REVIEW: CANDYMAN

4/5

Candy Shop. 

91 Mins. Starring: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Kyle Kaminsky, Vanessa Williams & Colman Domingo. Director: Nia DaCosta. 

'Candyman', Candyman, Candym...just kidding, I ain't even gonna say his name like 'Beetlejuice'. We know I'm still a wuss for horror movies. Despite my new love for this genre approaching Halloween season like a "groovy baby" slasher stalking Jamie Lee Curtis with a blunderbuss. 'Halloween Kills' too. Either way Jordan Peele who told 'Us' to 'Get Out' and his perfectly produced 'Candyman' is here in a reign of pollen falling like snow around his sheepskin and suede (it better not really rain like 'Seinfeld') Tom Hardy's Bane would be proud of. And Yahya Abdul-Matten II's second coming of this Candy, John is the bees knees. Like Christian Aguilera said about him, "he's the one stop shop, with a real big (uh)"...hook for a hand. Give him one. Because didn't your mama warn you not to take sweets from strangers? But beyond a punchline. More than a cautionary tale. Or even a scary story for you horror aficionados that see Friday the 13th as a stroke of luck the moment midnight hits. This is more than all that. And bigger than Jordan too like the city of Chicago it's set in. Peele may have poured over the script in co-write. But this is 'Little Woods' writer, director and Tribeca winner Nia DaCosta's movie. The youngest director to be handed the keys to direct a Marvel movie ('The Marvels') to be exact after Ryan Coogler and the 'Black Panther' revolution. This is her moment as she takes us to the candy shop like 50 and everyone's as she takes those to task in a time were Black Lives Matter like they always have and always should have. Haunting us with the dark shadows of cardboard puppetry of the horrors of history for her art on this cinematic canvas that is anything but paper thin. Having you stay right to the end of the credits and the shutter reel like they do here out of respect in Japan. Say her name over and over again until it comes out of an envelope marked, "best". 

Basquiat throwing everything at the screen in hopes that something will stick with you like honey once you've left the auditorium, DaCosta delivers a horror like no other. Even in this 'Hereditary' golden age of 'Midsommar' burning like 'The Wicker Man'. Sending more than shivers down your spine she really makes you look in the mirror, lost for words with a lump in your throat. And that's the hook like Pan, Peter. From the moment this all begins between the Windy City fog of some inverted skyscrapers turning your whole world upside down in this time were things are stranger than eleven out of ten. So much so the reversed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer roaring lion, Bron like the King creative productions and Monkeypaw I.D.'s will have you wanting to rush to the nearest usher to tell them the projectionist set this thing the wrong way, until on reflection you realize how much of a fool you've been. Laughing like the time 'Family Guy' took the piss out of elaborative, over-the-top and top many overused production titles which make you unable to determine what's the beginning of the movie and what's not. No trouble here though. We all know what this movie is all about as 'Nobody's Smiling' in the streets of Chicago like the Common album that gave us an explicit content warning of the violence here like a parental advisory sticker. A classic city still untouchable like Capone that has been given a brief respite thanks to the Sky high champions of the homecoming queen Candace Parker led champion WNBA team in the leagues 25th anniversary. But this city still needs to be put on like Kanye once said with Jeezy. There's too much lead sailing through this city of wind and for all the jump scares in this hook slasher that will make you scream like the dialled in return of "hello Sidney". Who are you gonna call when the thing that will scare you out your skin more than anything here is the shot from a cop's glock? Booking in the theatre that will leave everyone silent. Not a dry eye or chewed kernel of popcorn in the house. Certainly not some overused 'Ghostbusters' cliché. This is realer than the reaper you thought was under you bed as a kid. This is what really keeps us up at night. 

Hives of talent, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is the real deal as one of the greatest of our generations. You just have to see him as Black Panther Bobby Seale in Netflix's 'The Trial Of The Chicago 7' that no gag could bound, to see how much more he means. The man who can play both the Black Manta of an awesome 'Aquaman' villain and take DC even deeper in the hallmark HBO 'Watchman' series as no other but...can we say it yet for the blue man group that's a hit in Broadway, Times Square, Manhattan? If that wasn't enough Yahya is about to take over Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus (all but confirmed, but c'mon. Look at those eyeglasses) in the return of 'The Matrix' for 'Resurrections'. "Time to fly!". But this is his moment and movie too like a classic carnival cameo in 'Us' that saw the guy whose popped up in both 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Black Mirror' series significantly, staggering around drunk like his own horror show. And here in a movie that looks at the human ones by the book like forefather Stephen King, he plays a socially conscious artist whose about to turn the whole art world into a Jackson Pollock one. Abdul-Mateen the second is amazingly adept at showing us the buried bruises of the soul without telling us. From the Denzel school of a were a single tear can evoke waterfalls of pain for not just him, but all the people that look like him. It's a powerful performance in a movie as such as the ages hidden behind the couch as another fright fest. He does the legend incarnate of Tony Todd's Daniel Robitaille based on Clive Barker's short story 'The Forbidden' proud in their honor. Scratching beneath the skin of a bee sting he should really get looked at as this movie cuts like razorblade candy that when it drops sends more shocks than a dismembered hand. This project houses even more talent bringing attention to the inner city in this movie. New Hollywood heavyweights like the incredible Teyonah Parris as the heart of this film after her super 'WandaVision' breakout through more than the fourth wall. Her brother, E4 and Channel 4, 'Misfits' and 'Utopia' star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett steals any scene he's in with his lovely lover Kyle Kaminsky ('One Night In Hollywood'). Whilst 'New Jack City' legend Vanessa Williams saves the best for last with no need for an A. Just like Michael B. Jordan, there's room for more than one Vanessa Williams and this one is just as great as her singing slash acting namesake. But for all that spins round this movie it's Parris' 'If Beale Street Could Talk' (she really has left a mark ever since she told her lead to, "unbow your head sister") co-star and 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' and 'Selma' star Colman Domingo's laundromat owner that really let's everything wash over you like someone left a red sock in with the load for a movie that cuts to the core like the ridge of a hacksaw. Getting out Peele's idea of the gentrification of black homes, bodies and lives, but cutting deeper. "They love what we make, but they don't love us," he says in a moment that will stay with you longer than the night terrors. Hear the sound? We all know what the real swarm that could more than sting you is now as the siren blares. On reflection, 'Candyman' is more than a scary story but one that shows the real human horrors that lie beneath the sheet they just pulled over everyone's head like the wool over our eyes. Say his name. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Filming: 'Candyman (1992)', 'Get Out', 'Us'.