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She buckles him to her belt.
But it isnt just any mirror.
The mirror is an invitation for horror and transformation, potential all mirrors carry.
Candyman, she says between kisses, speaking the name of an urban legend, bringing it into reality.
She repeats the name, the invocation, this spell, a total of five times.
Its then that a figure can be glimpsed in the corner of the mirror.
A hulking Black man with a hook for a hand and features that remain in shadow.
The timing is off.
The gore is too deliberately placed to carry the fury necessary.
There is no tension, no artistry, no silken grace nor grimy texture to be found.
Its glossy to the point of being featureless.
The trailers and marketing held so much promise, the tagline Say His Name evoking history and communal fury.
The 92Candyman,written and directed by Bernard Rose, is an unnerving, sometimes outright frightening masterwork.
Yes, its interrogation of Chicagos history with gentrification remains vital and fascinating.
Yes, the kills are well-paced and evocative.
Yes, the production design is dense and sensual.
But Todds magnetic performance beckons and beguiles.
His Candyman, while brutal, is also seductive.
He glides as he walks.
His gaze is direct.
But theres also a contradiction to this Candyman.
He gets his power from the perpetuation of his legend, which requires fresh kills.
Maybe hes an equal-opportunity killer, but theres something about this logic thats always snagged me.
DaCosta, Peele, and their collaborators seemingly sought to iron out this contradiction.
Hes hungry and desperate for new material.
He was once considered the great Black hope of the Chicago art scene, which hed like to remain.
He may be an artist, but his story is clearly mapped onto Helens.
He moves like her an interloper and anthropologist picking over the remains of other peoples lives.
The sting becomes a wound that oozes and crackles, traveling up his arm until hes covered in stings.
Candymanlacks energy and inventiveness.
When Blackness is whittled down, this is the kind of poor cultural product we are sold.
Candymantells you loudly from the jump what it thinks you should hear.
At another point, William tells Anthony, They love what we make but not us.
Such lines arent only dry as hell, theyre a tell.
It speaks in didactic media cliches about the ambient violence of the gentrification cycle, she says.
Your kind are the real pioneers of that cycle.
When Anthony asks who the hell shes referring to, she counters, Artists.
If the original heaves and breathes with ripe contradictions and precise aesthetic compositions, DaCostas sputters and fizzles.
And how in the hell do you make Yahya Abdul-Mateen II uncharismatic?
Abdul-Mateen isnt one of them.
On paper, casting Abdul-Mateen makes a lot of sense.
His booming voice, physical presence, and training make him a worthy heir to Todd.
When it needs to demonstrate Anthonys mental unraveling, the film calls upon cliches about mad geniuses.
But inCandyman,madness is prosaic.
Its a spectacle all tongues lolling, eyes wild not a lived experience.
InCandyman, the filmmakers are interested in the Black body but not the soul and mind that animates it.
Specificity, particularly in a film such as this, isnt just about a people, but a place.
And Chicago is essential to theCandymanstory.
The city is rendered here as nowhere, New York lite all primarily anonymous skyscrapers and interiors.
For her part, DaCosta did indeed demonstrate a steadiness and emotional curiosity in her 2018 debut filmLittle Woods.
It made me eager to see where she would go.
