Chad

Gobear

Candyman is one of my favorite horror films. It's perfect in every way: the acting, the direction, and the score by Philip Glass. And of course the themes of racism and class inequality that have worsened over the past quarter-century since the film's release.

Trevor

I agree with Gobear, great film! Don't think I enjoyed it as much in the past, when I wasn't sensitive to political themes, but it really hits home now. And <Gillian Anderson Virginia Madsen, yummy!

wishbone

Poster picture looks like Kelly Rowan from Farewell to the Flesh.

Undeadcow

I enjoyed Candyman, somehow I've never seen it before. The score for Candyman is really amazing and sells the movie. Candyman taunting Helen throughout the movie was so excellent done, a drawn out psychedelic cat and mouse chase.

One of my pet peeves is how incessantly horror movies must explain the background of the villain, why can't it just be a cool hook handed figure surrounded by wtf bees? He was forcibly amputated, but wait, then he was smeared with bee hives so of course it makes sense he’s a hook handed bee killer.
Plus we know this surprisingly detailed arcane origin because an academic just spat it out over dinner.

The racial themes are interesting. It's brilliant to contrast supernatural horror with minority gangs/drugs/stereotypes. However sometimes the movie seemed to veer into stereotype territory making some of the characters unrealistically... hillbilly(?). Some of the ebonics and poor people dialect seems distracting and forced; maybe overly stereotypical of what outsiders might think of poor ethnic speech (slower talking, higher pitched, etc). I've never heard anyone say 'Nutin' like that; it's like some strange urban Tom Sawyer remake. Apparently the producers met with NAACP before filming started.

One day you get punched in the eye with a meathook suffering a swollen bruised eye; the next day it's like it never happened.

I love the comeuppance, the reporter is searching and searching for Candyman so of course she gets just what we asked for. The Cliver Barker story does especially well at selling this.

The "be my victim" line is so cheesy.

Surprised there's no high definition release.

Chad

Good eye. Switched to the right film with a poster that's practically indistinguishable from the other one. No impressive foreign poster art for this one apparently.

arw6040

This is one of my all time favorite horror movies, not watching it this year since I just revisited it last year but it's a masterpiece in my opinion for the positive points others have made here already and it terrified me as a child/still unnerves me as an adult which is a win in my book since it's rare for me. I may watch the sequel for today's theme since I have never seen it and heard it's not too shabby unlike the third one which I heard is awful but kinda curious about that at some point too haha.

numbercrunch

I can't believe Scream Factory or Arrow hasn't gotten a hold on this one and put out a collector's edition

3onameathook

For some reason this has lost quite a bit of it's appeal since the first time I had seen it; not quite sure why though. Perhaps I have viewed it too many times and I've burned out on the story. Sure the story is about the social/political issues of racial inequality but the film was much more to me than that Clive Barker has been one of my top 5 horror writers for decades now. Pretty sure one of the first things I had read of his was The Books of Blood.

WillieMLF

Sad to say I've never seen Candyman other than one scene which I consistently seem to find.... I thought it started out really strong, and never really let up. I've only seen Tony Todd from his newer stuff. He cut a pretty cool figure with his fur lined velvet trench coat when we are first introduced. I was surprised the turn it took with her being blamed for the murders. Really surprised how much I like it. I don't own this movie in any form, and I may try and find it when it comes to Blu.

clckworang

I could have sworn that Scream Factory had released this one. It's right up their alley. I was surprised, too. I ordered an import Blu-ray. It was pretty inexpensive. The image was nice, but it didn't blow me away.

I love how much of the horror of this film is psychological. There's some strong imagery, and it's amazing how timely this feels again. I saw it for the first time during a challenge a few years back and thought some of the race relations seemed dated. It didn't feel that way to me this time. It's hard to imagine any other person in the Candyman role. It's definitely an iconic performance.

I haven't seen any of the sequels. Worth it?

pacaway

I finally got around to watching this subset film on the very last day of the challenge, as I finally had made it to the top of my library queue. I feel like I'm just bandwagoning here, but I really enjoyed this too. I first I thought it was going to go all Blaxploitation on me, but it didn't. Instead it spoke to real themes of racism, which was great. The framing of Helen by Candyman and the subsequent folklore villian it was going to make her was cool and different (at least to me). And although they didn't highlight it nearly enough, she was not hard to look at, clothed or otherwise.
Of course, at the end, my kid and I were counting the "Helen"s the dirtbag husband was saying into the mirror, but that small moment of predictability was perfectly acceptable and, in fact, desired!
Good pick!