When people talk about the golden age of horror, the 1990s are hardly ever mentioned. Still, it is worth mentioning that this was the decade that began with a horror film winning the “Big Five” Academy Awards: Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991). The “realistic” horror of the ’90s featured protagonists facing crazed serial killers in films such as Silence and David Fincher’s Se7en (1995). Horror noir was in, but there’s one film that gets overlooked that could also fall into this category: Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992).
Where there is isolation, horror tends to follow, which is why it makes sense that urban horror is relatively uncommon. What genres such as film noir and neo-noir have noticed and frequently reflected on is that even a densely populated city can still be a place of isolation and alienation. This is something that horror does not usually focus on, but in Candyman, the Chicago setting is vital to understanding the themes Rose develops. Candyman is mostly set in the now-demolished Cabrini-Green housing project. Called Little Hell in the nineteenth century, the area where Cabrini-Green was built had been largely populated by white immigrants before becoming 90% black by the 1990s. Given Cabrini-Green’s infamous reputation for crime and violence, Rose’s use of it as the setting for Candyman brings an element of real fear into the film. The true horror of Candyman is a dangerous combination of poverty, classism, and racism. Through this combination, Cabrini-Green becomes an area that is both alienated by white society and alienating to protagonist Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen), who investigates the area as part of her graduate thesis on urban legends.
Helen follows Jake, a young boy who is a resident of the project.
In noir and neo-noir, there are several themes that are almost always present. Urban alienation is a must, and other common themes are investigation, seduction, and obsession. Candyman addresses all of these, even if it does not do so in a traditionally noir way. In some ways, Candyman follows in the footsteps of Silence of the Lambs. Helen, like Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), is an eager young female student wanting to prove herself in her chosen field. Helen’s field is Sociology, and she is investigating the Candyman legend and its connection to Cabrini-Green. In classic film noir and neo-noir, detective protagonists are liminal figures: they work in higher- and lower-class spheres but never truly feel at home in either place. When Helen is in Cabrini-Green, her white, middle-class identity makes her stand out. Some of the residents of Cabrini-Green act with hostility towards her, associating her with the police who are flocking to the area because of serial killings for which Candyman is presumably responsible. This association adds to Helen’s investigator status while also giving the audience pause. Good neo-noir knows that those working for the law aren’t necessarily “good guys” and may often be corrupt. The police are not a welcome presence in Cabrini-Green, and neither is Helen—she is tolerated at best.
Helen takes pictures of Cabrini-Green while her partner Bernadette looks on.
On the other hand, in the realm of academia, Helen’s status as a female student means that older male academics—such as her husband Trevor (Xander Berkeley) and his colleague Philip Purcell (Michael Culkin)—condescend to her. Horror Homeroom has discussed academia in horror before, and a major issue in Candyman is that of white academics such as Helen who take advantage of a poor, majority-black area, treating its residents’ belief in Candyman with disdain and using their troubles for academic gain. When Purcell tells Helen the backstory behind the Candyman legend, including his violent death at the hands of a lynch mob, it is possible to read the protagonist and antagonist as similar in that they are both victims of the white patriarchy. Candyman was the son of a slave but grew up in polite society, working as an artist for the white elite. While Helen undeniably has more privilege than Candyman because of her class status and race, it could be said that they are both “othered” in the areas of society where they have attempted to fit.
Their relationship becomes something much more intimate when it is revealed that Helen resembles Candyman’s white lover—his relationship with whom resulted in Candyman’s lynching. Noir and neo-noir films usually feature a femme fatale: a woman whose main purpose within the film is to seduce the male detective, to tempt him towards the dark side. She is antagonistic yet also attractive and intriguing. In Candyman, Candyman himself is the male seducer to Helen’s female investigator. Dressed handsomely, and with a deep, alluring voice, Candyman presents himself as a seduction for Helen, first as an urban legend to be explored and then as a real being. His famous line, “Be my victim,” invites people to fall under his spell—and Helen does (fun fact: Virginia Madsen was hypnotized for the scenes where she appeared with Tony Todd’s Candyman).
Helen, the new Candyman, appears to her grieving ex-husband.
Seduction and obsession tend to work hand in hand, and Candyman is no different. Unfortunately, the trope of a black man lusting after a white woman plays on many older (white) fears related to racism and miscegenation specifically. On the other hand, Rose does write Candyman as sympathetic in that he is a victim of racist violence who is looking to right the past atrocities done to him. Of course, he does do this by obsessively stalking Helen and murdering several of her friends to make her notice and believe in him. Rose crafts a layered, tragic villain who is more than just a derivative slasher antagonist. Similarly, he gives us a protagonist who isn’t the typical “good girl” who makes it to the end of the film. Helen dies confronting Candyman and becomes a femme fatale in her state of un-death, seducing her cheating ex-husband, Trevor, before killing him with Candyman’s hook, which she now claims for herself.
A new mural in Cabrini-Green depicting Helen at the end of the film.
This is a bold move, making Helen the new villain. She gets her much-desired revenge against Trevor, affirming her powerful agency—but, like the femme fatale of film noir, she does so through seduction and violence. Helen seems to relish her new abilities, which include creating fear in others. Trevor’s death is a moment of triumph for Helen, but Rose makes us consider this final scare from multiple perspectives. Helen becomes the new Candyman and passes into Cabrini-Green’s folklore, but at what cost? In neo-noir, the lines between hero and villain are blurred: heroes can fall from grace and villains can redeem themselves at the last minute. While it’s difficult to find an exact place for Helen on a morality spectrum, one thing is for certain: her investigator’s obsessiveness leads to her becoming the very supernatural force she has been chasing after. Like all the best detectives in noir fiction, Helen finds herself in over her head in a world of crime and horror and gets far more than she has bargained for.
Related: Check out Elizabeth Erwin’s “Race and Historical Memory in Candyman.”
You can stream Candyman on YouTube:
And here is the trailer for the upcoming Candyman, a “spiritual sequel,” due out September 25, 2020, written by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta:
Hayley Dietrich is a rising senior at Kenyon College, where she studies English and Creative Writing. Her favorite subgenres of horror are creature features and, unsurprisingly, horror-noir. She is eagerly anticipating Nia DaCosta’s take on Candyman, and hopes it comes out sooner rather than later. She has also written on Cube and on Adam Cesare’s novel Clown in a Cornfield for Horror Homeroom.
