Nia DaCosta’s Candyman is only months away, and in new interview with Total Film, the filmmaker has opened up about her history with the iconic horror franchise and what it means for her to tackle this project.
“I was in the fifth or sixth grade, and I just remember Candyman being a part of life,” DaCosta told Total Film. “Like legend, lore. We didn’t dare say his name in the mirror. For me, Candyman felt so real. It felt like he could totally exist in the projects by my house.”
Also, as part of the spread for Total Film, there are brand new photos of the film’s star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, Watchmen) as he tries to uncover the mystery of the Candyman story.
SEE ALSO: An Audience’s Guide to the Horrifying Lore of Candyman
For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood 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.
