UPDATE: due to the just-announced indefinite postponement of Candyman‘s release (sometime in 2021), we are also delaying our special issue on the Candyman films. Our third special issue will instead be on Lovecraft Country–and you can check out the call for papers here.
The first Candyman, directed by Bernard Rose, was released in 1993, starring Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, and Kasi Lemmons. It translated Clive Barker’s1985 short story, “The Forbidden” from a white working-class housing development in England to an African-American housing development in Chicago, Cabrini Green. Candyman tells a powerful story of race and the lingering aftermath of slavery in the US, mixing the supernatural with historical and social realism. Numerous critics have discussed the film, including Adam Ochonicky, Lucy Fife Donaldson, Robin Means Coleman, Diane Long Hoeveler, Mikel Koven, Laura Wyrick, Kirsten Monan Thompson, Aviva Briefel and Sianne Ngaî, and Fred Botting. As the horror genre is, in the twenty-first century, becoming increasingly political, much more remains to be said about Candyman and its two sequels–Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (Bill Condon, 1995) and Candyman: Day of the Dead (Turi Meyer, 1999)–all of which center racism in America.
Despite the powerful presence of Tony Todd as Candyman in all three films, they have been notably white productions. October 16, 2020, however, will see the release of a “spiritual sequel” to Candyman, and it is a predominantly African-American production–directed by Nia DaCosta, co-written by DaCosta, Jordan Peele, and Win Rosenfeld, produced by Peele, and with a largely Black cast (including Tony Todd). In this new Candyman, viewers will finally experience a Black re-writing of a Candyman mythos that has been, until now, almost exclusively white.
Check out the trailer for the upcoming Candyman:
To celebrate the release of Nia DaCosta’s Candyman, we invite submissions on any aspect of the Candyman series. Emerging and advanced scholars, popular writers, and fans are invited to submit abstracts that explore any of the four Candyman films from any angle. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
–Nia DaCosta’s aesthetic re-imagining of the Candyman legend;
–DaCosta’s adaptation in the context of race in the US in 2020;
–the relation of DaCosta’s film to the political horror tradition flourishing in the early twenty-first century, including other films (notably Jordan’s Peele’s Get Out and Us) that explore race through horror;
–Specific visual, narrative, or political connections between DaCosta’s Candyman and the other three films in the series;
–the evolving role of Tony Todd in the four Candyman films;
–Bernard Rose’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s “The Forbidden”;
–the relative failure of the Candyman sequels of 1995 and 1999 (while the first film has 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, Farewell to the Flesh and Day of the Dead have 29% and 10% respectively). What did they do wrong? Has either one been underappreciated?
–the first three Candyman films in the context of 1990s horror film and /or politics;
–Helen’s function as a symbol of whiteness and, generally, the role of white women in the franchise;
–the roots of any of the four Candyman films in the horror tradition.
Please submit abstracts of 500 words and a brief bio to Elizabeth Erwin, Ayanna Woods, and Dawn Keetley at horrorhomeroom@gmail.com, dek7@lehigh.edu, and dmw319@lehigh.edu by October 30, 2020. Articles will be limited to 2,500 words and should be written for a general audience. If your abstract is accepted, completed essays will be due November 30, 2020 in order to ensure publication in early January. We welcome all questions and inquiries!
Check out our first special issue, on Friday the 13th.
Related: Elizabeth Erwin on race and historical memory in Candyman and Hayley Dietrich on Candyman as horror noir.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbott, Stacey. “Candyman and Saw: Reimagining the Slasher Film through Urban Gothic.” Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 67-78.
Blouin, Michael J. “Candyman and Neoliberal Racism.” Magical Thinking, Fantastic Film, and the Illusions of Neoliberalism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 81-107.
Botting, Fred. “Candygothic.” The Gothic, Boydell and Brewer, 2001, pp. 133-51.
Briefel, Aviva, and Sianne Ngaî. “‘How much did you pay for this place?’ Fear, Entitlement, and Urban Space in Bernard Rose’s Candyman.” Camera Obscura, vol. 37, January 1996, pp. 71-91.
Donaldson, Lucy Fife. “‘The suffering black male body and the threatened white female body’: Ambiguous Bodies in Candyman.” Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, February 2011.
Hester-Williams, Kim D. “Neoslaves: Slavery, Freedom, and African American Apotheosis in Candyman, The Matrix, and The Green Mile.” Genders, vol. 40, 2004.
Hill, Mike. “Can Whiteness Speak? Institutional Anomies, Ontological Disasters, and Three Hollywood Films.” White Trash: Race and Class in America, edited by Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz, Routledge, 1997, pp. 155-73.
Hoeveler, Diane Long. “The Postfeminist Filmic Female Gothic Detective: Reading the Bodily Text in Candyman.” Postfeminist Gothic, edited by Benjamin Brabon and Stéphanie Genz, Palgrave, 2007, pp. 99-113.
Kee, Jessica Baker. “Black Masculinities and Postmodern Horror: Race, Gender, and Abjection.” Visual Culture & Gender, vol. 10, 2015, pp. 47-56.
Koven, Mikel. “Candyman Can: Film and Ostentation.” Contemporary Legend, vol. 2, 1999, pp. 155-73.
Kydd, Elspeth. “Guess who else is coming to dinner: Racial/sexual Hysteria in Candyman.” CineAction, vol. 36, 1996), pp. 63-72.
Means Coleman, Robin. Horror Noire: Black in American Horror Films from the 1890s to the Present, Routledge, 2011, pp. 188-91.
Ochonicky, Adam. “‘Something to Be Haunted By’: Adaptive Monsters and Regional Mythologies in ‘The Forbidden’ and Candyman.” Horror Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 2020, pp. 101-22.
Thompson, Kirsten Moana. “Strange Fruit: Candyman and Supernatural Dread.” Apocalyptic Dread, SUNY Press, 2007.
Towlson, Jon. Candyman, Devil’s Advocates, 2018.
Wyrick, Laura. “Summoning Candyman: The Cultural Production of History.” Arizona Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 3, 1998, pp. 89-117.
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