Rather than cutting to multiple flashbacks or clips from the original Candyman in order to connect its new story to the old lore, Nia DaCosta’s recent horror feature instead told the story entirely through haunting shadow puppetry that introduced a whole host of ghoulish figures complicating the dark lore. io9 has an exclusive clip of DaCosta and Jordan Peele delving into its creation from the home release today.
While Candyman’s take on its titular spirit was a singular being, the film also explored the idea of the Candyman as a folkloric concept borne over and over again out of the countless instances of racist, anti-Black brutality that have systematically featured throughout American history. Even more chilling than the newest Candyman’s gruesome murders of Chicagoans are the ways DaCosta’s Candyman clued you into the stories of the other people who, after meeting their horrific ends, became vengeful presences, and the movie’s upcoming home release provides a bit more insight into how the filmmakers went about bringing them all to life.
In this exclusive preview of one of the featurettes included with Candyman’s home release, DaCosta, Peele, and Candyman producer Ian Cooper open up a bit about how, after initially coming up with the idea to go the shadow puppet route in order to avoid reusing old footage, it soon became clear that the scenes could do so much more to deepen the new film. Though puppetry might not immediately come to mind when people are thinking about art forms that can enhance horror, it’s something all three of the film’s creatives felt ended up making the story stronger. “There’s a timelessness to them,” Peele says of the puppetry process in the video. “A sense that the fire crackling behind them is tribal, and therefore sort of pure in this kind of storytelling.”
Candyman is available today for digital viewing, and will be available on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on November 16.
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DISCUSSION
I hope the featurette on the DVD talks more about Manual Cinema. I know some of them (including the puppeteer they show in the video), and they do really cool work. I was so excited when I found out they had worked on this. I highly recommend seeing one of their live shows if you ever get a chance.