Candyman (Special Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Candyman (Special Edition)
Movie Review: Halloween movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I have not watched the movie but my 16 year old daughter and her friends loved it. I ordered it for her Halloween party and was not disappointed with the price or the speedy shipment.Movie Review: Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this movie.Never forget first time seeing it.Very classy for horror film.Have never had the nerve to do the SAYING in the movie! HA!Movie Review: I have been to Cabrini Green
Summary: 5 Stars
I accidentally walked through the heart of Cabrini Green once.Movie Review: Xenophobia anyone?
Summary: 4 Stars
Clive Barker's works frequently address issues of xenophobia. "Nightbreed" is an excellent example of the persecution of the "Other." Told from the "Other's" perspective, it allows its viewer a small window into the struggles of "minorities" (not that any film can fully convey this idea, but this is an excellent attempt at beginning a dialogue).
On the surface, "Candyman" appears to pick-up this thread. The viewer learns that Candyman was a master portrait-artist in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. He was commissioned to capture the likeness of a landowner's young, innocent daughter. Instead, he captured her virginity. For this "crime" he was summarily covered in bees and hanged. Fast-forward to today(ish). The viewer learns that Candyman's name has become an urban-legend in Calibrini-Green (the housing-projects which were constructed on the same grounds on which he was executed). A copycat killer stalks his victims ... but is Candyman more than just a moment in history? More than just a name? Interesting premise, right?
So here is where we encounter problems. The depiction of Calibrini-Green (a very real, notoriously violent housing project in Chicago) is "white-washed." The film does not depict the overcrowding of this area: and has encountered opposition as a result (minor stuff though, right?). Now, here is the most serious offense the film commits: this film is supposed to reveal the story of Candyman ... but inevitably, it becomes the story of Helen. She usurps the narrative ... and, thus, his power. When Helen dons the hook and ultimately replaces Candyman in the mythology (as noted in the film's conclusion), her history is being compared with his. And can we really compare the history of a white woman who lives in a condo to that of a black man who was executed without a trial? Doubtful.
The film is a bit dated. It plays upon the fears white Americans had of the exodus of middle-class blacks from the "projects" (Calbrini-Green in this case) into suburban areas. It also plays the fears white Americans had upon the destruction of housing projects and, thus, the displacement of blacks during the Regan/Bush era. (The question being, "Are we safe from 'these people'?") While this could be an enlightening film, the approach is painfully flawed. The treatment of the black community is borderline insulting.
Still, the film is certainly worth a watch if you are interested in the portrayal of the "other" in film, Clive Barker's work, or if you are simply interested in the evolution of horror film.
Suggested reading: Briefel, Aviva and Sianne Ngaî. "'How Much Did You Pay for This Place?': Fear, Entitlement, and Urban Space in Bernard Rose's 'Candyman.'" Camera Obscura: A Journal of Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 37, (1996 Jan): 71-91.
Movie Review: An excellent DVD for this underappreciated movie.
Summary: 4 Stars
Candyman takes a mainstay of the horror genre-the haunted house-and effectively updates it for a contemporary audience. The Cabrini Green projects are an imposing structure: an immense concrete monolith covered in graffiti, dirt and trash and crawling with dangerous gangs. This is not a place for a white, upper class academic type to be spending her time and yet Helen makes the perilous journey because she is obsessed by the Candyman legend.
Director Bernard Rose has a strong visual sense. He does not shoot Candyman like a traditional horror film. For example, he uses overhead shots of the city to establish several scenes-it's a powerful, God's eye view of the streets and buildings that creates an unsettling mood. This imagery is complimented by Philip Glass's experimental, elegiac score. It is never overused but instead insinuates itself into the movie, lurking in the background.
The audio commentary for the movie features an impressive roster: director Bernard Rose, producer Alan Poul, Clive Barker and actors Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Kasi Lemmons. Each participant was recorded separately and edited together so that there is no dead air. This is a very interesting commentary packed with factoids that fans of the movie will thoroughly enjoy.
"Sweets to the Sweet: The Candyman Mythos" is a 24-minute retrospective featurette. While there is some repetition from the commentary, this is a fascinating look back at this underrated movie.
"Clive Barker: Raising Hell" takes a look the famous author and his prolific career. This is a short but good profile on the man.
Finally, there is five minute slide show of Bernard Rose's storyboards for the movie.
Candyman is a horror film that plays it straight. It refuses to resort to irony and self-reflexivity which would dominate the rest of the decade with the rise in popularity of the Scream trilogy and its offspring, like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legends, which knowingly wink at its audience and lets them in on the joke. Candyman is grounded in realism and this makes the more fantastical elements so unsettling.