Nia DaCosta’s Candyman has earned an R rating with its bloody violence

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Originally set to reach theatres on June 12th, director Nia DaCosta's "spiritual sequel" to the 1992 horror classic CANDYMAN (which you can watch HERE) was pushed back to September 25th due to the pandemic, and was then pushed back again. Its current – and hopefully final – release date is October 16th. 

We still have a few months to wait for this one, but the MPAA ratings board has had their chance to watch the movie. The new CANDYMAN has officially been rated R "for bloody horror violence, and language including some sexual references". Sounds good to me, "bloody horror violence" is definitely something a CANDYMAN movie should contain.

DaCosta wrote the screenplay for the film with Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld. Peele and Rosenfeld also produced the film with Ian Cooper, through Peele's company Monkeypaw Productions. 

The synopsis: 

Don’t say his name.

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 and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, 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 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.

Oscar-winner Jordan Peele unleashes a fresh take on the blood-chilling urban legend that your friend’s older sibling probably told you about at a sleepover: Candyman.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett star in the film, with original CANDYMAN cast member Vanessa Williams returning to reprise the role of Anne-Marie McCoy. The Anthony McCoy mentioned in the synopsis is believed to be Anne-Marie's son, the baby from the first film.