Anyone else find themselves stuck in a dark bathroom at a sleepover in the early 90’s repeating the name Candyman five times while staring into the mirror to prove that he wasn’t real? Fun times! Photo courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.
Starting August 27th, 2021 get ready to relive all those repressed Candyman nightmares. Written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, and Nia DaCosta (who also directs) the new Candyman is a direct sequel to the 1992 movie and the fourth film in the series, per Wikipedia. The latest installment stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Anthony McCoy, Teyonah Parris as Brianna Cartwright, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Troy Cartwright with Tony Todd and Vanessa Estelle Williams from the original film.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Anthony McCoy photo courtesy of GameSpot
Per Universal Pictures, the new storyline goes a little something like this:
“For as long as the residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In the present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, a visual artist named Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, an art gallery director named Brianna Cartwright, moved into a luxurious loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by the upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind the Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.”
That’ll do.
Editor’s note. The release date for Candyman was pushed back several times, thanks to the global pandemic with October 16th, 2020 being one of them. Photo courtesy of IMDb.