Rating: 
Summary: Special Edition is FAR from special...
Review: Candyman has always been one of my favorite horror films, but I always put off buying the bare bones DVD as I knew a Special Edition was inevitable. Well, the Special Edition has been unleashed and I must admit it is quite disapointing.
The film is about an attractive young lady, Helen (Virginia Madsen), who is researching urban legends for a college paper. When she unearths the legend of the Candyman, a vengeful spirit that haunts the chicago slums, she finds herself on the receiving end of his cold hearted wrath and fury.
The Candyman is a unique, tragic horror figure that evokes a tremendous sense of pathos. A former slave, tortured and murdered for having an affair with a white woman, the hook handed antagonist is a persecuted and in many ways sympathetic character not unlike the Phantom Of The Opera or Dracula. The doomed love story and racial conflict provides the substance of this Clive Barker story, and it is far more intellectual and thought provoking than usual horror fare. Tony Todd is outstanding as the imposing and elegant Candyman, creating a truly unforgettable character. Virginia Madsen is excellent too as the reluctant protagonist.
Now, the problem with the DVD and its a major one, unbelievably the video quality is grainy throughout and comparable to a VHS tape at best. There is speckling and dirt on the print also and this is very distracting, enough to make me regret purchasing this. But until the inevitable Candyman Ultimate Edition is released this will have to make do. The revamped cover art is a big letdown too and not in any way comparable to the original art work. This art work cheapens the film considerably and gives the false impression of a seventies Blaxploitation film, like Blacula for example.
The extras are quite good, especially the twenty four minute documentary where notables like Tony Todd and Barker himself delve into the social and psychological significance of the Candyman and share recollections of the filming in Chicago's dilapidated and gang infested Cabrini Green sector. A short retrospective of Clive Barker's career is enthralling as well, the man exudes both charisma and enigma. Finally and strangely enough, some trailers for some truly horrid films are included-the reprehensible Creature Features Series (Teenage Caveman and She-Creature amongst others), Darkness Falls and the utter crapfest known as Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.
In closing, I really wanted to give this DVD five stars and without question the film deserves it. This film has stood the test of time very well, however the lackluster presentation and apathetic attitude of the studio in delivering such an awful print prevent me from giving it anymore than a three star rating.
Rating: 
Summary: BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Not just scary or disturbing, this is one of those films that, like "Castle Freak", truly captures the word 'horror'. Really I think fear (or terror), shock, horror, and that subtler, more-lingering feeling we call 'disturbing' are related but seperate senastions, and while many scary movies mix them in in different amounts, in "Candyman" the emphasis is definately on the Horror (though shock is certainly present too; see the film's last ten minutes - one of the few unexpected finales not ruined by too many people giving it away one day after it hits theaters) (On a slightly digressive note, there are also quite a few movies in the horror section that, despite ranking relatively low in areas of actual horror or fear, still excel massively while maintaining their identities as horror films, drawing on spookiness, thrills, fun, awe, or whatever - "Night Of The Demons" and "Cutting Class" are 2 prime examples)
"Candyman" is about a graduate student (excellently played by Virginia Madsen) doing her doctoral thesis on urban legends, in particular the "Candyman", a mythological figure said to appear when someone says his name in the mirror 5 times and, with his hook hand, split the victim - how does that go? - 'from groin to gullett'. Hoping both to explore the roots of how such legends get started and to debunk the legend herself, Helen (the Madsen character) ends up getting a lot more than she bargained for. It can be a harrowing watch - the nightmare Helen unleashes upon herself, the horrific partial origin of the tragic Candyman and why he does what he does - but it's an excellent movie, with Oscar-worthy performances from Madsen and the always outstanding Tony Todd in the title role, though I suspect Oscar politics and Hollywood prejudices against graphic horror movies may prevent anyone in a movie like this from ever even being considered for a nomination, no matter how good they do.
A tremendous horror movie, though the faint-hearted should approach with a grain of caution.
Rating: 
Summary: Candyman, Candyman..............
