Candyman (1992) KILL COUNT

welcome to the death

count

where we

count

the victims in all our favorite horror movies I'm James a Chinese and today we're watching my favorite pre-scream 90s horror movie Candyman that came out in

1992

based on a story called The Forbidden by Clive Barker About an urban legend brought to life masterfully directed by Bernhard Rose and featuring one of my favorite horror scores ever composed by Philip Glass Candyman is a thoughtful and sometimes dreamlike film that brings us the wonderfully horrible mind that Hellraiser Candyman brought to us. it never gets over your head with the message despite the sheer number of themes it explores, so in that sense it's kind of the opposite of a purge movie, even though Candyman is about a guy with a hook for a hand that he uses to

kill

to anyone who calls out to him in the mirror.

Candyman is not the campy slasher this premise may suggest, but rather an ethereal slow burn that turns darkly romantic in the vein of Phantom of the Opera as the titular man in The Myth Haunts a Grad Student played by Virginia Madsen with such intensity and passion that he will do anything for her to follow him to the death. Candyman is the best-known role for prolific actor Tony Todd, whose more than 200 credits include the mysterious William Bloodworth from the series Final Destination. He also sat down with me for my favorite interview to date, so be sure to check him out on the Crypt V Meetup. , we had a great time talking about Thai food and imagining what it would be like if he was in Rosemary's Baby Todd would reprise the iconic role for the two sequels of this movie that finally becomes the cutesy slasher you expected and that we will see in the next two weeks After all, there's no better time for a bunch of candy than October right where the aftermath will give us more murders and a backstory, but before we can get to them, we need to start where it all began in the dilapidated public housing project. from chicago cabrini-green how many murders will we get from semen? in the city of chai let's find out and get to them the movie starts with a title card thus of fast mass music by philip glass the glasses score which used only a piano on the organ and some choral voices haunting blends perfectly with the gothic elegance of the cell to borrow. a line from Tony, tah shit, sounds like the Ghost himself is hitting those keys, oh yeah, how about we follow that up with some bees and a message from the Candyman about what he's going to do with that helpful hand?

What is bloodshed? oh what a great way to immediately set the tone for this movie. I'm not sure what's up with the Biblical bee swarm over Chicago, though grad student Helen Lyle listens as she's told the story about a babysitter in Indiana with whom poor judgment of hers didn't just strip naked. Grecia or Ted Raimi also extended to her by invoking the hook she gave Candyman by saying her name five times in a mirror, that's correct. Candyman is summoned by saying his name five times not three common mistakes but three is more of a bloody mary thing even though he gets a chance to stop after four like Raimi this babysitter Clara goes all the way and says his name for the fifth time alone Candyman and then he turns off the lights and dies, yes he will count Clare on the list even though the veracity of this death is quite doubtful, what would this be an urban legend? stays out of the cow Helen is collecting these urban legends with her friend Bernadette of hers played by Casey Lemons, who the year before had been in another esteemed horror film Silence of the Lambs.

They are recording these stories as research for their thesis project on urban. legends at the University of Illinois, where Helen's husband Trevor already teaches as a professor. Trevor is played by Xander Berkeley, who you may know as either a beleaguered foster father or a cowardly survivor. vor leader of the outpost and is very friendly with his students, especially the nicer ones like Stacy Change, don't shake hands with homebreakers Helen, you know what's going on here. her interview about the Candy Man, which is overheard by a custodian named Henrietta Henrietta and her friend Kitty, tell Helen about a woman named Ruthie Jean, who was recently

kill

ed apparently by the Candyman, she was fishhooked to death, but unlike these working class women, Helen and Bernadette don't think the Candyman is real and to prove it to him they both say his name in the mirror, though Helen ends up alone for the fifth recital the next day, the two take Helen's red car to Cabrini Green , which is where Rudy Jean. he was killed though Bernadette is appropriately anxious.

Helen is determined to write a cool thesis and learn why this community attributes some of its murders to a fictional mythical man cabr ini-green a central part of this film was a public housing project in chicago that in real life was in fact a site of violent gang activity for many decades according to Tony Todd there were five different gang factions operating there while filming the production of the movie they had to be paid to film the exterior scenes and even used some of them to portray the residents of Cabrini Green that they were suspicious of Helen and Bernadette when they arrived. the dialogue was later dubbed over by post-production voice actors known as loop groups, apparently those efforts were not enough to completely prevent any incident because Casey Lemmons recalls a bullet being found in the productions generator and producer Allen's poll says that on his last day of filming his camera truck was filmed in the nearly three decades since Handyman was filmed, the area's crime rate has dropped and the last rini-green high-rises taxi was demolished in 2011, this brings me to the point that no discussion of Candyman could go on without the movie, obviously, it's about race and it came out during a tumultuous time.

