a review of 糖果人

HOOPTOBER NIGHT THREE: Watched this one to familiarize myself with the series and mythology ahead of Jordan Peele's forthcoming reboot/reimagining. And for what it's worth, I think on a conceptual level this has a lot for a filmmaker in 2019 to build from, but the critique in Horror Noire is right on the money: The titular antagonist is the vengeful spirit of a murdered black man (Tony Todd) that haunts the present-day slums of Chicago, but the story persistently centers Virginia Madsen's well-meaning white academic instead, even when it would make more sense for the film to switch gears and delve further into Candyman's backstory and motivations. On one hand, this feels like a canny metaphor for white obliviousness to black pain; At a crucial point it even turns into a Twilight Zone-esque examination of what happens when a well-to-do white person faces the same presumption of criminality that has historically bedeviled poor black people. But by the time we get to the film's climax, this metaphor has broken down, with Candyman resolving into a less complex (and less interesting) villain than he might have seemed earlier on.