The Candyman Movies Ranked From Worst To Best
"Candyman" began its life in 1985 as a short story called "The Forbidden," originally published in Clive Barker's "Books of Blood, Vol. 5" (called "In the Flesh" in the United States). "The Forbidden" was set in Barker's hometown of Liverpool, specifically at a run-down building called the Spector Street estate, where a grad student named Helen went to photograph images of graffiti and poverty. While there, she encountered a mysterious monster the Candyman, a creature she assumed was merely an urban myth. The Candyman is covered in bees and sports a hook for a hand. Its origins are unknown.
In 1992, filmmaker Bernard Rose adapted "The Forbidden" into the feature film "Candyman," one of the more celebrated horror films of its decade. Helen was played by Virginia Madsen, and the mysterious Candyman was played by a menacing Tony Todd. Rose transposed the location from Liverpool to the Cabrini-Green housing projects in Chicago. Cabrini-Green is often cited as one of the biggest housing failures in modern urban history, given how poorly it was managed and how cheaply the buildings were constructed. Rose extracted horror from the legitimate racial injustice surrounding the infamous projects,
Rose also transformed the Candyman into a vengeful spirit. In the movie, Candyman is the ghost of a former slave, murdered by a white mob for the temerity of having a child with a white woman. He now drifts through human consciousness as a freelance distributor of righteous Black wrath. Theses have been written about the racial politics of "Candyman."
The first film was striking and scary enough to warrant three sequels, ranging in quality from interesting to downright terrible. Some explore the original's politics. Others do not.
4. Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999)
Turi Meyer's 1999 sequel "Candyman 3: Day of the Dead" is not just a bad "Candyman" movie. It's merely a bad movie. Shot on the cheap, poorly written, and boasting some pretty terrible performances, "Day of the Dead" is a mishmash of horror trends, dull slasher set pieces, and a crime plot that one can barely follow.
According to the mythos of the "Candyman" movies, the title monster was once a man named Daniel Robitaille, a talented painter hired to paint a wealthy woman's portrait in the 19th century. He and his subject fell in love and had an affair. The local Southern racists were horrified by the affair, and assaulted Robitaille, cutting off his hand and coating him with honey so bees might sting him, all before setting him on fire. The plot of "Day of the Dead" surrounds the other portraits Robitaille painted, and a group of vicious gangsters who want to steal them for impish Satanic rites. The film is set in the year 2023 (25 years after "Farewell to the Flesh") and the main character, played by Donna D'Errico, is the adult daughter of Annie (Kelly Rowan), the protagonist from the previous film.
Robert O'Reilly, known to Trekkies as Gowron, appears as a cop, and there is a small role for the luminous Rena Riffel, director of "Showgirls 2: Penny's From Heaven." Overall, however, the film is straight-up shlock, adding nothing to the "Candyman" myth, instead focusing on gore and boobs.
There's a place in cinema for gore and boobs, of course, but the "Candyman" movies are classier and more intelligent than that.
3. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995)
Set in New Orleans in 1998, Bill Condon's 1995 film "Farewell to the Flesh" sees the Candyman (Todd) stalking a woman named Annie (the aforementioned Rowan) through the streets of Mardi Gras. A large portion of "Farewell to the Flesh" is devoted to Candyman's backstory, and it's here that we learn a lot of the specifics of Daniel Robitaille and his tragic murder. It's also in "Farewell to the Flesh" that we get the sense that Candyman will never die, so long as the urban legend continues to be whispered among the people. There will be a Candyman as long as people are afraid. This idea is hinted at in "Day of the Dead," but it is much more gracefully communicated here.
It's stated pretty explicitly in "Farewell to the Flesh" that Annie is the reincarnation of Daniel Robitaille's former lover, and a good deal of the plot is devoted to Annie's investigation of the matter, as the ghostly Candyman is now drawn to her. Condon has a better sense of mood and pacing and makes the intergenerational injustice of Daniel Robitaille's death the centerpiece of the series. "Farewell to the Flesh" isn't a top-tier horror movie, but one can do far worse.
"Farewell" seems to have come at a time when horror was getting self-reflexive, having come out near films like "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," "In the Mouth of Madness," and "Scream." Condon's film would make a good double feature with any of those.
2. Candyman (2021)
Nia DaCosta's 2021 sequel was also called "Candyman," and it was co-written by Jordan Peele, who seemed keen to cram as many ideas as he could into the script, leaving DaCosta to make sense of a general jumble of plots and rules. The most recent "Candyman" takes the action back to Cabrini-Green in the year 2019 (what is up with the chronology of these films?) where the project has been rebuilt and gentrified. The plot follows a struggling artist named Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who becomes increasingly obsessed with the Candyman legend as it had been researched by Helen in the first "Candyman." In so doing, however, Anthony becomes seemingly possessed. We learn later that Anthony was the baby rescued from a burning pyre in the first "Candyman," now grown.
The 2021 "Candyman" also adds a flashback to 1977 where a homeless man, having a hook for a hand, was burned alive. Tapping into the bee imagery, it is eventually revealed that Candyman isn't merely a vengeful ghost or an urban legend, but a widespread force of racial resentment that has taken many forms over the centuries. Wherever Black people are oppressed, the Candyman emerges to do violence.
The plot is difficult to follow, and a lot of the film's violent set pieces don't connect with anything, but DaCosta still managed to make a fascinating and scary horror film that tackled the original film's racial politics, while also expanding on them. It's more like 100 half-ideas than one whole one, but that makes for a important and stirring watch.
1. Candyman (1992)
The original is still the best. Bernard Rose managed to construct a ghost story that feels like a half-remembered dream. Virginia Madsen was actually hypnotized for the scene where she saw the Candyman for the first time, and audience members might be able to relate. Philip Glass' tinkling, repetitive score is elegant and terrifying all at once. Todd created a horror movie monster performance for the ages. Famously, Todd had to be covered with bees several times throughout "Candyman," and negotiated to get an extra $1,000 on his paycheck for every sting he received.
Rose also handles the film's racial themes well, as well as the clunky allyship from a white woman who only looks at the Black community as the means to write a college thesis. What begins as an insensitive cultural study soon turns into a living nightmare. The hate and chaos of Cabrini-Green come to literal life.
Some might note that the rules of Candyman's ghosliness don't make sense. He'll appear behind you if you say his name five times into a mirror (we had a similar legend growing up, only it was "Bloody Mary," and you had to say it 30 times). Candyman also seems to have a physical lair, though, where he stashes a baby late in the film. Does he have a physical form or not? It's also implied that Helen might be a reincarnated soul with a connection to Candyman, but that's not explored fully, nor does it play into the plot at large.
Those inconsistencies, however, only add to the dreamlike quality of the movie. It's a dizzying swirl of fear and horror and thought and crumbling urban planning. "Candyman" is pretty damn impeccable.