SCORETOBER!!! Day 26 Candyman 1992!!!!

Day 26

Candyman

This was a struggle for me. Choosing between the original and the soft reboot sequel. Both films are excellent, and the music from both films? Absolutely stellar. There’s not one thing from either film I’d change or imagine done differently. They both tell very tragic stories and create a mythos that really is like nothing before it.

But in the end, the original one me out. The music in this, is sublime, the story great. And the first film, set the basis for the 2nd, the score in that brings back a lot of the classic notes while adding entirely new music.

And while I love the newer film, this soundtrack, from the first is one I still turn to more often in the end.

Goddamn it really is hard, because the 2021 movie is very, very much something I watch on regular rotation and it is a gold standard with me for doing a sequel/soft reboot right. Nia DaCosta did an absolutely brilliant job with that, and the score from Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is absolutely a world all its own and beautiful.

Man, I seriously am so tempted to review both. It’d be crazy right? And that’s make for a 35 page review..thing. That’s even crazier right?

I kinda want to do it, but that could also be the lack of sleep talking. I don’t know. NO! No. We made our choice, the decider has spoken.

Even if the 2021 film and score are just as damn good.

NO! Choices were made, lets stay sane, here we gooo

The Movie

“They will say, that I have shed innocent blood. What’s blood, if not for shedding. With my hook for a hand, I will split you from your groin to your gullet, I came. For you,” and with that, our movie begins, after the all too beautiful voice of Tony Todd rolls out over our speakers and test the bass levels. All as the screen dances with a sea of bees, busily working away. And to that, the movies score plays a deep, eerily creepy tune over an organ with a chorus behind it while flying high above a city scape.  Moments before a cloud of bees rise up in a shroud over the large city.  It’s a beautiful opening and even then. It still can’t possibly prepare people for what’s to come.

From there we get our first story, of a few being told to our main character we follow through the film, Helen Lyle(Virginia Madsen), she’s interviewing a young student and recording a story she shares with Helen, “This is the scariest story I ever heard, and it’s totally true.” She begins telling Helen her story, about a babysitter, who invited a bad boy to the home she was babysitting for. She’d been dating someone else but, she was super attracted to the bad boy, of course. So she invites him over for a bit of sexy time. While making out, she decides to tell him about a story she heard, of a man who was killed, and had a hoot for a hand. That if you say his name 5 times while looking in the mirror, he’ll come and kill you. So her bad boy decides to say the name 4 times, before losing interest in the idea of summoning a hook handed killer, and much more interested in 2nd base.

She teases him for this, and tells him to wait in the bedroom for her. As he leaves and she uses the bathroom to freshen up. She can’t help but say the name of the man one last time, “Candyman…”, and as the story goes. Once she says it and turns out the light. He appears behind her and kills her. Then kills the baby too, when Billy the bad boy discovers the scene, it scares him so bad it turns his hair white. The girl swears again the story is true as her boyfriend told her and he knew the guy that new Billy. Which by high school standards as we know, means its true.

As Helen wraps up her story time with the young girl, she goes to check on her partners side of things with her story collection. Which seems less a story she’s being told, and more a jock flirting with her, her friend and partner on this thesis on modern folklore is Bernadette Walsh(Kasi Lemmons). As they wrap things up at the high school, Helen takes off for the big kid school, University! Where it appears her husband is giving a lecture to a group of students on. Well what do you know. He’s giving his class a lecture on folk tales, modern and ancient. Which takes his wife back just a little bit, like rubbing hand sanitizer on your fingers only to feel a sting from an unseen paper cut. But you just keep rubbing at it, because we all do it.

Well she’s going to need a list now. Because aside feeling a bit jilted that he’d start a lecture on the same topic as her thesis, it steels a bit of her and her partners thunder from their project. That’s just one of her problems. The other problem is a thin pretty blonde student who can’t take her eyes off her husband Trevor Lyle(Xander Berkeley), she watches the two and notes rather quickly how the girl won’t even look at her or acknowledge her presence even as she approaches, but she will stare deeply into her husbands eyes. As I have been told, twice. If a woman can’t even look another in the eyes, but she can stare and talk to someone elses man. It’s not only disrespecting his girlfriend/wife, there’s very obviously something going on there, and if you ain’t in on it and aware of it, then that girl is definitely wanting something that’ll get her ass beat for tryin to take.

I know this. I have had this conversation, and my dumbass was too oblivious to notice certain things. Apparently.

Anyway, moving along.

She does not hesitate to point this out to her hubby. He politely blows it off as her being a little jelly belly about young school girl affections, and teases perhaps she just really enjoyed his lesson. Which brings Helen right back around to the first thing that upset her. His decision not to wait till the next semester for his lessons on folk tales, but instead doing so now, and again stealing thunder from her and Bernadette’s thesis.

His answer is simple. He tells her to chill.

There is a point system in Helen’s head, and he is getting docked points, he just doesn’t know it yet. Until he ask her for something later. Then he’ll know.

