Film Review: The scares and social commentary in ‘Candyman’ are far too blunt to resonate
Candyman is a sorta sequel/sorta remake of the 1992 horror film Candyman. In other words, it can be looked at as both a continuation of that story and as a standalone piece, much like Halloween. Full disclosure: I haven’t seen the original. However, by all accounts, it has stood the test of time. For various reasons I’ll get into, it’s doubtful that this new one directed by Nia Dacosta will similarly hold up.
Candyman plays out as a fairly straightforward 90-minute slasher flick propelled by a young artist’s (Yayha Abdul-Mateen II, usually a charismatic presence, is a void here) descent into madness. But it has big ambitions; it’s an examination of the soulless commodification of Black American historical suffering, gentrification, the bourgeois Chicago art scene, and police brutality. Candyman himself, a murderous, tall Black man with a comically large hook-hand, evokes the Jewish myth of the golem; an artificial being animated by communal fury and helplessness, a blessing and a curse.
These ideas are fascinating. But they lose resonance fast if they’re trapped in a preachy mess of a thing. Sadly, that’s Candyman. To wit, a key line of dialogue thickly laying out gentrification: “You know, when white people built the ghetto and then erased it when they realized they built the ghetto”. Another one: “You know, they love what we make but they don’t love us.”
When the hilariously blowhard Dr. Rick Dagless exclaimed “I know writers who use subtext and they are all cowards, every one of them”, it was meant as satire, not a call to arms. The whole movie has this tenor, this moralistic prattle devoid of texture. Whether I personally agree with these points of view means little if the very things that shape a good story - poetry, respect for the intelligence of your audience - are totally absent.
This kind of pretentious presentation extends well beyond its subtext-as-text and into the scenes of horror and murder. If all else fails, a genre film should be expected to provide the requisite entertainment; an action film should thrill, a comedy should be funny...and a horror film should be scary. To some extent these things are subjective, sure. As someone with a fairly weak constitution for horror and tension though, I was mostly left blank-faced and somewhat intrigued when it came to Candyman eviscerating his victims. Several shots here are surely memorably composed and beautifully lit and without a trace of spookiness. The kills feel dutiful instead of disturbing, but I’ll confess a few moments of gore left me wincing. At least in these few moments I felt something other than vague annoyance.
Despite its admirable efforts, Candyman feels like a heap of wasted potential.
