Candyman (1992) - Either
or
. I'll just say
for now.
*SPOILER WARNING*
When I first watched this, I felt some of its social commentary went over my head, but having read some reviews since then and having watched the recent film, I felt I had a decent understanding of what the film was going for. So yeah, I was looking forward to rewatching this. To my surprise though, its themes didn't come together for me with this rewatch and the character motivations felt kind of muddled and unclear in the end. I like the characterization of Candyman as a slasher of sorts who only kills people to make sure enough people believe in him, but the more I watched the second half, the more I found myself asking "How does any of this accomplish his goal?" The various murders he committed throughout the second half were all set up to make it look like Helen committed them, so how these killings were supposed to get people to believe in him again was beyond me. Then, when the film moved to the final act, his intentions suddenly changed to him destroying himself and making Helen into the new Candyman. And this is fine and all, but if that was actually his initial goal, why did he go through all that trouble in the second half when he likely had the power to kill Helen right away? I think the idea of a white person stealing an urban legend popular amongst black people is a good concept as it adds to the theme of black struggle, but Candyman's behavior/killing patterns were too random and shapeless for those themes to come together.
I'll give the film credit where it's due though as its strengths are quite plentiful. Firstly, while it's clear the film will be a horror film, I found it impressive how the changeover in the second half still came as a surprise and managed to change the tone without causing any dissonance in the process. Also, I'm not sure if the accounts of Virginia Madsen being hypnotized are true, but regardless of how the effect was achieved, the various close-up shots of her face looked terrific. Her forlorn and dazed expressions suited the film very well and were impressive to watch. I also enjoyed how the film didn't jump into the horror right away and took its time to introduce us to certain characters and provided enough time for the urban legend/settings to sink in. The early scenes at the Cabrini-Green Homes project, in particular, were rather memorable. Finally, the gore and the soundtrack were both great. Anyways, I don't know how much this reads as a positive review, but even though I elaborated a bit more on what I didn't like, I did enjoy the film. Again, the first half was very good and, issues aside, the second half its moments as well. I was just hoping for the film to come together better.
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