Review: Candyman is a creepy and very scary horror movie. The first time i saw this i think i was like 11 maybe at a slumber party, i was so scared. Watching it again recently and i didnt find it as scary, but i thought it was very clever and a really decent film. Helen Lyle is a writer working on a story about the Candyman, an urban legend in which if you say the name Candyman into the mirror five times, the Candyman comes to get you. So Helen goes about to prove that the urban legend isnt true and says Candyman five times in the mirror. Soon she is being stalked by the Candyman and she will live to regret her actions. Both Helen (played by Virgina Madsen I think?) and the Candyman (Tony Todd) are portrayed superbly. I also absolutley love the score by Phillip Glass, the music is so perfect for the movie and its also very creepy, yet cool. Anyway check this out all you horror fans.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST 90'S HORROR MOVIES (PERIOD!!)
Review: CANDYMAN IS AN EXCELLENT HORROR FILM, IT TAKES YOU DEEP INTO THE URBAN LEGEND OF THE MAN WITH THE HOOK BUT REALLY COMES TO LIFE WITH ITS CHILLING PLOT. ITS ALWAYS BEEN A FAVORITE OF MINE COMBINING BOTH, A REAL LIFE FEAR FACTOR AND A STORY LINE THAT DRAWS YOU DEEPER INTO THE HORROR. IF YOU ARE A REAL HORROR FAN OR ARE JUST LOOKING FOR A REAL HORROR MOVIE, TRUST ME THEY DONT MAKE THEM LIKE THIS ANYMORE
TREADWAY,
VA BCH,VA
Rating:
Summary: The best horror film of the decade
Review: Candyman is the best horror film of the decade and one of the best in the history of horror films. The movie is about an urban legend that states that if you say Candyman five times in the mirror he'll come and split you from the groin up. I've heard people say this is a slasher flick. Well, if it is then it's a slasher flick with an imagination. Candyman is a very creative movie with a very chilling concept. The acting in this movie is solid. Virginia Madsen is the best as the woman who tries to convince others that Candyman is real. Tony Todd, who played the hero in the remake of Night of the Living Dead, is menacing in his subtle performance as the villain Candyman. Another great thing about this movie is the musical score from Philip Glass. It really sets the mood and atmosphere of the movie. Bernard Rose's direction and writing skills prove excellent. This is hands down the best adaptation of a Clive Barker book or story. It seems the best film is the one Barker didn't adapt himself. I'm disappointed that not many people have seen or heard of Candyman. This film did well at the box office back in 1992, opening with 5 million dollars and earning a solid domestic gross of 26 million dollars in less than 1500 theaters. Still, it's not as well known as Hellraiser, which I consider a below average film of any genre. Candyman is an example of how good horror films can still be.
Rating:
Summary: The REAL Urban Legend film
Review: Candyman is yet another fantastic adaptation of one of Clive Barker's stories into a film. It has a very different feeling to it compared to Hellraiser, Nightbreed, or Lord of Illusion. The world in "Candyman" feels more real, which makes it more frightening. The story is about a graduate student working on a thesis about urban legends and modern folklore that people use to deal with the baser human fears in modern life. Once the legends get spread they eventually take on a life of their own. In the case of Candyman, a legend taking on it's own life gets on an entirely new meaning. That's enough to get you started without giving away too much. In the right atmosphere, this movie can be down right frightening. The use of sound in the film is phenomenal. The constant switch between silence and Philip Glass' creepy score is wonderful. On top of that, Tony Todd's resonating deep voice will send chills down your spine when he calls out Helen's name. The movie is starts very slow paced in order to keep the suspense up, and then explodes.
This is an intense, highly psychological, and gory film.
