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Chad
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Posted: April 28, 2004 at 12:00am
Helen and Bernadette are working on a college thesis dealing with urban legends and folklore, and one of their main topics is the legend of Candyman. Rumor has it that if you say his name five times into the mirror, he'll appear behind you and gut you with a hook. Of course, everyone has a friend of a brother's room-mate who knew someone it happened to, but there's no real solid proof of it. That's basically what our two ladies are doing, trying to find some concrete facts about everything. They eventually track down some news of a woman who was killed in the ghetto projects (Cabrini Green in Chicago), supposedly by Candyman. As they're investigating all this, they find that there's some empty rooms behind the walls of the apartments, which are separated only by a thin wall. As the story unfolds, Helen thinks it's all a joke, so in jest, she says Candyman's name five times in the mirror.... but nothing happens. Some more investigating is done, and come to find out, a local gang leader has been using the Candyman name to scare people in the project... but is that it? After the gang leader is busted, Helen starts having visits from another guy, who has a habit of killing everybody around her...
This movie was based on the short story entitled "The Forbidden" by Clive Barker. Now, I've never read that story, so I can't compare the adaptation of this movie, but I do know the movie itself was quite nicely done. It had a very nice storyline going for it, loosely based on a real urban legend (any of you kids heard of Bloody Mary?), so that made it all the more interesting going in. It kept a great flow going, as it never got boring even though there were quite a few strictly dialogue scenes. There was always something interesting going on, even in what could have been slow scenes, so some more credit is to be given there.
The Candyman himself (Tony Todd) was great in his role, as he tends to be in all his movies. It seems as though the man can't do a shitty job regardless of what he's stuck in, and he sure helped bring some life to the character. Helen (Virginia Madsen) was pretty good in most of her scenes, though there were a few where she just irked me... especially her pop-out scene during the first investigation at Cabrini Green, which I'm sure you'll notice when viewing this movie. The rest of the cast really doesn't have too much on-screen time; there's quite a few other characters in the movie, but each of them only has a few minutes of time. Most of the movie is entirely Helen and / or Candyman, which again, is a good thing... the rest of the cast was pretty bland in my opinion, especially Helen's husband Trevor (Xander Berkeley).
Over on the gore side of things, everything was done nicely.... that is, what was shown of it. You'd think that with the premise of the movie, we'd have gore galore, but surprisingly, this is not the case. The body count is a grand total of two (three if you count the quick crime-scene flashback), but each of these were excellent. The dog scene was an exceptionally good one, very graphic and well done.
Nice little movie, in my oh-so-humble opinion. It scared the shit out of a lot of people when it was released, and still does to this day. I can definitely see why, as the storyline is quite close to some urban legends that everybody has heard, and it's fantastically done. 10/10 would be the final verdict.
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bluemeanie
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Posted: October 22, 2005 at 12:11am
Very stylish horror film from Mr. Clive Barker. A horror film, a romance, a supernatural thriller all rolled into one, with Tony Todd giving an amazing performance. 8/10.
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Ginose
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Posted: December 31, 2005 at 11:09pm
Great movie, not as good as Clive Barker's other works (I.E. "Hellraiser"s 1-4... the others were crap though...). I didn't find it scary. But I did find it amazingly great... just stereo-typical horror.
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Tristan
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Posted: May 8, 2007 at 12:17pm
I HATED this movie. Simply hated it. I want my 95 minutes back. I did not enjoy a single minute of this, except the credits. And the 2, maybe 3 gore scenes which was just someone spitting blood, basically. For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would like this movie. Tony Todd is a fantastic actor, but even he couldn't pull this movie through. 3/10
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George Snow
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Posted: August 16, 2008 at 5:56am
I LOVE this movie. Virginia Madsen is HOT!!!!
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waxtadpole3657
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Posted: October 15, 2009 at 12:26am
I thought I'd seen this before, but it must have been one of the sequels. I just watched it on Netflix, and I loved it. Really really great atmosphere, and while there was quite a bit of gore, it didn't use the gore to scare/unsettle the viewer. I loved Chicago as the backdrop, too. I hear it's being remade. Blah. Oh, and Virginia Madsen has an amazing rack (at least in 1992 she did).
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