it's creepy it's gory it's fun it's a scary little movie it makes me want to sit around a campfire and tell scary stories but not go in front of a mirror and say anyone's name five times just in case it pisses off any ghost and that ghost comes after me. Definitely check this one out.