Film Screening: Candyman

Is the hook-handed killer they call the Candyman (1992, rated R) real or just an urban legend? Graduate student Helen delves into the mystery while researching local superstitions at Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project. The story goes that if you say his name five times while looking in the mirror, he will appear – the undead revenant of a 19th-century son of slaves, who became an accomplished painter but was horribly lynched for his relationship with the daughter of a wealthy white family. Mutilated bodies have been turning up at the projects; are they the work of a supernatural killer, or just a local gang leader using the Candyman legend as his cover? As Helen tries to debunk the myth, its power grows stronger, and soon Candyman is seemingly around every corner. By the incendiary finale, Helen herself is called to join him in evil. Director Bernard Rose adapted Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden”, changing its setting from Liverpool to Chicago. Beneath the gory scares, it’s an effective exploration of the ways race and class play into the horror stories that shape our deepest fears.