With a new film on the horizon, Candyman fans have plenty to look forward to. However, an added bonus has been announced. It’s been revealed an extensive documentary titled The Complete History of Candyman is also on the way. The new documentary will take a look at the entire franchise, including the original three Candyman films and Clive Barker’s own short story that inspired it all: The Forbidden. What’s more, a trailer for the documentary has been released as well, and you can check it out down below.
As for what the documentary will specifically focus on, here’s a more in-depth summary:
“The Complete History of Candyman begins with an overview of the heyday of horror and its sharp decline, solely down to the responsibility of the decay of the slasher sub-genre, when all of Hollywood, from the sleaziest independent backstreet butcher to the highest-paid studio executive, was green-lighting any film that featured a masked psychopath, scores of 30 + something teenagers with a half decent set of lungs, an ample array of ways to die and, in the best of both worlds, all three.
Candyman History then comes full circle by analysing the symbiotic relationship between the horror genre and the African-American experience, and how Spike Lee’s masterpiece, Do the Right Thing, became the bracing model for how the studio system packaged contemporary racial issues in a manner that startlingly respects the ability of viewers to think for themselves, leading to the birth of Bernard Rose’s Candyman; the two are inextricably linked, and its sequels.”
It clearly looks like a carefully made documentary, and one that should excellently explore the themes weaved throughout the series. This should most certainly be a treat for Candyman fans, especially those still waiting on the new movie’s release date. Writer/director Bryn Curt James Hammond also stated the following during an interview with Blazing Minds:
“We have brought together extremely strong-minded talent to discuss the groundbreaking Bernard Rose classic and its sequels. For me the original is nothing less than a celluloid art piece, a canvas painted in an elaborate moody, red, black and brown colour palette not to dissimilar to a scheme typical of European films, of a campfire with enduring articulation of style – a gift that keeps on giving with every re-watch,” he stated.
“Candyman’s underlining current of fear readily allows its viewer to confront social issues, from both an urbanized village of enclosed repression to the supernatural encounters. The series also has a running theme Farewell to the Flesh and in-part Day of the Dead; all possess the same strange, dream logic, history wrenching itself into the present, and an insistence on asking difficult questions about American racism, the latter predominantly challenging family lore, the traumas of national history, ancestral relationships to Candyman, a plantation slave, which all point to the racism at America’s foundation. I leave no stone unturned, and that includes the author’s own legal woes that derailed his winning streak in Hollywood, which is so often overlooked.”
The new documentary The Complete History of Candyman will include interviews with Shawn C. Phillips, Dallas Jackson, Robin Nassif, Robin Pierce, with many others to be featured.