Candyman (1992)

Candyman is an awesome supernatural thriller. It is probably the best ghost movie I have seen since The Orphanage (Which is also highly recommended but also very sad! Be warned!).

Pros:
-Excellent acting by the lead actress and the lead actor.
-Original back-story.
-Brilliant use of myth-imagery.
-Excellent pacing.
-Eerie music, especially the creepy choir chanting in the background in many of the scenes.

Cons:
-I didn't see any...


UNBELIEVABLY MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW!!!

 Candyman features a young woman, Helen, who, with her friend Bernadette, is writing her thesis on urban legends and their origin and transmission. She gradually discovers that the legend of the Candyman, a ghost who comes if you say his name five times and kills you with his hook hand, is based off of a real man who was brutally killed over a hundred years ago.

This movie could have very easily been a campy mess. Most ghost stories fall into this trap. This was partially because it did not attempt to add any silly special effects that would have looked ludicrous to a current viewer. The plot was also very excellent, very original, and had an unexpected twist towards the middle and, again towards the end. Most movies fail at pulling off one unexpected twist and this movie pulled off two!

The excellent acting also kept this movie from becoming too campy. Helen was very believable and sympathetic. She was also a much stronger character than many female protagonists are, which I found refreshing. Helen did not overact or behave in any way that was out of line with her character. Candyman was aslo excellent. The decision to cast an attractive man with a deep, velvety bass voice made him oddly sympathethic despite his murderous tendencies. A character that could have been one-dimensional and unimpressive thus became highly interesting and hair-raising.

As a woman who is very interested in myth and myth history, I was hugely impressed with Candyman. This movie was hugely evocative of many different myth traditions. It dealt with duality: man and woman, good and evil, real and unreal, etc. The power of belief was crucial; the Candyman sought to force Helen into believing in him through the perpetration of several grizzly murders. It was only when she finally admitted his existence through summoning him (calling his name five times) that he was able to actually kill her. This need to name him demonstrates a common myth theme of the power of names, and how that power can be turned against the one who wields it.

Another beautiful motify was the mirror as a conduit between worlds. Helen and Bernadette first jokingly call the Candyman in front of a mirror (calling to mind a similar urban legend: Bloody Mary). Helen also discovers that the apartment she lives in, and another building in the projects with a similar layout, do not have actual walls between each apartment. There is only a mirror. Helen passes through the mirror in the projects. Passing through mirrors is always an extremely bad idea in myth; they show us a world that is "other." The mirror world is similar and parallel to our own, just as the reflection seen in the mirror resembles, but is different from, our actual face. By passing through the mirror, Helen is essentially breaking the boundaries between her world and the world of the Candyman and inviting him back into the real world.

The power of belief is also mentioned. Basically, there is a concept that some things can only subsist through human belief. As soon as men begin ignoring or forsaking them, these things cease to exist. Barrie addressed this through Tinkerbell and the other fairies in Peter Pan who could drop dead if children said that thet did not exist. Candyman needed the belief and fear of a kind of cult in order to continue his supernatural existence. Accordingly, he was forced to kill innocents to perpetuate this fear and belief.

Candyman's relationship with Helen is also eerily similar to the relationship between Dracula and Mina Harker in Stoker's Dracula. Candyman does not merely wish to kill Helen; he wants her to want to be killed. He asks her to: "Be my victim," adding a disturbingly sensual aspect to the plot. Candyman also offers Helen immortality. He has framed her as a murderer, and tells her that she will live forever, and that they will never be parted, due to the horrified awe that people will have of her. Candyman lives and thrives in the rumors and legends of his cult of followers. His face and words are graffitied all over the projects, including the ominous Shakespeare line: "Sweets to the sweet." His is, therefore, a damned kind of half-life that is only possibly through a parasitic "feeding" on fearful mortals. What he offers Helen is the same.

Helen's refusal to accept this and be his victim could be read as a feminist answer to Dracula. What if Mina had not only destroyed Dracula all on her own but also taken his place? Helen refuses to be the victim. At the last minute, on fire and screaming in agony, she tears her way out of the bonfire to save the life of the child that Candyman had kidnapped. In this way, we see Helen's redemption. All of her beautiful blonde hair has been burned off and she dies, but her death is in defiance of the Candyman and becomes a sacrifice to save a child. This allows her to usurp the Candyman's place. He burns, screaming, in the bonfire even as the bald and burned Helen dies at the feet of the mother whose child she saved.

 Helen's husband discovers this eerie worship when the cult of followers who used to be fearful of Candyman come to Helen's funeral in a long winding chain to solemnly throw the Candyman's hook into her grave. The mother with the child that Helen saved and the little boy who told her the myth lead the progression. Through this, we see the dynamic and constantly shifting nature of these urban legends. Helen takes the Candyman's place, killing her former husband when he rashly calls her five times, and feeding on the fear and awe that once sustained Candyman. Yet, her reign is not as filled with terror. The last image of the film is a saint-like effigy of Helen, with a full head of blonde hair, apparently rising from the flames.

Well, that was a crazy analysis there!
I really couldn't find anything wrong with this movie. It was an excellent film and I recommend it to everyone who either doesn't get scared or likes being scared.
Rating: A