Before getting into my review of Jordan Peele’s Candyman, I think we can all agree on one thing; Get Out, Peele’s first entry into the horror genre was amazing. His Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2017 attests to that. Then came Us, which got a little weird. Okay, a lot weird. It was strange enough that I waited until almost two years to watch Candyman…and mostly because I’m mildly intrigued by his upcoming horror/sci-fi film, Nope. But enough with name-dropping; let’s get to it.
Maybe it was a mistake watching Peele’s sequel to the 1992 Candyman without watching the original, but that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve always loved horror movies but never got around to watching Tony Todd’s vengeful, hook-handed ghost. As far as horror films go, 2021’s Candyman is just fine. Plenty of scares, blood, screams, and even a bathroom full of murdered teen girls. How can you have a slasher flick without a scene like that?
The thing about this movie that made it hard to stay entertained was it seemed to concentrate too hard on racial and inner-city issues. I’m not saying those issues don’t exist; they most definitely do. I felt racist just typing that sentence. It also doesn’t help that all this time, I thought Peele was the tall one in the Key & Peele comedy skits. Sorry, Keegan. But I don’t sit down to watch a horror movie to be reminded what my skin color is, and the terrible things white men have done. There are plenty of reminders of that on Facebook and on the news every day. No, I’m there to get the hell scared out of me. From the child, in the beginning, making a puppet show of a cop beating a black man to being constantly reminded about how shitty white men have been throughout history, it almost felt like Peele was scolding me most of the movie.
If you’re a fan of the original Candyman, social commentary aside, you’ll probably like this one a lot more than I. It’s a direct sequel and builds on the mythology the 1992 film created. The original film also has some of the social issues discussed in the sequel, just probably not quite as heavy as in Peele’s. However, going back to my M. Night Shyamalan reference, it feels like Peele’s movies have gotten…I wouldn’t say worse, just less scary and entertaining with each one that’s been released. Get Out is his Sixth Sense; Us is his Signs; Candyman, to me, would have to be his Airbender.
Let’s just hope the upcoming Nope is for Peele like the redeeming Unbreakable series was for Shyamalan, and we don’t get another Happening. Those damn bees…