“I am the writing on the walls. I am the sweet smell of blood in the street. The buzz that echoes in the alleyways. They will say that I shed the blood of the innocent. But you are far from innocent.”

Nia DaCosta’s 2021 Candyman has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue since the announcement of the spiritual sequel in 2019. The revival of this urban legend back to the silver screen sees an interesting and modern take on the topics and themes that were explored in the original. DaCosta has named her Candyman the ‘spiritual squeal’ to the 1992 original, and the film holds its own in continuing the legend of the Candyman. The film stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, and reprising his role as Candyman, Tony Todd.

The film takes us back to the dark and disturbing origins of the urban legend that is Candyman. The opening scene follows the everyday activities of an unnamed, young Black teenager who is playing with paper puppets in the midday sun of his bedroom. Paper puppets are depicting a hostile scene between police officers and a man, telling him to put his hands up. The young man lives in Cabrini Green, and it’s 1977. The young man goes about his afternoon, attending to the large washing basket in the neighbourhood’s communal laundry room. While the young boy is in the laundry, he encounters a man coming out of the walls; he has a hook for a hand. The young boy screaming alerts the police officers that are scouting their neighbourhood.

Ten years after the demolition of the projects of Cabrini Green, Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his partner Brianna (Teyonah Parris) have started a new chapter of their lives together in the new up-and-coming neighbourhood of Cabrini. Anthony is a budding artist who, through his work, expresses the racism and experiences of Black people through time, and his partner Brianna is an incredibly supportive person who wants to see him express himself the way he knows how. Brianna has a younger brother who, one night, tells the newly moved couple the story of Helen Lyle, a white woman who had once kidnapped a baby and attempted to sacrifice them to the annual bonfire. It’s an enlightening juxtaposition to the original and how an urban legend can develop over time — especially since most Candyman fans would have seen the original.

Candyman maintains its core themes by taking over from the white narrative perspective of the original and adapting them to communicate the racialisation and gentrification of Black places of living. This entry into the franchise has Candyman take over the urban legend narrative and address issues from the perspective of someone who is affected by gentrification. The racialisation occurs from the perspective of the white people Anthony interacts with, as they have deemed the projects unliveable because of the neglect of government, police, and the ‘outside’ community. Throughout the film, Anthony has several interactions with white people who throw microaggressions towards Anthony and his work. Clive, the art gallery curator, tells people that Anthony’s artwork is complicated, implying that because the art explores Black experiences of white supremacy in Black neighbourhoods that critics and others won’t get it. It’s clear that they don’t understand (and refuse to understand), as the white characters in the film reject the past of the area that they are all benefiting from now that it is gentrified. In a conversation between a white critic and Anthony, he is surprised to find that she is blatantly ignoring how gentrification occurs in spaces that were once racialised and purposefully made destitute.

“Artists gentrify the hood? Who do you think makes the hood? The city cuts the hood off”

The film examines the cognitive dissonance experienced by those who are living in the present Cabrini Green, contributing to the capitalistic motivations of the city that destroyed the neighbourhood. This is an important message throughout the film, alongside the harsh reality of the relationships that Black residents have with police in their neighbourhood. In his first moments exploring Cabrini Green, Anthony meets William, who tells him, “Back in the day we couldn’t get them to come into the neighbourhood, now we can’t keep them out”. This is a tell tale sign that the relationship between those living in Cabrini Green and the police has always been of a cyclical and shocking nature. However, I won’t discuss further to maintain the cathartic nature of the ending for you.

Not only does Yahya Abdul-Mateen II absolutely carry the character Anthony McCoy with some weight, he also brings to life the incredible supernatural elements of the film. Throughout Candyman, Anthony is losing his mental health and his physical body, throwing himself more into the legend unrelentingly. Abdul-Mateen II delivers some of my favourite lines of the film with intensity; he is someone to behold as Anthony, watching him decline and face the inevitability of his journey into the myth of Candyman. How the origin story of Candyman is carried forward into this entry is brilliant, and it shows how the urban legend has fractured people, damaged people, and empowered people.

“You should say it… Say his name… I dare you”

As many have stated in reviews and their examinations, the original Candyman is a supernatural slasher, and DaCosta did not disappoint, bringing this into her telling of the legend. The kills are some of the most impressive that I have seen in a modern slasher, and there is no sparing of blood and violence throughout the film (more often than not perpetrated against white antagonists). There is a brilliant scene where Clive and his assistant are torn apart by Candyman, blood pouring from gaping neck wounds — it’s a sight to behold. As a fan of excessive use of blood, the scenes did not disappoint me at all.

DaCosta sets up beautiful wide pan shots of the abandoned sections of Cabrini Green against the tall and glamorous buildings of the newer uninspiring areas of the neighbourhood. The buildings loom over the sandstone coloured apartment blocks and faded blacked-out windows. These apartment buildings holding onto the past generations through graffiti and drawings of people passed. I couldn’t help but feel the eradication of the community through these images. The legend of Candyman didn’t die with the gentrification of Cabrini Green: it propelled the supernatural force into the modern era. Taking hold of important commentary, DaCosta presents a gruesome, supernatural horror that shows an important conversation on the racialisation and gentrification of communities of Black citizens in America.

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