1992

was the same year that the Los Angeles riots occurred. the wake of Rodney King's trial even though n-double-a-cp gave Bernhard Rose his blessing to do it Candyman gets occasional criticism for his handling of the run after all, even though it does feature an amazing noir horror villain to join the esteemed genres Pantheon also sometimes resorts to tropes that can be seen as harmful.

There's a great special feature on the blu-ray called Unwrapping Candyman where authors Tanana Redo and Stephen Barnes discuss Candy Man's complex relationship with Ray and there are also countless articles and essays on the same subject available online. I don't have the expertise or experience to talk about that sort of thing, especially in a kill count, but I encourage you to do more research if you're interested. and interested, there's a lot to learn from this movie in the exterior shots filmed on location Helen and Bernadette walk past some residents who they immediately assume are police officers Helen thinks being mistaken for police officers will give them some protection so with that in mind man because the rest of the scene was shot in a studio she said she feels safe enough to take pictures of everything she comes across like this quote from hamlet repeated on the walls sweet to the sweet hand this awesome metal door oh yeah I forgot to mention that this movie actually has quite a few scares.

I won't be too mean to him though they go to the bathroom where Candyman reportedly killed Ruthie Jean coming out of her mirror but Helen discovers that behind roofie jeans mir is another apartment and even though bernadette warns her not to do it herself she climbs up to see what's on the other side of this derelict unit helen finds a gaping mural of the Candyman who just pulled f and even the mere sight of that thing makes helen dizzy maybe you got some of that candy in there for a little energy Ah, on second thought, maybe you won't do that since Helens got some film out for her camera, she and Bernadette go direct only to meet a resident named Ann Marie on the way out, she's the one with the skittish dog, he also has a baby named Anthony, whom he is just trying to raise here despite the reputation of the residents of this building. downstairs, you know, after bonding with Helen over their baby and Marie played by Vanessa, Williams opens up and tells Helen that when Ruthie Jean was murdered, he heard it through the walls and now he fears for her and her child because they will never catch him. he hm Candice Helen and Bernadette have a smoky dinner with Trevor and another professor named Philip Purcell Purcell also studies urban legends and gets excited when he hears that the ladies went to Cabrini Green Candyman country And it turns out this guy has already written an article on Candyman qualifying him to give a lengthy exposition monologue as Purcell / says that Candyman was the son of a slave who was able to raise the sweet young boy in a difficult society thanks to the money he made by creating a device to mass-manufacture shoes?

Can you even imagine getting rich making shoes? Who had a crazy way of making money? says the guy who counts kills for a living. Candyman took the canvas and became a portrait painter of families of wealthy people in one of his painting subjects, a young white woman fell in love and when she became pregnant, her enraged father led a lynch mob that killed Candyman right on the spot. the place where cabrini-green stands today and they proceeded to cut off her right hand with a rusty blade but wait, there's more when Helen becomes a film noir character.

Purcell goes on to say that the Tandy Man's bloody body was smeared with broken honeycombs, causing a million bees to stab him directly. After leaving, Helen is baffled and returns to Cabrini-Green to take more photos of the Candyman artwork. Helen goes to see Ann Marie again, but there doesn't seem to be anyone home, except for her fear and her dog, which is Helen. tries to talk to this little boy Jake played by an 11 year old dawan boy though he's not eager to divulge in dialogue that she's looking for I can't say anything a Candyman gets me she promises to keep their conversation a secret so Jake agrees take her outside has two giant piles of wood that he says is for an upcoming bonfire and even a small toilet building Jake tells Helen that a boy was mauled inside when Candyman castrated him with his hook Helen ever the brave skeptic walks into the bathroom and finds some stinky candies on the wall fun fact makeup artist Bob Keane made the disgusting poop bear out of chocolate gingerbread cookies Helen follows an arrow on the wall at a stall to discover a bee toilet buzzes while taking a photo ures de that pee a man in a trench coat walks in 10 don't look now but he's got a hook in his hand and a whole team didn't know Candyman rolled so deep Helen in she tries to talk her way out of this situation but in this case, her luck has finally run out.

Heard you're looking for Candyman's bitch, well you found him. Helen is mostly beaten up off screen and Jake discovers her in the bathroom before the scene cuts to who. It is an excellent comic edition. We are here searching. for Candyman the bitch take a step back, great cut, probably the funniest moment in the movie. Helen, whose eye looks really nasty, manages to get her assailant out of line and with bruised witness testimony from her, this guy, Detective Valenta, was finally able to put the criminal away. the police are happy about that, since this guy is the one who has been calling himself the Candyman and who murdered Ruthie Jean after getting into her medicine cabinet with the man behind the arrested nickname.

