The Candyman Isn't So Sweet

    The Candyman… that doesn’t sound as scary as you think right? Not if you were a nineties kid like me. The movie The Candyman made in 1992 haunted me for years as a child. Sure I watched it when I was 8 years old and was literally half the size I am now but for those childhood years of mine it wasn’t the dark that scared me or the stories of monsters. It was the Candyman. Now you may be thinking that Candyman doesn’t really evoke terror but I’m telling you he is the stuff nightmares are made of. So much so in fact that whenever I think of horror themed characters his name pops up there along with the likes of Freddy Kreuger and Jason Voorhees.

Now suffice to say The Candyman is nothing like those guys. In his movie he is based upon the legend of Bloody Mary, wherein you say her name infront of a mirror 3 times in order for her apparition to appear. In the Candyman’s case he is also an urban legend wherein you have to chant his name into a mirror 5 times. He is the soul of a black man who at the time was a very successful artist in his village but when a white woman is mysteriously impregnated he is pointed out as the culprit. He is then apprehended and has his painting arm cut off to be replaced by a hook and if that wasn’t enough the people who accused him tied him to a pole and smeared him with honey so that bees would sting him until his eventual death. All the while these people were chanting Candyman in order to call the bees attention, since they thought they could speak to the bees (Convoluted, I know) but little did they know they would start a chain reaction that would lead us to the movie.

    I don’t really want to spoil it for anyone because I all think you should experience the movie the same way I did. I remember watching this with my father and that was one of the very few times that I ended up sleeping in my parents bed out of sheer fright. The mind games the movie plays on you as well as the shock factor of some scenes all build up to a very good movie and to add to that Tony Todd (The coroner in the Final Destination films for all you modern kids) with his menacing build and voice really made me afraid of someone like the Candyman because even if he was something of a fantasy in the movie he still seemed so real at the same time.

So if you’re looking for a good horror movie to watch and are in need of something different try picking up The Candyman and I assure you you will be frightened and if you say you aren’t then I dare you to go into your bathroom and shut off the lights, look into the mirror and chant Candyman 5 times.

- Vieo "Wholovesorangesoda?" Lopez 

Sources for images:

www.google.com, retrieved August 20, 2011.