As for now, she’s got some writing to do. Jotting down her recorded story from the girl earlier into her pc, replaying the tape as she dictates. While doing her a cleaning woman, Henrietta Mosely(Barbera Mosely) enters the room and idly catches some of the story. She knows the name Candyman and ask Helen if she’s doing a story on him. She says she is and ask her what she might know or had heard about his legend. To Helen’s surprise the woman tells her not only had she heard of him and that people are scared of him once it gets dark, but she also has a friend who lives where he had. Cabrini Green, the projects. This immediately gets her attention and she ask the woman politely if she can talk with her friend Kitty Culver(Sarina C. Grant)

The story she begins to tell Helen, is based off an actual story that happened and became an urban legend itself. It’s worth looking up sometime. She tells Helen how a woman in the building, Ruthie Jean has heard banging and smashing like someone was trying to make a hole in the wall. So Ruthie called 911, and told them that someone was coming through the walls. The police didn’t believe her so no one came. She called them a second time telling them again someone was trying to come through the walls, but they still didn’t believe her. When they finally gave in though and chose to believe Ruthie Jean? She was found dead. Killed with a hook. She read about it the next day in the papers, and everyone there knew. The Candyman got her. What I love from the story the woman tells her, is at its end, when Kitty’s friend Henrietta tells Helen “Candyman killed her” Kitty gives a knowing look about something and nods “Yeah, but, uh..I don’t know nothing about it.”

How she says it, the look she gives. Helen doesn’t catch on to it but its deeply implied there is something more behind this story and that legend. Helen sees it as a real murder added to a legend. But Kitty has a look that says otherwise, and seems to suggest the less said on that name, the better.

So Helen armed with this new story goes on a deep dive the old fashion way before the glory of the internet. She’s using the schools resources and old news paper reels. Verifying the story about Ruthie Jeans murder, and 21 similar murders in that building. She not only unearths the entire story, but the history of the building as well. Where she decides to really blow Bernadette’s mind. Showing her two photos. “That’s Cabrini Green, not that you’d recognize it now. Look carefully at this picture…and then this one, spot it?” Bernadette studies both photos and shakes her head not getting what her friend is pointing out to her, so Helen feeling mighty clever smiles and informs her friend “That’s not Cabrini Green. That’s this building…Sandburgh Village! My apartment was built as a housing project.”

She goes on to explain how once it was finished, the city realized there was no barrier between there and the gold coast. No way to keep the ghetto cut off. So they did some minor alterations, clad the cinderblocks in plaster and sold the lot off as condos. Which is pretty messed up, how’d they get away with it? You can only guess, and likely you’d be right.

Bernadette is taken back by this but Helen is just getting started. She has even more proof. Which normally would freak someone out. Even Bernadette is not particularly looking all that comfy with this news. But helen is all smiles, as she takes her friend to her bathroom, and begins pulling free the medicine cabinet from the wall. Showing her that there’s only a thing piece of board separating her room from the next apartment. So she knocks out that medicine cabinet to prove her point, “The killer, or killers, they don’t know which, smashed his way through the back of the cabinet.” Again Helen is all smiles and her friend is appropriately not having it. I mean she’s forcing a smile and is surprised yeah. But how her friend Helen could be so happy about this? Yeah. Yeah.

Helen finally has to ask Bernadette. FINALLY noting her friend is a bit creeped out. She ask her if she believes in any of that story about Candyman. Of course she says no, but she also doesn’t feel right teasing it either. But Helen, after putting the medicine cabinet back up. Ask her to say his name 5 times with her then. So the two, giggling like high schoolers do it. They both start together, “Candyman…Candyman…Candyman…Candyman.” And just as the teen girl who told them the story said, no one can seem to get past saying the name 4 times. They both laugh at this, but Helen shows she didn’t come here to mess around. She leans in closer to the mirror and says the name, the fifth and final time. “Candyman…” With that the two bound off from the bathroom still giggling.  Well, now with that out of the wat. Helen has a question for her ride or die friend. Do they visit Cabrini Green, now knowing where it is? Or do they get punked on their thesis and turn in some boring old paper. Bernadette wants to live. That’s all. But she does enjoy the idea of her and Helen looking like a couple of bosses to everyone else with their paper. So she agrees.

That night as Helen sleeps, she hears what sounds like a man grunting,  In her mind she pictures the story of the murders, imagining she hears wood being turn by a hook as she hears another grunt. Just then the grunting is made clear as it’s a drunk Trevor. He’s crashing in bed, grinding up against her and smells like the worst gut rot liquor. There is no way this man is getting any kind of love, and his equipment is far to gone with the whiskey even if he was up to it. She makes a mental not to kick him in his sleep for startling her in bed like that.

The next day comes and our ladies are dressed and ready for the projects. Which Bernadette is ready for. She’s got an entire arsenal of self defense weapons packed in her purse. She also can’t help but tell Helen they both look like cops. So yeah. Going into a bad neighborhood looking like cops? Of course she’s gonna go armed.

