One of 2021's most hyped horror films has got to be the new Candyman sequel. It's a bit of a new trend for these classic horror franchises to be rebooted with soft sequels, putting them in the continuation category as opposed to a remake, and there has been some success with this technique. Most notably 2013's Evil Dead and 2018's Halloween. The latter of which is set to get another sequel this year as well. Rebooting franchises like this really is a good idea. It's a chance to not only breathe new life into a series, but also allows the franchise to grow with its original characters, and adapt it to a more modern and socially conscious world. Candyman is a series that could absolutely benefit from this.

The original Candyman from 1992 is a now-classic crime thriller/horror film. In a way, it already does touch on the social issues that the modern socially conscious horror films do, but its representation and portrayal do feel a bit dated. This is likely due to both its era, and the people involved. The story behind the film actually originates from a short story by Hellraiser's Clive Barker. It's called "The Forbidden" and is a commentary on the British class system. The story was adapted to be set in Chicago specifically, in the Cabrini-Green public housing development. Because of its setting, the film in turn, was to be a commentary on race and class in America, specifically in inner-cities.

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The film itself revolves around a woman named Helen, a grad student in Chicago who is doing her thesis on urban legends and local folklore. She learns of an urban legend called "the Candyman" who can be summoned by saying his name five times in the mirror. When he arrives, he kills the summoner with a hook that is attached to his arm, which is a stump. Helen receives word that Candyman has attacked people in the Cabrini-Green public housing development, and starts going there to interview people who might be connected. Once she opens up the Candyman door though, he starts to terrorize her, and soon enough she's too deeply involved to get out out of it.

The metaphors in Candyman are relatively blatant. From a 2021 perspective anyway, it's obvious what the film is trying to do here. The main villain, played brilliantly by Tony Todd, is said to be the ghost of a son of a slave. He was an artist, and was lynched and murdered for having a relationship with a white woman. He had his arm sawed off, hence the hook, and was smeared in honey which attracted bees that stung him to death.

Him not actually being a slave but the son of a slave is key here because he's a representation of an ancestor of slavery. And his haunting of a low-income, majority Black, housing community is a representation of the generational poverty and institutionalized racism that exists in America to this day. This concept seems ultra woke and avant-garde for its time, but the way it's executed could certainly use an update. This is why the sequel, and who is involved in it, is so exciting.

While the film does feel very current in its themes, what with all of the current race issues going on in the world, it does kind of fall flat in its effectiveness upon a rewatch. It's great as a film, but it doesn't quite make the point it was trying to. A lot of this comes down to the whitewashed portrayal of the story. Helen, the main character, is a white woman who is married to a professor and doesn't really seem to have money troubles of any kind. She's the person who the audience is meant to root for and hope doesn't get sucked in by the Candyman, not anyone who actually lives in the afflicted community.

Director and screenwriter Bernard Rose is also white and not even American. It's not to attack the talent of these people or their intentions, but because this story maybe wasn't told by the people it should be, the lens the viewers see it from isn't exactly as clear as necessary. The 2021 sequel seems to be looking to change that, which is why it has every opportunity to refresh this series.

Candyman 2021 is not only written by Jordan Peele, who brought a whole new era to the horror genre with his racism-themed film Get Out, but is co-written and directed by Nia DaCosta. DaCosta is a Black woman from Brooklyn, New York best known for her crime thriller Little Woods. She's also set to direct the upcoming Captain Marvel 2.

The film also seems to have a primarily Black cast, with two actors reprising their roles from the original film (one being Tony Todd as the Candyman). The story so far seems to be kind of vague, it's been marketed as a "spiritual sequel" to the original film, and is going to focus on the gentrification of the now completely changed Cabrini-Green neighborhood. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is the leading man, playing a grown-up version of baby Anthony from the original film. Teyonah Paris is also on board, as well as Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Colman Domingo.

To make the points they want to make in an effective and insightful manner, utilizing these talents and revolving the story around someone who actually grew up in Cabrini-Green is absolutely the best way to go. While the original film tried, and it does deserve some credit for going there when most other mainstream films wouldn't, it didn't quite get to where it needed to go. It's a great movie, but very much so a product of its time.

With this kind of cast and crew and this kind of story, the reboot sounds a lot more promising and is honestly very exciting. This is a film that is good enough to be revisited and done properly because its concept and metaphor are important ones. It's a rare thing for a remake to seem very promising, and almost likely to be better than the original, but Candyman really seems like it could be. Despite the delays, as it was originally meant to release in 2020, the hype from the horror community for this film is very real.

Candyman will release in theatres on August 27, 2021.

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