Candyman, Cabrini, and Conjure:
Contextualizing the modern zonbi.
“This neighborhood’s haunted.”
Cabrini-Green. A symbol of a seemingly bygone era of rejuvenation, redlining, urban blight, and lastly gentrification. Indeed, a brief, austere, and emotionally detached labeling. Lest we forget this was a community where almost 15,000 Black people lived, worked, and survived. It’s critical that the first series of images are of Cabrini in the second official Candyman trailer. Long after the white flight of Italians that once occupied space with Black residents in the 1940s and 1950s — the location named for Saint Frances Cabrini and William Green — was now rebranded as a place welcoming and hospitable for the majority of Black residents who wished to build and maintain: community.
In the beginning, their efforts were extremely successful, due to a combined political and monetary backing from the city of Chicago. When the money and resources from the city gradually declined, so too did the necessary and vital services needed to maintain the pristine outward appearance of the buildings; as a result, the public perception of those who dwelled therein gradually began to shift and blame was foisted upon the community, rather than the city government that abandoned them. Sadly, the rest of the story is literally…history.
Thus, when we see a young smiling Black child with a paper bag filled with groceries walking home towards the flat row-houses and looming towers of Cabrini-Green — with even more children playing in the courtyards — one is immediately jarred by the juxtaposition of how the community was portrayed and how it actually existed. As the foreboding tones of the ‘Candyman theme’ tinkle ominously in the background coupled with the sweeping shots of Cabrini, we know there is danger lurking somewhere for this child and the community at large.
Spoiler/Update: The child is actually carrying laundry, not groceries, and he lives in the flat Cabrini rowhouses instead of the highrises.
Soon, four pieces of franchise iconography are presented that immediately invoke fear and danger: a Black man — in a long coat — with a hook for a hand — bearing sweets. This man is no monster, but a disabled member of the community who just wishes to do something nice for the children he comes across. Children being the curious sort that they are probably inquired about his grasping-hook, he gave them some candy in kindness, and that innocent and innocuous conversation when perceived by adults *or the police* was perceived with suspicion.
Contextually, various socio-horror narratives are at play during this glimpse into the past. Disability as perceived infection/undesirability, fear of mental illness, ‘stranger danger’, and lastly the historical framing of rampant serial killers in the 1960s and 70s. The razor-blade ‘poison’ candy myth that snowballed from a need to protect the safety and virtue of children — through fear — sadly careened into the life of this innocent misunderstood Black man who existed within a precarious set of intersections.
Police as an instrument of interpersonal and community terror are introduced through the surprise raids that would become commonplace in the decades to follow for the denizens of Cabrini-Green. Meanwhile, the haunting images of the puppetry-storytelling trailer are peppered throughout and reenacted by the hands of a Black child. This chilling commentary about how violence and PTSD are absorbed and transmitted through the eyes of future generations is a frighteningly sobering one. This horror film is working at some profound levels to translate that trauma transmission isn’t just tangible through epigenetic means but via urban legend that can warp and transform the initial story through each retelling.
For example, which communities got the metaphoric ‘razorblades’ and who received the sensationalized boogeyman stories? The Black children of Cabrini-Green is the short answer but the long answer is the broader Black community, young and old, far beyond the zip codes of Chicago. The innocence of entire generations of children was affected by the rumor and stigma against their beloved community ‘candy man’.
“Black people don’t need to be summoning…”
The horrifying subtext of the 1992 Candyman film is made text by explicitly stating that “Candyman is not a he. He’s the whole damn hive.” They have never been just an individual but something far more insidious and pervasive that has echoes across time, regardless of distance. The blood-stained grounds of Cabrini-Green are experiencing a cyclical haunting via systems of injustice that have created a conveyor belt of candy-men. The image of the original Candyman flanked by a new legion of substrates, akin to a viral undead legion, is a grim prognostication of where Black lives (especially men) could be derailed. Candyman is the cost of zombification as a concept of folklore in African-American/Caribbean stories made manifest.
The crux of this supernatural power is belief. Urban legends, as the film asserts, can be made real by the dangerous unintended consequences of fear-based conjure. Conjure and magics can appear in a myriad of forms, for good or ill, but when the beating heart of the conjure is terror, their name will never be spoken of fondly or with the intent for the soul to rest. Historically, the fate of the zonbi was one of the most feared by Black people post-enslavement because that meant the supposed reprieve of death, burial, and heaven would never come. The body would always wander and be wielded as a perpetual thrall of domination and subservience; their name and visage a blight upon the community and an entity to be feared.
“You want to be a part of the story right?”
The body horror of becoming the unknown and the undead is shown through the physical deterioration of the main character Anthony McCoy (Yada Abdul Mateen II) after a bee sting. Note, that’s his camera-gripping and painting hand. Artistic and sinister. As his skin deteriorates, his body is shown to be a conduit for the bees thereafter, with one shown emerging from underneath his fingernail. If you know your horror films, The Fly (1986) probably buzzed into your sub-conscience. Becoming the literal and physical manifestation of ‘the other’ appears to be a grim and painful process when one becomes reborn into the Candyman.
An effective touch of clothing design shows each person in their respective era donning a yellow jacket or long coat with white blousing or undershirt to signify the completion of the transformation. The color yellow beyond the indicator of richness and luxury can also be one of caution and physical illness. Or as the trailer illustrates, a beacon of light in an otherwise bleak world. Each person depicted spread some form of joy or vibrance (through art or a smile) in their community and that gentility was met with antagonism. Thematically and unequivocally the color yellow is meant to heighten our general anxiety around bees, which may also be a primitive instinct garnered through generations of painful experiences, and even death from their swarming stings. Even now, the sound of them can invoke a heightened flight or kill response, as a quick demonstrative squish from Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Paris) shows.
The reflective surfaces and mirroring peppered throughout the trailer made for some amazing horror visuals. The grinning visage of Daniel Robitaille himself staring back into the face of Anthony was a frighteningly spectacular one albeit grim. Was this swollen face with a myriad of cuts the last vestige of the living man before he was thrown into the pyre that consumed him? Seeing Tony Todd’s Candyman return in this way made me exclaim with appreciation but also filled me with unbearable sadness; the character is inextricably linked to so much historical tragedy and that lingering through-line permeates every single moment of this two minutes and twenty-three seconds. The pulsing heartbeat and breathing sounds as the trailer ratchets up its tension could be the King-bee himself or the sprawling drone of other Candy-men. The sound of distorted screams at the end of the trailer masterfully filled me with dread. A final consolation prize was seeing the titular character dispatch vengeance to everyone in his path ‘from groin to gullet’.
“Tell everyone” Candyman will FINALLY debut on August 27, 2021. Sweet. 🐝