Sure enough once they enter the grounds outside Cabrini Green, they’re met by some of the locals hanging outside, cat calling the two ladies and asking if they’re cops, wanting to know just what they’re up to in the building, who they’d know there. Helen neverminds the groups and continues up the stairwell into the apartment complex. Not soon after they round the staircase, some of the men down below shout up to everyone that police are headed up stairs. Bernadette feels uneasy even with her taser, mace and knife collection. Helen tries to reassure her friend “They think we’re cops, they’ll leave us alone.” The 90’s were a different time compared to today.

The pair make their way through the building and begin snapping photos of the extensive tagging and wall murals painted everywhere. It honestly is beautiful, and a small glimpse at both the soul of the building and the problems within it.

They eventually stumble onto the remains of a vacant room, Sure enough finding the wall open in the bathroom. Bernadette loves her friend, would do anything for her. Like head out to a really bad part of town with her. But she sure as hell is not gonna risk her ass going through that hole in the wall.

Whites never come up here, unless its to cause us all a problem.

 Helen however? She’s either got the biggest balls out there, or she just thinks nothing bad ever happens to people. So armed with her camera she goes straight up into the hole in the wall. Which is where we start getting into the beauty of the movie.

As she enters through the wall. She snaps a series of photographs, heading deeper into the torn down walls of the building, Eventually coming to a circular hole in the wall, unaware until after she’s entered, that the wall has been painted into a large portrait of the Candyman, his mouth wide open, with the hole in the wall directly at its mouths center. Her camera has run out of film unfortunately and she looks at the painting admiring it, even as she suddenly feels faint doing so. Shaking her head she looks around the room and notes a pile of candy left almost in offering under the painting. She goes to pick up one of those pieces of candy examining it, only to end up cutting herself. Soon realizing the candy has a razor blade splitting the candy.

Without film she exits the room and immerges once more. She begs her friend for more camera film but she’s done. 5 minutes in that building is far too much for her to handle. But before Helen can negotiate further, the two are interrupted by a concerned resident with her dog. Asking what the hell those two are doing, let along messing around that empty apartment. They’re honest with her and it pays off, though she doesn’t have much interest in them. But she also knows she came off strong, even if she had the right, the sound of her baby crying nearby grabs her attention and she heads back to her apartment. Helen motioning for Bernadette to follow. The woman doesn’t mine it seems, though she does let them know “We don’t usually see whites come up in here, unless its to cause problems for us.” Helen politely nods and says nothing.

The two enter her home and watch as she attends to her baby, finally introducing herself to us, her name is Anne-Marie McCoy(Vanessa Williams). She ask what their report they’re doing is on, assuming they are there to study the projects, all the drugs, the stealing, gang-banging. She makes It clear the residents inside aren’t like those people downstairs. They’re all just tryin to get by and she’s just looking to raise her child well. She wants to save him from that place, and swears it’ll never take him or destroy him. Helen reassures her that this isn’t why they’re there, so Anne-Marie guesses it has to be because of Ruthie Jean. Since all the papers and reporters only ever seem interested in that place because of her. “I heard her screaming. I heard right through the walls. I dialed 911. Nobody came, Everybody scared. He could come right through these walls, you know? I’m scared. Scared for my child. They ain’t never gonna catch him.” Helen stares back concerned and ask Anne-Marie who the cops wont catch, Anne-Marie stares back unphased, “Candyman.”

Helen should really be taking note of people and their reactions to the stories they tell and the things she ask. But she’s a bit caught up in the excitement of it still. But hey, we all have those moments. Some of us live in them.

From there we go to an awkward dinner party. Of Helen and Bernadette enjoying a nice meal in a very classy place, across from her husband Trevor, and his academic friend and the apparent bane of Helen’s career, Purcell(Michael Culkin). Apparently the man has done his own paper on folk tales before, and more specifically on Candyman. Which Helen lets slip in a moment of trying to put the man down a peg or two. Thinking their paper might bury him and his ego. Only the man is all to pleased to hear about this and ask Helen if she happen to know the legend surrounding Candyman himself. Which she must admit, she does not. This causes him to lose his shit and laugh at her.

“Then how do you expect to bury me? The legend first appeared in 1890. Candyman was the son of a slave. His father had amassed a considerable fortune from designing a device for the mass producing of shoes after the Civil War. Candyman had been sent to all the best schools and had grown up in polite society. He had a prodigious talent as an artist and was much sought after when it came to the documenting of one's wealth and position in society in a portrait. Well, it was in this latter capacity, that he was commissioned by a wealthy landowner to capture his daughter's virginal beauty. Well, of course, they fell deeply in love and she became pregnant. Hmm... poor Candyman. Her father executed a terrible revenge. He paid a pack of brutal hooligans to do the deed. They chased Candyman through the town to Cabrini Green, where they proceeded to saw off his right hand with a rusty blade. And no one came to his aid. For this was just the beginning of his ordeal. Nearby there was an apiary. Dozens of hives, filled with hungry bees. They smashed the hive and stole the honeycomb and smeared it over his prone, naked body. Candyman was stung to death by the bees. They burned his body on a giant pyre and then scattered his ashes over Cabrini Green.”

