If you’ve been following the marketing of director Nia DaCosta’s Candyman reboot / “spiritual sequel” (watch the original Candyman at THIS LINK), which is set to reach theatres on August 27th, you’ve probably seen pieces of the scene in which a group of teenage girls look in a restroom mirror and summon the title character. In the clip embedded above, you can watch over a minute of that particular scene – and as you might expect, calling on Candyman does not go well for these characters.
Directed by DaCosta from a screenplay she wrote with producers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, the film has the following synopsis:
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) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris), 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) 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.
The actors mentioned in the synopsis are joined in the cast by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, with original Candyman cast member Vanessa Williams reprising the role of Anne-Marie McCoy. The Anthony McCoy character is believed to be Anne-Marie’s son, the baby from the first film. Tony Todd is also in the film, to some degree. We’re still not sure just how much Todd this movie is going to have in it.
Ian Cooper produced Candyman with Peele and Rosenfeld.