In First Candyman Trailer, Gentrification Is a Part of the Horror

Who can take the sunshine, sprinkle it with dew? The Candyman can! Oh, wait … different Candyman.

Produced by Academy Award Winner Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta (Little Woods), this modern incarnation of the 1992 classic horror film Candyman brings us back to a familiar setting but centers Black protagonists at the heart of the horror.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is Anthony McCoy, a photographer who is drawn to the Cabrini-Green public housing that is haunted by the Candyman. He creates an art piece around the subject (which is some gentrifier mentality, but go off, Black Manta), but by inviting people (mostly white people) to say Candyman’s name, he accidentally unleashes evil.

Just on the trailer alone, it looks amazing, and I’m looking so forward to seeing DaCosta’s work. She’s already proven herself to be an amazing director of tense moments, and this film already looks impeccably shot. There are plenty of references to the 1992 original, and I think that’s fitting because the original film feels very modern.

DaCosta shared in interviews that the film would share Peele’s existing thread of examining Black social issues with horror:

What was useful about working with Jordan is that he’s so good at bringing the social issues to the forefront in genre, especially horror. So that was already something that I knew was gonna happen. But the original Candyman also does that really well. What we were able to do, because 30 years has passed and because there’s been so much change [in the] neighborhood, in particular, gentrification, was really dig into the themes that were already there.

Gentrification in our film is what helped us to reimagine the story because Cabrini Green is gone. The movie from the ‘90s has a vision of Cabrini Green where it’s sort of on its way to being knocked down…So what we do in our film is talk about the ghosts that are left behind because of gentrification, in particular in Cabrini Green, and that’s how we find our way into the reimagining.

I had no doubt that these issues would be touched on in an updated version of this film, but I’m especially glad gentrification will be talked about, because as someone who has watched that happen in my own community, there is a horror in watching your community be stripped away and told it’s for the best.

One of the issues that people had with Candyman was that he mostly attacked other Black people and haunted their communities, rather than white people. For those who may not remember, in the original film Candyman, based on the Clive Barker story, the supernatural murderer was the spirit of a free Black man who had been murdered for falling in love with a white woman. Part of his torture was to be smothered in honey and stung to death by bees.

There are lots of rumors floating around, and I don’t want to risk spoiling anything for anyone, but all I will say is that Candyman looks like a film we should all be excited to check out on June 12.

Wait … how many times did I saw his name during this piece? Does that all count? I guess I’ll find ou—

(via io9)

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