All while hearing this sad story of the man she was beginning to research into. Helen is experiencing flashes in her mind, going back to the painted mural and the Candyman’s portrait over the wall. Feeling herself slip a moment before coming back to the conversation. Deciding to keep quiet the rest of the dinner, and likely having a heated debate in the car ride after with her husband.

So the next day, Helen is headed back to Cabrini Green, this time on her own. She wanted to talk more with Anne-Marie. But she’s at work. Though there’s a boy outside waiting outside,  Jake(DeJuan Guy), he tells Helen she’s crazy being there, it’s a scary place and she’ll get hurt. But she promises Jake she doesn’t scare easily. She tries asking him about the Candyman but Jake has nothing to say on the subject. Telling her out right “I can’t say nothing or Candyman will get me.”

Helen doesn’t want to push him as he makes it clear he won’t talk about the neighbors or anything that happened there, so she tries asking him instead if he knows where she might be able to find Candyman. Asking if he knows or might know someone brave enough to show her. Well Jake isn’t about to let that slide. So he tells her he’ll show her where the Candyman lives. As they exit the building they pass a large pile of wood and furniture, the boy Jake points out the bonfire is for a party. What party though he won’t tell her. As Jake walks her across the building to a playground, he points to the public restroom, telling her his own Candyman story he had heard from friends, “”

 “A boy got killed there, he needed to go, y’know, to the bathroom. His mom is taking her time with groceries so he starts moaning and getting her upset. So his mom sends him across the street. His mom heard him screaming, she ran over to check on him,a big tough guy in the park went in there to check on him. When he came out his hair turned white.” Helen asks if they boy had been murdered, Jake shakes his head telling her it was worse. The boy came stumbling out of the bathroom holding himself, that they found his severed penis floating in the toilet. Giving us the most guy like line ever, “They found it, floating in the toilet. Can’t fix that…better off dead.”

Helen continues her trip, taking photos outside of the urinal and inside. Finding the place is cleaner than a Walmart bathroom. The toilets are crushed. Shit is smeared on the walls spelling out the phrase “Sweets to the Sweet”, The only find she discovers in the bathroom, is a toilet overflowing with fecal matter and bees. She quickly flushes it as if that will somehow improve things, and moves to exit the bathroom. Suddenly a man enters the bathroom, wearing a black leather trench coat. He turns and stares at Helen, who pardons herself. He slowly moves his arm to show her he’s holding a meat hook in his right hand. She moves to quickly walk past him, only to find several others entering the bathroom after him. One of whom grabs her from behind and restrains her. The man approaches as she pleads for them to let her go, “I hear your looking for Candyman, bitch. You found him.” With that he hits her upside the head with the meat hook, and with that the other men soon join in and they all beat Helen bloody. Jake watches petrified from outside as the men exit the restroom, not seeing Helen reappear he finally goes in after her, Finding her knocked out on the floor, bleeding from her head, Jake calls the police.

Faster than you can text white girl in trouble, the police have 6 suspects rounded up and ready for her to identify. Each man steps forward repeating the line said to her in the bathroom, she’s luckily able to identify the man in the lineup and the police have him arrested immediately. The guy had a large rap sheet and definitely was the kind of guy she’s lucky to have survived the attack. Outside waiting for Helen is Jake, kid did good calling for help and staying until he knew she was okay. Even if he got upset that she lied to him about the candyman stuff being secret between them and here she is telling the police about it. It may not mean anything to Helen, but it meant something to Jake, and now he’s afraid Candyman will get him. Helen looks at the boy and tries to reassure him, “Candyman isn’t real. He’s just a story. You know, like Dracula or…or Frankenstein. A bad man took his name so that he could scare us. But now that he’s locked up, everything’s going to me okay.” Jake stares at her with the best ‘You gotta be kidding me’ look from a kid, I love it and it just says so much, “You mean candyman aint real?”, Helen nods to him and takes off for home. Her friends and husband all happy to see she’s fine, although they are definitely worried why the hell she went off on her own like that.

But more excited for her though, is Bernadette. She wishes Helen had told her she was going back to Cabrini Green, but she had some good news, after the attack, they were able to salvage her camera and the photos she took. Both their first outing to Cabrini Green and her second solo trip, though some of the other photos had been destroyed on account of the damage to the camera. She also takes this time to inform her partner that her story made the papers, and because of it, and the story mentioning their research paper. There are now several papers interested in the story when these two are done writing it, so now these two college ladies will be getting their paper published. It’s a dream come true for both and they make plans outside the campus to meet up that night and begin writing together.

Helen is on top of the world and headed to her car, bruised and sore, but happy as a clam.

That is until she hears a deep bass filled voice of an angel call out to her in the parking lot. It’s the Candyman. The real one. He calls out her name again in an almost melody, “Yes?” she ask turning to face the man she can’t exactly make out the face or features of. “I came for you.” She begins to tense up, but again like at the bathroom she tries to hold her fear. “Do I know you?” the man tilts his head slightly while gazing over herm “No, But you doubted me.”

