Review: Candyman (2021)

 

My rating: 6/10

Before I proceed with my review I have to mention that I have not seen the original '92 version of this film so the actual impression from this one was based on this work only with no comparison to the original version. And I actually kind of liked this film.

Well objectively speaking I must admit that this film is indeed more of a drama slowly revealing issues of the communities living in ghettoes as well as racism and police brutality, rather than a horror focusing on the dark side of the urban legend of Candyman. 

The Candyman portrayed as a person who was committed great injustice and violence against and who comes back to life haunting the living and taking revenge upon them is remotely similar to other stories of this kind. These stories always have great potential to go beyond and explore more than just gory scenes and that is exactly what this film does. It focuses on the tales well known within the community and shows potential various evils that can occur within. Focus is also placed on the shift in the mind of the main character and along with his body slowly decaying, we see his personality shifting as well. Apart from that, there weren't many illogical turns as far as the behavior of the characters is concerned which is a great advantage.

However, there are some areas where this movie could have been better. First of all, if a director is aiming at taking their movie seriously as far as horror subgenre is concerned, I don't quite get the lack of horror elements. There was enough information on Candyman presented to actually create a very chilling story, which film fails to do. There are no jumpscares that did work. What would also make stronger effect on viewer would be incorporating more gore scenes to underline the brutality Candyman is opting to and that would also create contrast between who he was while living and who he is now as an apparition. This is not what we have seen portrayed in the storyline, and the character of Candyman is also shown very little throughout the entire film. 

In the end, looking back at this film it seems more of a drama that mindlessly throws in a couple of murders, just to make it more interesting I guess. 

So in conclusion, this film is not heavy to watch, but it is not really boring either, thus the final score and my opinion is rather positive.

Maybe my standards are dropping after watching so many nonsense films in last couple of months lol