Prepare for blood and bees in this first trailer for Candyman

Remakes of classic horror films are practically inevitable these days and it was no surprise when we heard that the classic 90s horror film Candyman was hopping onto that bandwagon. What was different this time around though was that it was getting produced by none other than Get Out and Us director Jordan Peele, who in a short space of time has established himself as one of the key storytellers in the horror industry thanks to his clever and thought-provoking scripts.

For this new film, it’s DeCosta helming the project while Peele handles production duties. Instead of this movie serving as a reboot, it’s actually a sequel as it takes us back to the original film’s of Cabrini Green in Chicago.

In this new film, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays the role of an artist who’s recently moved to the newly gentrified Cabrini Green, formerly a crime-ridden housing project, to “spread the story” of the infamous Candyman. However, his efforts to bring the infamous story to popularity ends up with a high body count and the return of a monster long thought dead.

Don’t say his name.

For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighbourhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; HBO’s Watchmen, Us) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris; If Beale Street Could Talk, The Photograph), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Colman Domingo; HBO’s Euphoria, Assassination Nation) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

I am actually quite impressed by that trailer. Yes, it’s full of your typical horror clichés, but the scares look well executed and the conflict it brings to the film’s main characters is a little smarter than most. The whole idea serves as a nice follow-up and nod to the previous films, which also doesn’t cheapen the legacy of those films as a mere cash-in. Let’s hope the final film looks as good as this trailer.

One of the reasons why Peele and DeCosta were drawn to the original Candyman story was because of how it was the only horror film that explored the black experience in the 90s and so they wanted to keep that tradition going and bring it up to date with the same themes running through.

Candyman is out on June 12, 2020. Although if you look at a mirror and say his name, it might be a little sooner.

Last Updated: February 28, 2020