He begins approaching her and we finally see his face. She recognizes it though she’s never seen him before. The painting of the face on the wall. “You were not content with the stories, so I was obliged to come…be my victim” With that he extends his hands from his sides. His right hand missing, a blood soaked stump with a hook driven through its center, nails dug into his skin holding it in place. Bee’s buzzing around his body. Helen is falling into a haze as he approaches and continues speaking out almost seductively to her. “I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom. Without these things, I am nothing. So now, I must shed innocent blood. Come with me.” With that Helen blacks out, only to awaken to the sound of bees in her head, and a woman screaming. As she wakes from her sleep. She finds herself on the bathroom floor, her coat laid over her like a blanket. She sits up and immediately notices her clothes are soaked in blood. She’s laying in a pool of blood but none of it is hers. She hears the woman in the next room screaming her head off more and more. She exits the bathroom to discover a truly grizzly site. On the floor at her feet outside the bathroom is the body of a large dog, its head severed completely. Blood soaking the entire room, and covering the baby bed in the rooms far corner. The woman screaming was Anne-Mary, who’s grabbing at and shaking the empty baby bed, screaming for her baby. As Helen emerges, Anne-Mary turns to her and immediately cries out she’s a murderer. Shouting at unseen figures  “She’s here! She’s here! HELP ME!” With that Anne-Marie lunges at Helen and the two are struggling. Anne-Marie is kicking and clawing at Helen, who is trying to defend herself, doing the worst but only thing she could in the situation. She reaches for a nearby item to defend herself. Finding a meat cleaver and slashes out at Anne-Marie. Slicing into the womans arm. Helen immediately realizing she she’s done tries to back down and defensively put her hands out telling Anne-Marie to stop. But Anne-Marie is right back after her and once more gets caught by the meat cleaver in Helens hands.

Just then the front door is kicked in and cops immediately fill the room. Helen is arrested and whisked off by the cops. Greeting Helen to something she never thought she’d go through. A strip search, as a female officer instructs her with no sympathy to strip out of her clothes one item at a time, while covered head to toe in blood. She shakily ask the officer for her one phone call. Deciding to call her hubby. Surely he will save her from this nightmare.

But no one is home. Hubby does not answer and her image of her balding knight in shimmering armor vanishes. Where oh where could her hubby be. You know. We ALL know.

SO.

How do things look for Helen, a woman who woke up in another ladies apartment covered in blood, holding a clever which officers saw her slashing out at the other woman, with a child missing and the woman’s dog decapitated?

Surprisingly not good. Not good at all.

OF COURSE IT ISN’T LOOKING GOOD! SHE WAS BATHED IN FREAKIN BLOOD!

She tries remaining calm but the chief investigator is not having it. It’s the same man who helped her when they had her identify the man who beat her. Only now she’s on the other end of the table with this man and he’s not giving her one dixie cup of sympathy.

She is placed under arrest and kept in isolation. However the next day Trevor shows up with a high priced attorney, and she is out on bail. But of course she is.

She is once again home, with all her comforts. Taking a much needed soak in the tub. Hubby is checking in on her, and not saying a word as far as his wife possibly having murdered a huge dog and stolen a woman’s child.

But Helen does have a question for him, like oh. Where the hell was he when she called him covered in blood being strip searched and not answering the phone when he was supposed to be home and could’ve saved her being humiliated and kept there over night?

“Oh, I was dead asleep, I thought you were with Bernadette.”

That is the most convincing answer of all time, but Helen has a lot to deal with. Like the fact she is facing possibly child murder, child kidnapping, breaking and entering, killing an animal, assaulting a woman with intent to commit murder. You know. Basic stuff.

So with little else to do as she is left alone in the house, and her hubby is off to work. She begins going through her slides finally. Looking for something, what? Who knows. What she does find though, oddly enough. Is an image she took of herself and the bathroom mirror in the dilapidated apartment. Just visible in the mirrors reflection, is the faintest outline of Candyman, staring at her.

She moves to the bathroom to take something for a headache she feels coming on. Only to have Candyman’s hooked hand shoot out from the medicine cabinet. She takes off running down the hallway, but he’s already there. Appearing in front of her. She faces him and he embraces her once more. Caressing her neck with his hook hand, the tip piercing her flesh. “I have the child. Allow me to take you or he will die in your place. Your disbelief destroyed the faith of my congregation. Without them, I am nothing, so I was obliged to come. And now I must kill you.”, with that she collapses to the floor, hearing her friend Bernadette outside, knocking on her door. Trying to warn her. Only the more Helen cries out, the more compelled she is to enter the room.

As she does, the door slams shut behind her, and she stares up into the face of Candyman. Who holds up his hooked hand, moments before we hear him do, exactly as he is known to do. Spliting her open from groin to throat.