Helen tells Jake that she doesn't have anything. g she stopped worrying because Candyman isn't real, he was just a myth being used as a cover story. oh ho, it's finally time for almost halfway through this boobie to welcome the arrival of the real motherfucker Candyman. I came for you, ha ha, and with that cool trench coat courtesy of costume designer Leonard Pollack, there's no way Helen could turn down that Candyman proposal. He walks over to her berating her for doubting his existence and making her cry with nothing but the power of his voice good and his devilish good looks no problem man you don't have to ask me twice I know mine buddy you know I'm all for one guy, How could anyone tell you no?

I mean, maybe if they have a major B phobia, then things could get a little dangerous. I guess Helen's reaction to the Candyman was filmed in a rather unorthodox way. Bernhard Rose k again, he didn't want Helen Mild to scream when she saw the men, as that was cliché and also according to him a bit unpleasant and annoying. just seeing people screaming is also a fucking horrible noise but I wanted her to be completely paralyzed by Candyman. and to achieve such an enraptured look, Rose took Virginia Madsen to an actual hypnotist despite her initial skepticism, it ended up working on her.

Next thing I know I'm having this conversation with the hypnotist and at some point I realized my arm was like this and I don't consciously remember raising my arm and I was like no ho and that's a big fate let's do it again and , therefore, for any shot in whichMadsen seems completely out of it, it's likely that she was actually hypnotized. Since the hypnotist gave Rose a word to use on set whenever they needed Helen to fall under the Candyman spell, it was one of the many wacky things Rose did. he did during production, and at times, Madsen felt very disoriented.

Once she started hypnotizing me, he wasn't very aware of his surroundings. He couldn't really see the crew. I could see the lights and all the lights got very, very blurry because my pupils were dilated and pretty much all I could hear was Bernhard, finally after a day of filming that she couldn't remember in any way she decided to quit the technique in the end. I was like "you know what I can". don't do it anymore, burner, don't come near me with that look on your face because I'm not going under. Helen apparently passes out from the candy man aura as she wakes up on a bathroom floor covered in a jacket and lots of blood, but don't worry Helen, it's not your blood, it's just the blood of Ann Marie's dog what is there.

Helen stupidly picks up the bloody knife from the floor and follows Ann Marie's screams into a bedroom where she finds her rocking a fucking empty cradle. Ann Marie sees an attack. Helen assumes that she kidnapped the baby. Anthony Helen is capable of defending herself with that blade, but she looks quite aggressive when the police come in and break up the fight. Helen is arrested and taken to the police station to be processed by an impersonated policeman. by rusty schwimmer seen previously on death count as the angry diner owner and jason go to hell in john gallagher jr's sweet secretary.

In Belko's experiment, the cartoon king tells Helen that she is under arrest for attacking Ann Marie, killing her dog, and kidnapping her baby. Trevor is not home when she calls him around 3:00 am, but he picks her up the next morning and takes her back. house where they talked to their lawyer now they haven't charged you because they think they'll find the body oh what baby body i know where it is it's hanging out in building b helen doesn't know yet so she is unable to provide any information that make her look less guilty and/or crazy Trevor goes out to pick up something from work, yeah, okay, and Helen spends her time drinking, smoking, and watching a slideshow of her camera footage in one of them. she sees Candyman, no not the cool mural of him, the mothafucka himself, are you sure this is a good time to look at that Candyman portal?

Helen, who knows what could happen, oh shit that could happen, that scare was actually a legitimate one since Bernhard Rose threw it. in Virginia Madsen by surprise still a little pissed off about it Tony Todd knowing it would scare her didn't want to participate and after Rose talked him into it anyway he ended up apologizing profusely to Madsen and then of course he felt so bad that I she was really scared but it's all good Tony Helen runs out of her apartment to find the candy man waiting for her in the hallway. the legend of

candyman

don't you believe it destroys the faith of my congregation without then i am nothing and to make people believe in him again he is threatening to kill her although on the bright side he says it will make her immortal you could do worse in a deal with the death during their negotiation Bernadette appears at Helen's apartment, she hears Helen crying and goes in to help her only to find the Candyman waiting for her behind the door, the actual death takes place off-screen but after Trevor arrives home and finds Helen with a knife in her hand, we see the police handling Bernadette's body.

