Meadhall of the Comitatus

Clive Barker’s above-underground horror franchise exploring the underpinnings of urban myth returns with a 3rd installment, at least on cable. This series, in addition to having some of the best locations for the genre, has many academic statements to make, and really, have you ever slammed a film for exploring the underpinnings of anything? Huh uh.

THIS bee beard proves FATAL.

First, let me say that I have to stop watching movies on TV. Total waste of time. For example, I hated Highlander for years, thinking it was actually that badly edited. All the snip-snips are really ruining any review I do, and so I think I’ll have to go with Oz’s plan to drag out the VHS. That said, tho 85% of the violence was hidden from me like some aggravatingly-interred Special Feature, I have a fair grasp of the Candyman series, and my opinion is that it’s well worth watching for its many introspective slants on the traditional boogey-man tale.

All right. This one’s got a nice Latin flavor. The Day of the Dead, properly El Dia de los Muertos. For the full theatre experience, you have to pronounce it as a bag lady in some derelict alley would at or around 4 am. El Diiiiiia de los Mueeeeeeeertoooooooooooos…

See? Bag-lady payload. Whatever, right? Stew thing, right? Watch ‘Quick Change,’ you’ll see. Will you suffer to come unto my point?

At any rate, local color is always used effectively in the Candyman movies, and #3 manages to relate the Latinate setting to the series premise without much difficulty. Besides, by #3, who even remembers all that crap? So the thinking always goes. Still, the main elements are there: the Candyman was a Negro artist serving a rich plantation family (the poor kinds being rare) who falls in love with their beauteous white girl. He’s caught and subsequently lynched by the sort of hick mob that materializes out of crackly leaves and castoff whisker shavings, but not before his body is drenched in honey, making him a human CANDY, if you will, and left to the bees’ pheromone-induced anger. Many hundreds of zub-zubs later, he gains undeath as a living urban legend, his thick coat and hook-arm endearing him to the people of the pro-jacks. The story always begins with a beauteous white girl investigating/admiring this terrifying figure, like many a Hiram professor might, and inadvertently summoning him by saying his name 5 times before a mirror. Lame as that sounds, this is only an opening ritual, not a played-out device, and the stories always emphasize that the Candyman is a self-perpetuating myth; everything that happens in his neighborhood can be attributed to him, thus lending him continued existence. “Be my victim,” says the Candyman, always stalking closer, always offering the particular woman eternal life as part of the tale.

BEEEEEEE my victim. SAMPLE my various candies. No. I am not a pimp.

The innovating pacing of the series lends itself to this Lovecraftian device, as seen in ‘Shadow Over Innsmouth’. The evil calls out to the hero, and the story takes on a longitudinal case-study tempo. See, Candyman doesn’t just rip his white women up. He gets some use out of that hook, but usually reserves it for his chosen white girl’s black roommate. Until his intended formally offers herself to him in willingness to create a new legend, Candyman stalks, frames, and generally creeps hell out of her for the remainder of the movie. She’ll be buying a hotdog or whatever those crazy white women do and BAM, Candy just made it look like she killed someone over a hot dog. Eventually her situation is in a SITUATION, and she’s forced to think seriously about surrendering. This of course leads scholars to speculate that the Candyman is in reality a pimp, albeit a really really smooth one.

Well, in #3, the female lead is a distant relation of the Candyman, and since her easily-forgettable name was so easily forgettable, I call her Candace P. Manning. She, like her predecessors, is obsessed with the dread figure, and has an exclusive collection of his old artwork to show in a New York? gallery, staffed by the equally oil-based John Leguizamo. Candace has a healthy respect for the ‘Candy, but, egged on by her black roommate, she goes and summons him, making her his next target. Let the games begin; play on, Playa; kill that white woman, Candyman. Suffice it to say that various hot and less-hot peripheral people are killed, various old Latinos are consulted in spirit-world matters, and many Hispanics dance on this, the Day of the Dead.

Premise: 4/5

What an excellent idea for a horror series. Clive Barker done did it with this one. Bumps in the dark are organically related to the crumpled-bill-buys-Fritos in the day. This is why I have such love for King, too. Candyman’s awesome scenery and creepy locations are tops, but the ability to weave suspense out of the banal is always a true feat. Continuity of OG premise is so good that it comes through all the formula crap here, like the cop who hates black guys, wizened Momma Mucho, etc.

Cast: 3/5

You know I can’t leave without my buddy Candyman! He remains as imposing as ever… stark fear here conmingles with an odd rationality, even as he offers agonizing death by a bigass hook. However, this incarnation of Candace Manning is a flop. Oh, she’s hot, with a better bod than the others, but can’t come with the range one needs to convey stupefied terror. Leguizamo and the others are acceptable enough, for what they are. It’s always about the dominating presence of a big guy with a hook, anyway.

Cinematography & Design: 4/5

This of course was 5/5 in the first one, with its realistically surreal ghetto corridors and chilling graffito, but #3 does less with less. The two key locations (garages/warehouses/etc) look much the same, although the finale manages an effect with the Candyman’s romantic notions of how to warmly fill a space.

Special Effects: 2/5?

I don’t really know. Cable. What I did see wasn’t that impressive, but the series always delights in showing you the viscera of the latest attack. You should also expect blood and bees in bulk.

Popcorn Factor: 1/5

Candyman is most inconducive to popcorn, I admit. Perhaps he’d fare better in ‘Pipestem Factor’. Anyway, #3 is a supremely joyless movie. You want fun, try David Lynch’s offbeat ‘Confectionaryman’.

So hey, not all that great in itself, the lack of compensation for the slow pace defeating even its decent categories to arrive at a sorry star count, but dig on that premise. #3 delivers interesting, relevant closure to the mythos, such that if one is as taken with the Candyman as I am, it’s requisite viewing. Go check out #1 already.

After all, white girls are dandy, but Candyman is quicker.