Candyman (1992)

Helen and her best friend Bernadette are two graduate students doing a Ph. D. thesis on… uh… the role of supernatural horror stories in a society with racial disparity? Her husband's best friend has also done a thesis on this exact same topic? How are we supposed to take Sociology degrees seriously?

They learn about the Candyman myth from a mixture of student interviews and newspaper clippings, and head down to Chicago's crime-ridden, graffiti-covered Cabrini-Green projects to investigate what seems to be ground zero for Candyman claims. The presentation of racial disparity is shockingly nuanced for a horror flick, focusing on the normal residents rather than criminals.

Candyman, the psychological concept, is the supernatural entity that butchers you in a dark bathroom when you chant its name five times. But also, quite uniquely and rather intriguingly, a curse on a particular housing project highlighting urban blight and racially motivated class inequality. Candyman, the guy, is an intensely nonfrightening dude in a trenchcoat who mutters repetitive plot explanations in a deep, booming voice. I don't know why they didn't spend a little more money on his fleshy hook hand.

Helen chants "Candyman" in her bathroom mirror five times for research, and Candyman trots around murdering everyone in her vicinity and pinning it on her. She's arrested and subsequently institutionalized, until Candyman butchers her psychiatrist. She finds she has nothing left to live for, so she gives herself over to be Candyman's immortalized-in-death partner. She has a last-minute change of heart and saves a baby from a bonfire instead.

There's this whole thing with bees. They have no purpose, there are just bees sometimes. They had this cool idea to have real bees come out of his mouth, but no reason to have bees come out of his mouth… so fuck it, there's bees, and they come right out of his mouth. It's a truly iconic shot, anyway.

Characters named Trevor are always jerks. Helen's husband, a jerk of a Trevor, chants "Helen" five times in the bathroom mirror, which doesn't really have the same ring to it, but it does get him disemboweled for his sins.

The L.A. Times called it Clive Barker's "worst film to date," which is patently absurd because this came after Nightbreed. The plot does have more holes than a person who has been hooked by the Candyman, and they probably could have trimmed a good twenty minutes off without losing anything, and they probably could have cut out literally all of Candyman's dialog, but there's nothing unenjoyable about it.

Candyman's great success did nothing for director Bernard Rose's career, nor any of the stars. Ted Raimi is very briefly featured in a flashback. The infamous Philip Glass did the soundtrack, which is not particularly good organ and choir music.