Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) and Bernadette "Bernie" Walsh are gathering urban legends from undergrads in Chicago. They are grad students and this research is for their thesis. While reviewing a tape about the Candyman after hours, the janitor comments on it. There was a woman killed by the Candyman in Cabrini-Green, a notorious housing project. Helen finds the story ludicrous but decides to check on it. Sure enough, a woman was sliced open. Now curious, she and Bernie go to the housing project to investigate. Her persistence attracts the attention of local gang members who attack her. Having exposed the hoax, she is confronted by the Candyman (Tony Todd). He explains with his ghostly voice that he must make an example of her lest his following lose faith in him.
When I originally saw the movie in 1992, it seemed a mediocre horror film. The backstory for Candyman is vague. Why is he called Candyman? It isn't explained in the movie. By the end, he appears to have been killed/destroyed while Helen takes his place as a disfigured burn victim ghost who wields Candyman's hook, the only part of him not consumed in the bonfire. Seeing it again with the benefit of knowing more of Candyman's backstory from sequels, this is a pretty good film. It isn't the standard horror film. It's a film noir-horror-romance mash up. There are indications that Helen is the reincarnation of Candyman's lost love, or at least she is a look alike. Thus, he attempts to woo her to join him, destroying everything that gives her a will to live.
A sequel is scheduled for June of this year and will see some of the stars from the 1992 movie return.
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