STACK #205 Nov 2021

FILM FEATURE

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In Candyman , filmmaker Jordan Peele confronts the horror lurking within the American psyche. Words Gill Pringle U ndoubtedly one of the scariest horror films released this year – in a bumper 12 months where horror has made a huge revisiting Rose’s original Chicago housing project of Cabrini-Green where locals still tell ghost stories about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. URBAN LEGEND

Candyman director smashes the glass ceiling When the cinema release of Candyman knocked Free Guy off the top of the box office, it marked an auspicipous first for the movie industry: it made Nia DaCosta the first black female director to make the top of the box office. DaCosta is set for a repeat, as she's helming 2022's eagerly anticipated The Marvels , the sequel to 2019's Captain Marvel . Pictured above: Nia DaCosta and Yahya Abdul- Mateen II in Candyman .

film – a movie for me. So, I wanted to make a movie that looked at this ghost story from a Black perspective.” In today’s iteration, Abdul-Mateen’s artist Anthony effortlessly slips into a role similar to that of Madsen’s Helen Lyle. With his painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini-Green old-timer (played by Ma Rainey’s Colman Domingo) exposes him to the horrific, true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore the story's macabre details in his studio as fresh inspiration for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifying wave of violence. While the violence is more disturbing than it is gratuitous, DaCosta walks a fine tightrope. “It was a balancing act, because I love gore but I think it has to have its place," he says. "So, most of the gore and body horror actually happens to characters we care about, as opposed to throw- away slasher stuff. But we also wanted those moments of the slasher to be moments where you feel them,” says the director ,who has since helmed the highly anticipated MCU film The Marvels – a sequel to Captain Marvel . “But it’s also a film that speaks directly to this moment in Black life and culture," he continues. "On one level, the character of Candyman is a myth and a monster, but as we know, America creates monsters out of Black men all the time. I was interested in telling the truth about the pain at the centre of Black life in America, but also to shine a light on the hope and power of Black creativity and community, too.”

comeback – Candyman offers a fresh take on Bernard Rose’s blood-chilling 1992 cult classic of the same name. For the first time in a major American horror film, a Black man was cast as its titular character and antagonist; a movie “monster” unlike any that had existed in Western pop culture before, becoming a surprise box office hit and spawning two sequels. A teenaged Jordan Peele

It’s now a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, as visual artist Anthony McCoy (Emmy winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen; Watchmen, Us ) and his partner, gallery director Brianna (Teyonah Parris; WandaVision, If Beale Street Could Talk ), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials. What could possibly go wrong? Based on Clive Barker’s short story The Forbidden , Rose’s original Candyman starred Virginia Madsen as a Chicago graduate student completing a thesis on urban legends and folklore, leading her to the legend of the “Candyman" – the ghost of an artist and son of a slave, murdered for his relationship with the daughter of a wealthy white man. For all its admirable qualities, the 1992 film was also problematic. Chief

Jordan is so good about bringing social issues to the fore in the horror genre

was paying close attention as he nurtured an early love of horror, the Oscar-winner later going on to direct social commentary horror films Get Out and Us. Early in the process of resurrecting Candyman for a new generation, Peele and his co-producers

resolved to bring in a fresh new voice to direct the film; Nia DaCosta landed on their radar after she wrote and directed 2018 crime western Little Woods , starring Lily James and Tessa Thompson. “I’m a huge fan of Jordan’s and I also loved the original Candyman film," DaCosta tells STACK . "I just wanted to be involved, and thankfully, after my pitch to Jordan, it all worked out. “Jordan is so good about bringing social issues to the fore in the horror genre. We connected on the way we view horror, and our love of horror: breaking down what horror is, how it’s represented, what it means, and why it’s important,” she explains. Not wishing to mess with a good thing, DaCosta returns to the scene of the crime,

among its shortcomings were the unanswered question of why a Black man who had been the victim of white violence was now terrorizing a Black community, and why a white woman was at the centre of its story. “The original film explored the legend of Candyman through Helen’s perspective,” Peele says. “But that movie struck me like a Black

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