This article will include spoilers for the new movie “Candyman.”

You’ve all heard the story of your parents taking your candy after trick-or-treating on Halloween to check for razor blades. Did you ever know where the myth had come from? Well, let me tell you a little bit about the lore of the Candyman.

The lore of Candyman is simple. You say his name in a mirror five times and as soon as you say his name the fifth time, he murders you. This lore is the same in all three stories that have been told.

Originally, the lore of Candyman came from a short story written by Clive Barker, in his anthology “Books of Blood.” The short story is titled “The Forbidden.” While there are now two movies based on the short story, the book’s short story is quite different. The main character in the book can be read as a white person, who’s story is told in Liverpool. In both of these movies, the main characters have a darker skin and background, which is now in darker parts of cities like Chicago.

The new 2021 movie is what I’m going to focus on. While I enjoyed the movie from the beginning, the further into the movie I got, the more confusing it became. 

The backstory is on a struggling artist who found a new passion in the crimes against Black culture. While the backstory intrigued me and made me think about how Black culture is discriminated against, I thought that as the movie played further into the problems, it started confusing the storyline.

The struggling artist found the story of Candyman and started creating different mediums to help tell the story of the man that was wrongly murdered for offering kids candy.

Becoming obsessed with this lore and the pain behind it, the struggling artist says the name in the mirror five times and becomes haunted by candyman instead of being murdered. It’s later revealed that he is now slowly turning into the new Candyman.

With his slow descent into craziness, the life of the artist is turned upside down. His long term girlfriend becomes afraid and dumps him. Everyone around him is dying because he dares them to say the name in the mirror five times. 

Like I said, I liked two-thirds of the movie, but the ending went in a completely different direction that had dropped the ranking from a 4/5 to 3.5/5. The sudden reveal that the kid from the beginning scene had been the cause of the artist’s change and his downfall hadn’t been a reveal that intrigued me. 

In the trailer you’re lead to believe that the Candyman is haunting these people who are saying his name because they’re saying his name. But the original lore is almost made a joke because of this character’s plans.

The ending of the movie was a downfall, and in my opinion should have been different. While the main character does turn into the new Candyman, the directors tried to make it a small romance storyline with his long term girlfriend, killing everyone but her.

To me, it should have been a horror movie, not an underlying romance where the couple makes it through everything, even the change and death of the boyfriend turning into a mass murderer.

Overall I think this movie is worth watching, but I don’t believe that it’s going to be on anyone’s top movie list of the year.

Final Rating: 3.5/5