Rating:
Summary: The one horror film of the 90's that truly deserves 5 stars
Review: Clive Barker's Candyman was one of the finest horror films I have ever seen and one of my personal favorites. Writer-director Bernard Rose does an excellent job of adapting a Barker story into a masterpiece film that not only provides chills and scares, but also many issues of racism and vengeance. The movie begins with a student telling Helen Lyle, played by the beautiful and extremely talented Virginia Madsen, an urban legend about Candyman. You have to say his name five times in the mirror and he'll appear and split you from the groin up. Helen is writing a thesis on urban legends and is particularly interested in Candyman because of how so many people believe in it. She and her friend, Bernadette, decide to go investigate an apartment complex that was the site of murders that Candyman could be responsible for. That's when a series of murders begin to occur and Helen must try to figure out what's actually going on. Candyman is a rare movie in the nineties that mixes style with ideas. One of the film's most disturbing scenes is when Virginia Madsen is drenched in blood, and is forced to strip her clothes off in front of a police officer. Subtle scenes like that are harder to take than senseless bloody murders in slasher flicks. The acting in this film is also very noteworthy. Madsen's performance is one of the best I've ever seen in a horror film, easily rivaling Ellen Burstyn from The Exorcist. She begins the film as a non-believer, but is converted when she becomes the target of Candyman. By the final third of the film she must decide whether Candyman is real or if she is going insane. Madsen is convincing through all these changes, and she certainly deserves more roles in films these days. Tony Todd also delivers a fine performance as Candyman. Add to the film great writing, directing, and soundtrack and you've got an instant classic. The film provides many questions. Where did Candyman come from? Is he actually real? Candyman's ending is nothing short of unpredictable and surprising.
Rating:
Summary: He is the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom!
Review: Directed by Bernard Rose, based on a Clive Barker's short story called "The Forbidden", "Candyman" is unlike what I've seen before. It's a mixture of psychological and downplayed bloodfest that manages to make you think and scream at the same time. It's a thinking man's horror movie, if you will.
Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is a graduate research student, undergoing an assignment on urban legends, particularly of Candyman, a titular mythic figure with a hook on his bloody stump of a right hand that haunts a ramshackle Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago. After interviewing dozens of people and going through a grave assault by a gang, Lyle stubbornly still doesn't believe in Candyman. As oppose to taking the gravity of the people's beliefs seriously, to Lyle, Candyman is still nothing but an urban legend created to frighten the kids to go back to sleep and keep away trespassers from the notorious Cabrini-Green residential area. All is just a thesis until the day Candyman appears to her, haunting her first with his enigmatic, gravel sounding voice and later, murdering the people around her. As a result, Helen is arrested and is committed to a mental institution even though she doesn't really commit the murders (or does she?!?) simply because like all police in every horror movie, they don't believe in monsters and supernatural killers, let alone in urban legends.
A side story involves Helen Lyle's husband who abandons her halfway through for his sanity but mostly for a young ditzy girl from his University class he teaches in. Sounds like a pulpy soap operaish technique to make us sympathize with the heroine but man, could it work even more genuinely. Helen's plight at the end is just as sincerely heartbreaking and painful as any other non-horror tragic movies out there, offering a tranquility in poignancy: a quality very rare in this type of genre. This is where the movie really works because, unlike its sequels and clones and other mundane, generic slasher variety, it's refreshing to have someone who we can care and root for. Even without this aforementioned quality, the subplot still has to exist, because in the context of the film, it shows that Lyle's normal life is never the same again once Candyman's wrath is unleashed upon her.
The intelligence of the script is just as strong as its ambiguity. Mainly, the psychological aspect of it plays around the notion of one's individualism going over the sea of insanity and hallucinations. Does Candyman really exists? Is so, is Helen the reincarnation of Candyman's lost love? If he's just a myth; nothing more, nothing less, how one can define Helen? Innocent or have finally given up to her craziness of her urban legend obsessions? A few questions out of a lot that are left unanswered and to be pondered to the audiences thinking brain. It can also be seen as a satire of shallow mass consumption, formulating ideas through the analogy of the ever-increasing popularity of urban legends in this kind of protocol: people believing in Candyman: safe and alive; Helen not believing in Candyman: crazy and a scapegoat.
Only "The Blair Witch Project", "Scream" and "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" in the late 90's come close to this level of sophistication of setting up the mystery and ambiguity to be analyzed that "Candyman" laid out.
