Trick or Trailers: Candyman (2021)

In a different world, we would have already seen director Nia DaCosta's Candyman remake by now. It was originally meant to premiere in June, then was pushed to this October, and now is scheduled to hit theaters in August of next year. Will the world be in a better - or at least a more normal - place by then? Will theaters be busy again with new releases? We'll see. As we know, everything is so tenuous and uncertain the these days.  

When it comes to Candyman, all we have for now is this effective trailer:    

 

I'll admit, I was highly skeptical of a Candyman remake or reboot (although I guess this is actually more of a sequel of sorts) but this trailer immediately turned me around on that. 

Candyman, as a franchise, always had a tough time replicating the success of Bernard Rose's original. Both 1995's Farewell to the Flesh or 1999's Day of the Dead were weak follow-ups so the prospect of a new Candyman seemed likely to be yet another so-so entry. And, for all we know, it still might be. 

But hey, you gotta say the trailer looks extremely promising, right? 

Sure, that's what trailers do - convince us to part with our money for the cost of a ticket. Even when they have to deceive us about the movie in question. But I always like to take the optimistic view. No matter how many times I get burned by a horror trailer, it doesn't stop me from getting excited all over again for another new movie. 

At this point, of course, the idea of getting excited for a new movie in the theaters seems like something of a distant memory. There's so much real tragedy attached to the pandemic that whining about the lack of movies on the big screen is just a trivial concern but yet it's these trivial distractions in our lives, those reliable sources of escapism, that are often able to buoy our spirits in tough times. 

I know that a lot of people are happy streaming and maybe for them not going to the movies on a regular basis doesn't feel like much of a loss. But to me it does. Even if these delayed movies, like Candyman, were released to streaming, it just wouldn't be the same for me. 

I like the ritual of going to the theater, I like the experience of seeing a movie on a big screen, with a crowd. Without it, life feels a bit, well, empty. 

Whether or not I end up liking the new Candyman, if I do see it on the big screen, I know I will consider the experience to be a sweet one. 

Trick or Trailers: Candyman (1992)

As much as I love teen slashers, my hopes always get up a little higher for a horror movie when I see a trailer that features real adults in it. Seeing Virginia Madsen (as well as Kasi Lemmons, who had been Jodie Foster's fellow FBI agent in The Silence of the Lambs just the year before) in the Candyman trailer had me feeling early on that this was going to be a horror movie with something more to it. It was a rare treat in '92 to see a horror film centered on grown-ups - just as it is today.

Even though this was an adaptation of Clive Barker's short story "The Forbidden", this trailer makes no mention of that. When something is based on anything by Stephen King, even if it's just a novella or short story, the marketing makes sure everyone knows it.

Then again, in 1992 advertising a film as a Barker adaptation was anything but a safe bet. Barker himself had done the only decent one to date - 1987's Hellraiser - and everything else had been much, much less impressive. Candyman, though, did things right.

Director Bernard Rose had done the outstanding dark fantasy Paperhouse (1988) prior to this, a film described as "the thinking man's Nightmare on Elm Street" and Candyman was similarly smart and scary.

Released in the US on October 16th, 1992, Candyman became a sleeper hit. Despite that, and despite the fact that it even spawned a couple of sequels, I get the feeling it's become a little overlooked these days. If you bring it up, everyone agrees for the most part that it was great, arguably a classic even. But it seems to be one of those movies that isn't that celebrated today. Last year was its twentieth anniversary and I don't recall anything in the horror press about it and there's been no special edition DVDs as far as I know.

Things remain strangely quiet on the Candyman front for some reason. Why is that? I don't know. Maybe the movie was just so effective, people still think they're better off just not saying his name. Or, more likely, they're just worried that talking about it too much will result in some studio executive getting the bright idea to remake it.