Helen is arrested for the murder of her best friend and as she is taken to a psychiatric ward, Candyman talks about her inside her head and tells her how amazing she is to her. it's to be a legendary ghost you should try it sometime Helen is tied to a bed and left alone which is when the Candyman pays her another visit floating above her like a beautiful graceful swan, a sweet swan, and now she has hid below out of bed like this. lots of monsters before the hospital staff injects Helen with some calming drugs meanwhile in Cabrini Green, baby Anthony is getting much better treatment.

Burke, you've got some pretty amazing news over the last month, yeah we've been stabilizing you with a big dose of Thorazine, wow, what has she been compromised for one fucking full circle on the moon? He plays her a video of the night she. she was admitted, which shows her screaming at nothing even though we all saw Candyman doing planks in the air. Me neither Helen. Candyman has been a figment of your imagination all along. I mean, if he was, I totally get it. calling Candyman in the mirror five expressions later, she gets to say I told you so when Candy Man's hook emerges from Dr.

Burks' torso, this death is the main difference between this R-rated film and the unrated versions, which you may have been able to notice due to the change in the quality of the film's footage. It's weird, no I don't think there's anything ridiculously egregious here with yet another death in this candy bag man tells Helen she's his nap, then frees her from the restraints and straight up eats himself out of the puck of the window. I love that crazy shot. I don't even care that you can see the rope as the hospital staff bang on the locked door, Helen jumps onto the windowsill and heads into the next room where she knocks out a nurse and Rob takes her clothes off, hey dude that it's really happening right now in his scruffy costume.

Helen escapes from the hospital and runs wee wee wee. all the way home straight to a freshly painted apartment 10 guys that hideous color who would have picked that bubblegum crap oh stacey that makes sense get out of my house no man that girl just crumpled me trevor you see that shit you a dog , another little booboo ha ha no, but you probably just did a little booboo. Helen uses her anger to terrify Trevor and Stacy and tells them that the color they chose is a tragedy, fuck the walls, she is angry and threatening. Just for a minute though, before she realizes how screwed she is thanks to the candy man's gaslighting, hey, how pretty Helen, there's nobody and nothing left for you in town, everything what you're left with is my wish for you to be okay, except at least you still have her go back to Cabrini Green and break into the abandoned murder apartment so she can go back up through the bathroom mirror and see what Candyman has.

Hoping to court some candles, oh, and a hooker probably could have guessed that he goes up another floor and finds himself in Candy Man's lair, a platform with high ceilings and exposed I-beams that was created by production designer Jane and Stuart inside this cape full of church type murals of our favorite b-boy done b and graffiti artist kelly deco helen strangely finds Candyman taking a little nap oh wait that guy is not a ghost ghosts need to sleep what do fas dream ghosts with haunted sheep she goes to snag a big one but he wakes up just as she punches him in the neck and that's not going to stop Candyman, not when he's so excited for Helen to come visit him, even if it's mostly for the good of baby Anthony, surrender to me now and you will be an arm to have. a romantic twist that originally lasted much longer and included Helen declaring her love for Candyman, but apparently forced by the studio to remove it due to concerns about interracial romance, it took two minutes of that scene and we learn that the studio was a Un little scary of the interracial context they were fine with a tall black man covered in bees but when it came to a kiss or something it was a little too risky to never hear of Loving v Virginia Helen faints and Candyman scoops are rises into a tripod position and then carries her across the room while reciting some much cherished dialogue pain I can assure you how exquisite as exquisite as pain is going to be says their deaths are about to get even sillier since after they'll get everyone in their congregation talking about them like legends sounds great Candyman but maybe slow down with that hook huh what kind of girls do you think Helen is maybe the type of girl who likes B's in that case here's a chest full of beans and a mouth full of bees what is this infamous bee scene was filmed with live bees thanks to b wrangler dr.

Norman Gary Gary built an apiary on the roof of the studio for those less than 24 hours old to use, as baby bees do not have fully developed stingers and are less likely to stay, which was much needed by Virginia Madsen, who it turns out was super allergic to bee venom so paramedics were required to be on standby on set in case she got stuck, luckily she didn't because dr. Gary developed a queen bee pheromone that was used not only to make the bees go where they wanted, but also to help placate them. Tony Todd, for the mouth bees, used a dental plate built by effects artist Marc Coulier to prevent the bees from crawling. too bum didn't work 100 percent of the time he said he could feel one of the bees get behind the latex sheet I put in his mouth and he could feel it crawling down the back of his throat while he was delivering the take and then that's when they caught we just blew everything away ladies baking the bezel it was pretty intense the mouthpiece stung him once or twice because some of them didn't like to ping Tony's mouth but most of the The 26 or 27 stings he suffered during the production of the three Candy Man films occurred on his chest when bees reacted negatively to effects artist Hellraiser Gary J tuna cliff's prosthetic design and in case anyone was concerned about well-being del bees, the ASPCA was on set while they were filming this crew and dr.

