Candyman

Le pire film que j’ai vu cette année. Je me souviens de la version originale qui m’avait angoissé et terrifié au point que je ne m’autorise pas à prononcer ce mot devant le miroir jusqu’à aujourd’hui ! Le volet suivant, je ne l’ai pas vu. Je ne comprends pas comment les créateurs ont pu, à partir d’une intrigue d’épouvante basique, concevoir une ânerie engagée aussi insensée et avec peut-être en tout trois scènes d’horreur. Si les États-Unis se mettent à faire des films basés sur des structures préfabriquées, des quotas et des modèles pseudopolitiques et pseudophilosophiques, le cinéma américain, tous genres confondus, va droit au mur. Un samedi soir gâché, alors que j'ai déjà si peu de temps pour les films cette année… (29/07/2022)

Délire prétentieux. Alors que le Candyman original fonctionnait très bien comme film d'horreur, ce n’est pas du tout le cas de ce reboot, dans lequel il n’y a aucune trace d’ambiance ou de peur chez les personnages. Les seules scènes qui méritent d'être mentionnées sont le fameux plan dézoomé qui montre un meurtre en cours d’exécution et d’autres idées visuelles du même acabit. Toujours est-il que l’ensemble s’embourbe tant dans sa tentative de suivre la mythologie du film d’origine (y compris le caméo totalement gratuit et déroutant de Tony Todd) que dans celle qui s’évertue à formuler, beaucoup trop littéralement, une sorte de critique sociale. (25/12/2021)

Be my Victim! Sorry, it was just in the trailer. Ugh so I'm leaving the new Candyman more disappointed than I would have hoped. I can get over the fact that it's political propaganda, social drama about racism, mulitcultural as fuck, but why someone has to make a slowburn drama out of the cult urban legend slasher with a crossover into art, where Candyman doesn't get on until somewhere in the 40 minute mark and waves his hook off camera, I just don't understand. The scene in the washroom, the trailer had me looking forward to that one (we've all seen Halloween, right?), it had the potential to make a memorable scene, but a woman is directing, so we're not going to put four dead teenagers on camera, let the viewer imagine the guts and severed heads! A shot in the head for laziness and unwillingness to give the viewer pleasure. Tom Savini would be in tears at the wasted potential of this scene. What’s next? The uninteresting dialogues, the intimate look, the slow pace that at times it really drags like shit in traffic and I felt like I was watching a 2 hour horror movie by SyFy. The cinematography is nice at times, and I liked the retrospective puppet story, and that's actually the most interesting thing about the whole movie; the mythology around Candyman is not that badly presented, but that's not enough! The finale is rushed and apart from the first murder of a couple, which gave hope that the whole film would be in a similar vein, it was more of a taste of something that is definitely not coming. And the music? I didn't even notice it except for the bees buzzing. No atmosphere, not scares to speak of either. If Jordan Peele had taken over the direction, it could have been more interesting and certainly more entertaining. As it is, it's a bit meh and a disgrace. And I'm currently more annoyed than I am after bee sting! I have nothing against gay people, but for them to be on the scene more often than Candyman himself is a bit much. Story 3/5, Action 2/5, Humor 0/5, Violence 2/5, Fun 2/5 Music 2/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 1/5, Actors 4/5. 4/10. (31/08/2021)

A surprisingly meaningful follow-up to the original film from the 1990s and a timely update for today. It can be uncomfortable and disturbing without explicitly showing violence (which, by the way, neither did the original film). At the same time, it can be beautiful and aesthetic (the film is playfully shot to make use of various mirror reflections, etc.) even though it deals with ugly things. We probably haven’t seen better craftsmanship in the horror field this year. (04/09/2021)

The most recent instalment of the series is a solid recycling of the original Candyman myth for today, which comes across as appealing and literal, not only in comparison with the phenomenal and, in terms of the genre, very atypical original. The classic slowly gnawed away the foundations of reality and rationality, and worked dramaturgically with a view from outside that, at the same time, problematised and thoughtfully thematised, developed and analysed the phenomenon of urban legends until it became one itself. Conversely, the new Candyman relies on the contemporary formula of combining spectacular brutality and ostentatious cleverness. The screenplay highlights the motif of names and their importance to the narrative, as well as the identity and iconography of the community in a thought-provoking way. The narrative itself is built around the pain and trauma of African-Americans as individuals and as a community, thanks to which it strongly resonates with issues that have been a long-lived experience for them and have been brought to the attention of the rest of the world by the protests and, especially, the discussions following the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. The film thus abandons a more general overlap, but it does so at the cost of expressive emancipation. As a character, the Candyman thus becomes an amalgam of names, faces, injustices and pain. The view from the inside may not allow him to take flight like the original did but, on the other hand, it gives him the power of eloquence. (28/08/2021)