Of course, it also satisfies the gorehounds of all of us. Scenes of bloodshed and gore-letting are few and between, but once they come, they come unleashing a violent and unrestrained look at the torture done to the victim. Some scenes are nauseating, disturbing and just plain nasty.
The actors are great, particularly the underrated Virginia Madsen (Michael Madsen's sister), who exhibits great vulnerability through her occasional tough and determined strong-willed individual. Tony Todd is very effective and enigmatic as Candyman himself. He holds our attention even if we want to look away. Terrifying voice too!
"Candyman" also introduced me to the minimalist maestro himself, Philip Glass. Before "Candyman", I didn't know such a talented musical composer exist until the music during its opening credits bombarded me with its simple and repeating vocalized concerto. It sounded bizarre, something I've never heard of before, and harsh to the ears; but I believed that somehow because of those qualities, it was beautiful and powerful on its own twisted way, like a deformed but equally lovable version of Beethoven.
"Candyman" is a psychological mind game that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, refusing us to have the answers whether the things that happened are actual fact. To disservice the movie, it is a kid's version of "Mulholland Drive" and "Memento" with a dash of "Friday the 13th" as it does falters along the way, especially at the end, where it turned into a full-on, generic, slasher mode, dampening the powerfully moving scene of Helen Lyle's funeral at the gravesite, where I feel that the movie should have ended.
Nevertheless, one of the best horror films out there; genuinely scary, heavy with atmosphere, laden with good performances, a deafening and dizzening but equally amazing score and a very intelligent script all equals to saying his name five times in the mirror!
Candyman....
Rating:
Summary: Hypnotic and Suspenseful
Review: First of all, I don't wish to sound unappreciative, but I don't think this film would have been as atmospheric and eerie without the wonderful soundtrack of Philip Glass.
Other than the strong soundtrack, this film is actually quite an excellent adaptation of Clive Barker's short-story (From "The Forbidden").
What I enjoyed about this film was the hypnotic presence of Tony Todd (Candyman), as well as his Karmic link with Helen. The merging of past and present, along with their forbidden romance, made the movie all the more mysterious. In addition to this, a little armchair psychology on the existence of Good and Evil, and Candyman's own twisted theories on cruelty. He is a metaphor for our own love affair with dark, mysterious villians . . . imaginary evil is always more interesting than the real thing, isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing, different, and most importantly, original.
Review: Forget the sequels, the Scream movies, and the 'I Know Who You Killed After Sleeping With Them Last Independance Day'-type movies. 'Candyman', the original urban-legend-based horror movie is definitely one of the absolute best horror movies of the 90's, and even today, with a decent body of work being produced in this genre, stands the test of time as a truly scary and original picture. Attractive, intelligent and wry university researcher Helen Lyle (an excellent, hitherto overlooked Virginia Madsen) stumbles onto the horrifying legacy of The Candyman, while compiling a research paper on Urban Legend. She and her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) investigate further, and what ensues is a genuinely disturbing movie, choc-full of decent performances, excellent direction and an exquisite score by Phillip Glass. The premise is simple: Urban Legend comes to life, starts rampage, must be stopped. It's the actors that make 'Candyman' a treat, and Madsen and Lemmons give great performances, believable as disaster-plagued Women-Of-The-Ninties. Madsen, in particular, does a brilliant job in the role of the hapless Helen, being by turns businesslike and frail. Tony Todd as the titular Candyman is one of the most memorable villains of modern Horror, and gives a sensual, menacing performance as the Villain. His voice and screen presence make the flesh crawl, while simultaneously exuding charisma. Bernard Rose's direction (he also wrote the screenplay, from an old Clive Barker story) is standard-setting. The grim, gritty vistas of Cabrini Green and the sepia-toned flashback sequences are memorable and chilling, and spiralling arial shots coupled with choppy cut-sequences make for a visual feast. The score, too, helps the picture enormously, and Glass' solo piano is the stuff of horror classics. An original and excellent horror, 'Candyman' deserves its place as a true classic of the Genre. Neither pretentious nor ironic, it's a brilliantly realised vision of a modern nightmare. Get it.
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