Nia DaCosta

(On Cable TV, June 2022) I’m usually the last to call for remakes – especially of horror films – but I was definitely curious about a Candyman remake for a few reasons. The first being that Candyman remains one of the good horror films of the 1980s, using horror to discuss racial issues decades before it was cool to do so, with a couple of strong assets – not the least being Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen – in service of its thrills and themes. The idea of revisiting such charged territory in the 2020s, with black filmmakers able to make good use of the material, was impossible to resist. But even I was more than pleasantly surprised at the remake’s impact. This newest Candyman is a top-to-bottom success, artfully tackling themes in ways that make the film far more about social justice than gory thrills. Writer-director Nia DaCosta (with some assistance from co-writer Jordan Peele) delivers a film that’s rich in visual motifs (Bees! Candy!), social issues, carefully restrained filmmaking technique and expressionist moments. It starts well with Sammy Davis Jr.’s “The Candy Man” song over mirrored studio logos and goes on all the way to an eloquent end-credit sequence using shadow puppetry. One of the most striking elements in the tapestry is that, despite the copious amount of blood and violence, it takes until the very end of the film for a death to be graphically shown on-screen – and even then, it’s in soft focus in the background of the lead character doing something else. The script cleverly integrates the first film as a mythological construct that adds depths to the result, and even picks the best elements of the disappointing sequels (a focus on the art world) as part of its script. There’s a real thrill to see the material being presented with visual flair and horror being used not as an end in itself (despite how effective it is) but as a springboard for larger-scale discussions. Teyonah Parris is quite good in the real protagonist role (after an initial focus on Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, also quite good) – and her character even speaks a little bit of French. In many ways, Candyman is an exceptional film, an exceptional remake, and exceptional horror. It steps in Get Out’s footsteps more assuredly than Us, and even crams storytelling into the fabric of its execution.