Gary cleaned them all up afterwards with a harmless and hilarious being. Matthew Candyman takes baby Anthony and leaves Helen to wake up to a bunch of invisible bees and a message painted on the wall. I always feel like that statement is up to interpretation but I always thought Helen was some kind of spiritual reincarnation of the woman Candyman loved and died badly for or he's just a gas lamp or more who knows she hears crying baby Anthony and follows his wailing outside, where he hears that they are coming from that garbage heap, another creation of production designer Jane Ann Stewart, who had the city of Chicago haul a truck in a garbage heap so they would build a garbage heap. giant with safe tunnels in it the tunnels were necessary as helen is about to climb in an effort to save baby Anthony using that hook to help lift her up the hill into cabrini-jakey green away from the keys and looks through the window to see a hook descend into the garbage heap he is here so while helen inc he is much closer to the baby than she is trying to save jake thinking the man d e candy is inside the trash heap recruits other cabrini-green residents to douse it all with gasoline while more awesome philip glass music plays just as he gets to the baby and they light the torches above so they can burn they like the heap on fire and the candy man grabs Helen from behind intending to hold her captive long enough for them all to burn together and become a legendary family of ghosts run and we'll never be apart again Helen breaks free of the candy's power of the man grabbing a flaming stake and stabbing him in the chest with B as he writhes angrily, she crawls away with the baby and though the lights of falling lightning are on fire on her way out, she manages to escape against the wishes of the candy man.

I would, but I have to put out the fire in my hair, you understand well, Helen and her weird melting head prosthetic are able to carry the baby to Ann Marie while Candy Man succumbs to the flames and yes I know it's a ghost that he's died before but this seems like another kind of death to him i mean the guy turned into a bunch of fire bees right there and clearly a charred body left in this spot has to count for something right but Candyman? she's not the only victim of this fire Helen succumbs to her injuries and reveals herself in a funeral scene that sees her bury Tam forever you're really about to bring your new boo to your wife's funeral that's tacky it's good at first It looks as if Helen's funeral could really use the padding in attendance, but her handful of mourners are joined by a procession of Cabrini-green residents led by Ann Marie carrying baby Anthony and Jake dressed as a little candy boy.

I think because they're Helen's Congregation now and as a way of saying thanks for all he's done, Jake drops the candy man's hook on his grave, adds a new ball, shows Trevor moping at home, apparently bored already with his new lover, yes. dude you should have appreciated helen while you had hernow you're stuck with a college student who knows nothing about knife safety come on Stacy never cut meat when you're angry Trevor sobs Helen's name in the mirror a few times and even though the first time is really hard to hear he says his name five times, after which we'll help you know that flashing lights warn, by the way, because Helen's scare is full of unnecessary strobes.

Helen, the candy lady, the question mark kills. Trevor with the murder weapon, he's inherited a bloody twisted hook, and boy does he love doing it. The flashing lights are over because all that's left to see here is Trevor's bloody corpse discovered by Stacey, who very conveniently has a knife in hand. the movie. ends with credits playing over a new painting hung in cabrini green a portrait of Helen as a man with fiery hair as the Candyman promised he will now live forever how many people did the Candyman have as his victim let's find out a and whiz our way to the number? what is it?

No? Aren't they the bees? Aren't they the bees? There were six victims at Candyman, three women and three men, although one of the women was only in a story being told and one of the men. it was like a ghost or something no no the 99 minute run time that left us with one death on average every 16 and a half minutes. I will get the golden chainsaw for clueless killing dr. Burke, as his death goes on the longest and involves the most visible hitch Plusno hurts which was followed by that backwards window sweep dove all the machete for the most regrettable death will go to Bernadette because the act itself happens outside of the screen and the body afterwards has some weird looking makeup and that's it Candyman came out in 1992 and in my opinion it doesn't get the respect it deserves not just as a good horror movie but as a good movie overall .

It's also nice to know that she's fondly remembered by everyone involved apparently. Making Candyman was one of the best experiences I had. I'm very proud to have been in it because it's such a good movie. I loved him and I'm pretty sure by now Candyman will be in my dog's first three lives and I don't have a problem with that. I'll see the first of its two sequels next week, but until then I'm James Agee, well this has been the cocoa. Thank you very much for viewing this death count. David Coons Steve Dor ian Grayson party I forgot to mention it during the descent skills countdown but I have a new camera.

I'm shooting in 4k darling the video is not uploaded in 4k but I will one day. Thank you all, be good people.