Trevor comes home, discovering his wife on the floor, shirt once more covered in blood, and a kitchen knife in her hand, moaning and rolling her head on the ground before passing out. Once she fully recovers, she finds herself being sedated and handcuffed. She bols from the bed before the medication can take hold fully, and races around the house calling out to her husband.

Only to find a nightmare laid out at her feet. Her friends body split open on the floor of her apartment. Eyes empty staring forever in a look of deep fear. Both Trevor and the detective stare at her in shock before the officers detain her once more and she is being whisked away to a hospital. Husband at her side, as far as they will allow him to go with her. She calls out to him before going weak once more. She is moved to a secure padded room, rolled from a gurney, onto a bed with restraints. Ankles and wrist secured they leave her alone, as she kicks and screams begging them not to leave her, that she can’t defend herself like this.

The moment they leave, she’s visited by the only man who cares to see her. The Candyman. Floating above her  and offering a charming gaze, “What do the good know? Except what the bad teach them by their excesses” Helen in a daze murmurs out calling him a murderer, he simply smiles and draws his arms into his chest. “Allow me at least a kiss. Just one exquisite kiss.”, As he lowers on top of her she begins screaming for help. Orderlies file into the room and begin again to sedate her. All as she screams at them that he’s in the room, he’s under the bed. But no one is in there with her. As she passes out screaming for help crying. They release her and exit the room.

The real shock is yet to come though, I know right. On top of everything else that’s happened so far?

After that one night. She is being strapped into a wheel chair and brought to see the head doctor of the hospital, Dr. Burke(Stanley DeSantis) Who informs her that she’s been kept there for a month now under their care. She’s had no idea she was there that long. Unable to recall any of the past days in the hospital. No explanation what so ever is given and she’s left to assume she was in a constant daze. Either sedated, or by Candyman’s magic. She tries to plead with the doctor, as gently as she can. That she is not in any way capable of what they think she did, that she could never kill someone, or take a child. But he doesn’t care. She’s being prosecuted and all evidence points directly to her. So she does the only thing she can think of. “I can prove it to you, I can summon the killer.”, so the doctor leans forward and ask her to do so. With that, Helen turns to a nearby mirror in the doctors office and says the name five times.

Of course Candyman will answer her call. It’s what he’s wanted, her to reach out to him and so she has. Only as he does. He has to make it a grand entrance. Immediately Dr. Burke begins spitting out blood and gurgling out as Candyman appears behind him and is dragging his hook through the man, from ass to neck. Laying the body out on the desk. “You are mine now, Tonight our congregation shall witness a new miracle.” With that he flies out the window, and Helen is making an escape from the hospital.

All of which can only look good on her resume by this point.

SO. You’ve been locked up in a mental hospital, framed for murdering your bestie, killing a dog, kidnapping a child, and for a month no one you know has bothered to check on you because they all assumed your ass was going away for good. Where do you go from here?

HOME!

Yes. Helen is going home, back to her always loving, always loyal, always there husband Trevor the faithful. Where he will embrace her, welcome her back and tell her everything will be peaches and cream.

If you honestly believe that, bless your heart.

OF COURSE HE ISN’T LOYAL! His ass has already begun moving on. Him and his blonde student, the girl he told her not to worry about, are redecorating the house. She’s decided to paint the house…pink. Good holy hell why salmon pink.

Helen is, needless to say. Not amused seeing her and Trevors home like this. She is, especially not at all the slightest amused, that Trevor has been laying his pipe in the new watering hole on a daily basis.

Naturally of course Stacey(Carolyn Lowery) is not pleased with the sight of her former rival and older boyfriends former belly warmer psychotic wife. She’s actually rather terrified. Both because the woman supposedly killed people, and because that same woman who she disrespected by never once looking her in the eyes or acknowledging her while she was banging her husband is now in her former home and fully aware the situation. Pluss you know, Blondes in horror films. They don’t last.

Thankfully though Helen is more mad at Trevor. One, because he cheated on her. Two because he lied about the cheating and she could’ve respected him had he not lied. But third, and most importantly. He abandoned her in that hospital, knowing she’d never get out and decided to move his secret affair out into the open and write her off and out of his life, all in a months time.

Does she kill him? She does far worse. She judges him. He now knows that she knows, and she knows now Stacey knows, and there is a large exchange of knowing going on and Helen is okay with this. She scares the new girl, and she scares her cheating husband. She throws paint on their wall deciding to help out, tells them she hates the color scheme, likely tells Stacey she’s fat and has a flat ass, and heads out, two middle fingers in the air. She’s got a date with the Candyman.

He'd made an offer to her earlier. For Helen to take the childs place and be by his side. She’s going to take it. Even if it means her dying. She will do at least one good thing and return the baby to its mother.

With that she’s off to Cabrini Green and dancing with the Candyman as he enchants her, She sees the child and reminds him their deal, even as he lays her down on the stone slab he laid on moments earlier, “The pain, I can assure you, will be exquisite. As for our deaths, there is nothing to fear. Our names will be written on a thousand walls. Our crimes told and retold by our faithful believers. We shall die together in front of their very eyes and give them something to be haunted by. Come with me and be immortal.”, as the last words are spoken, he draws her up to him, and as bees pour out of his mouth the two share a lovers kiss. And yes, He was stung once. I believe.

Man is covered chest to face in bees and is totally chill. Tony Todd is a legend.

The stage is now set. She awakens on the stone slab he left her, now alone in the room, all except for a hook, which she grabs and takes with her. Ready to exit the room and seek the two out. But not before glancing over the art on the wall. Done not by the neighborhood. But by himself. On the walls is depicted his story. The woman he loved and painted, the punishment placed on him by the people and her father, and we see the woman whos portrait he painted. Seeing it looked just like her, and with that he speaks once more to her, the words written on the wall for her. “It was always you, Helen. It was always you.”

She leaves the room at last and begins following the cries of baby Anthony, who by the way was played by twin sisters, Lanesha and Latesha Martin. Always thought that was pretty cool honestly.

As Helen makes her way outside the building. She finds herself at the large bonfire. The baby buried within. She begins tossing trash aside and makes her way into its center, finally finding little baby Anthony.

As she entered the bonfire though, someone nearby saw. Not her specifically. Just a hook, vanishing into the large wooden pile, Jake. He stares off and quietly whispers out his “He’s here.” He goes and quickly gathers the other neighbors, shouting out to all of them, “I saw him! He’s in there, I saw him!” as they all gather, they begin dousing the pile in gasoline, and soon a torch is lit and tossed into the pile.

Helen has been betrayed. Candyman is already there and holds Helen to him, not letting her go. As he talks to her of their death and how soon their bones will turn to ash, he begins kissing her neck sweetly. But Helen is not about to give up. She grabs a piece of flaming wood and jams it into his chest. Fighting free and shielding the baby against herself.

She begins crawling through the large bonfire as the fire rages around her, wood collapsing across her body. But she struggles with all she has to make it through and out into the open. The crowd watching in shock and horror as they see Helen emerge, her blonde hair streaked in fire as is her back. A nearby couple toss a coat over her. Her scalp is burned down to the bone, and with her last breath Helen gazes out at nearby Anne-Marie and holds out baby Anthony to her. The shocked mother takes her son from the arms of the woman she believed had taken her child and killed him, only to thank her now, as she dies, and Candyman screams out in agony. As the crowd watches the fire blaze, they make out the very distinct figure, of a cloaked man with a hook as he burns.

With that, we find ourselves now at Helens funeral. Attended by her former husband and his new pal Stacey, as well as his professor and her hated rival Purcell. Because honestly. When you die, who else would you want at your funeral other than the people you absolutely hate AND the woman banging your partner.

Thankfully though, Helen has friends coming to pay their respect. The occupants of Cabrini Green are making a march to her grave and paying final respects. Jake even going as far as dropping onto her casket, the Candymans burnt hook.

Back home, Trevor mourns his wife from the bathroom, while his VERY braless new wife in training tries to coax him out and help her with dinner. But he tells her he will be there in a few minutes. Which upsets her, and she huffs off to the kitchen, bouncing as freely as she can and

Fine call me a damn pig but 4k. 4k does things man. I never saw it before in previous cuts, or noticed it I guess. But thanks to 4k I scared my cat off my desk watching this when I saw Stacey by the bathroom door in her sheer white top and saw for the first time her very, very predominant nipples and announced, probably a bit louder than I should have, “GODDAMN THOSE TITTIES! THOOOSE ARE TITTAYS!”

I’m a child, I’m a grown ass adult and I know. I know.

Well Stacy isn’t too thrilled with her boyfriend being a broken man. Trevor cries quietly and can’t help but stare at himself in the mirror thinking how horrible of a man he was, and is. So he cries out her name, “Oh Helen..god Helen…Helen. Oooh Helen.” And you guessed it, once more for good luck he says her name, and with that. His beloved wife is back from the grave. Still very much burned, looking like Mrs Krueger. With a hook held in her hand. “What’s the matter Trevor? Scared of something?” And with that, she finally takes out her anger on the man and splits him from groin to neck. Seeming to have much more trouble around the neck area, and quick work in the groin. With that, our film comes to its end. But not before one last beautiful piece of art is being revealed. A new addition by the residents of Cabrini Green in what was the inner sanctum of the Candyman. A mural depicting Helen, with fire blonde hair, looking like a saint, coming through a large fire, surrounded by people below. And with that. Our film concludes.

The End.

I never lose one ounce of love for this movie. No matter how many years it’s been between watches. Tony Todd is stunning in this film, the man is always a joy to watch and whenever his name appears on films, I look forward to seeing him again, and thanks to Twitter I can say the man has great taste in music.  This was one Clive Barker story I never managed to read at the time. But as soon as I saw the preview and his name attached. I had to see it.

The film was far beyond my years. I was 12 when it came out, and a lot of the film and its messages did go over my head. It wasn’t at all what I’d expected, it was a surprisingly deep story for me, when I was expecting just straight out horror, like Hellraiser or something like Nightbreed. Which it does have some elements of, sure. But it was so different and new for me. I loved the character, I felt bad for him and what he’d gone through, then with Helen and her loss. The film was like a tragic play, hell I was 12 when it came out and it was the third horror film I’d seen where I felt sympathy for what was supposed to be the monster of the film.

It wasn’t until I was older that I began to catch the -whole- story, understood the violence, the characters. That just made it even more of a film I loved. The older I’ve gotten, the different versions they’ve released. It never changes. I appreciate it more and more, I love it for all that it is and what it has to say. The acting was well done, the characters themselves believable, and the mythos that came from it, the modern fable surrounding Candyman. It’s just beautifully tragic and sadly surprising that we didn’t have more stories like that. But somehow, oddly for me. I feel I appreciate it more for being so rare for its time, and then to find out years later, a direct sequel, and reboot would be made. So many films that get this treatment have worried me.

This one excited me. I loved the character and story so much, I looked forward to what they’d do with It. I was glad to be in the dark about a lot of the films plot and honestly I didn’t care that I knew nothing about it. I only saw the people who’d be involved with writing, producing and directing it and I looked forward to it. The same way I had been when NOPE got its first teaser.

Not many films at all get me that excited.

But the thought of having more Candyman in the world. Seeing the character again. That was a love I’m glad I found at 12.

Even if you look at the movie as just a horror story. It’s a thing to behold. You have a majestic being who kills in what it feels is right or wrong. Never gray. Helen didn’t believe in him, and the moment she began taking away from his story, what gave him strength and the community feared, telling stories about him. He came to prove to her he existed, in the most harshest of lessons. Innocent people died, but as he said. What is blood if not for shedding. He was innocent when his life was taken from him. All is made fair.

Hell even Clive Barker, who is not entirely a fan of his film adaptations really adores this films telling of the story. That should say something, and just like he’d said of Hellraiser as well. The music was something he fell in love with.

Which of course means, it is time.

The Music.

Phillip Glass. This man.

He has scored many a film and television show. But none of them for me compare to this masterpiece. I do not use that term lightly. It is a truly beautiful haunting eerie and moving score. From its simple, playful “Music Box”, a piece that floats through a majority of the tragically short score, literally just under 34 minutes long. That one piece of music became the voice of the film. It’s stuck in my head since the first time hearing it, and has never left. I hear it and I have to find its source. It was even used in the 2021 film and somehow improved on even more. Which I already though unimaginable as the track “Helen’s Theme’ is already a beautiful fully orchestrated version of the music box track. It just expands on it and blossoms into something that sounds almost unbelonging in the film it was made for. But it gives so much more to the film.

You want to talk about a force in music, “Face To Razor” is about as bold a statement as a song can make in a film. Its grand scales and commanding organ, with light touch of keys while a chorus carries the song forward. The thing is pure bliss to the ears.

It’s one of the longer tracks on the entire score and I’m thankful for it. It just escalates like a classic gothic horror and keeps climbing, just when you think you’ve reached the final set of stairs. It just pushes you that much further off until finally going over.

It’s beautiful, haunting and creepy. All in one and the man….kudos to Phillip Glass on creating something that made me wake my ass up early in the morning to grab on vinyl an hour before it was on sale, just to make sure I would have it.

This was something I didn’t need to have. This was something I just needed period.

There are so few tracks, but so many reasons for each to stand out. Even the named “Floating Candyman”, the piece again just sounds completely removed somehow from the score and something you’d expect in a different movie. But is strangely so perfect and carries the weight of the films tone and story.

It’s not really by accident that I leave the menu for this movie going on my bluray player. It just continues to loop the end credits song “It was Always You, Helen.”

That track, is why this film is on this list of film scores. It’s why it was so hard for me to pick between this film and the newer one. Because it’s just so eternally beautiful, and so tied to my memory of this character.

In fact that’s why the score is so perfect. When you think of horror film characters. Freddy, Jason, Myers. They all have their theme. They all have this menacing sound that accompanies them. Like the Shark in Jaws, it lets us know the creature is here and to be fearful. To be ready for its attack.

For Candyman. His music is like a parade of angelic trumpets announcing his arrival in a grand gesture. Never in a tone or horror. It’s like an infinite sadness, a melancholy of praise. It’s just. Yeah. Beautiful.

I really am at a crossroad. Even wrapping this up, I really want to follow it up with a review of the 2021 film and its music. Even AFTER reviewing the film and explaining why I chose it.

Seriously the movie is absolutely amazing and heartbreaking. The music is absolutely beautiful and in every way the perfect companion to this film. Honestly the two should be listened and watched back to back.

The fact I want to keep going and start into the 2021 film, that says a lot for the film and especially its score. It’s uncanny and the work that Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe did is just. Its another world. 

But a choice was made! We must stand by our choice and I do. I must.

Please watch both the 1992 film and 2021. Enjoy the music of both, and until tomorrow, never trust someone who can’t look you in the eyes, and grinds up on your man.