Most of the major events of the first movie are here, but Candyman is without a backstory, and he haunts a housing project in the UK instead of being stateside. The main character, Helen, is a white, upper-crust type cataloging graffiti for an academic project. “The Forbidden,” from book 5 ( In the Flesh) contains most of the critical DNA that would shape Candyman: Candyman is a legend who haunts an area of urban decay. This penis-chopping story is the origin of “The Forbidden” and the seed of Candyman.Ĭlive Barker’s Books of Blood started coming out in 1984, and they make up over 800 pages of creeps, gore, and magical terror.

I don’t disagree.) And when he was a kid, his grandmother told him that there were bad men in public restrooms, waiting for a little boy to come along so they could cut off his penis. (Some people will say writing is basically emotional prostitution. When he was trying to make it as a writer and had trouble paying bills, he worked as a prostitute. When Clive Barker was 3, he saw a skydiver fall to his death at an airshow. The original short story and original Candyman trilogy are spoiled worse than raw chicken cutlets left in the trunk of your car in Texas heat. I’ll talk about Candyman (2021) without spoiling it until the final “Hot Take” section. Everything from the first kernel of a story to the recent buzz is right here. And there’s no old-timey shit to get in the way, no questions about everyone eating psychedelic wheat, no academic musings about whether or not Clive Barker really existed.

It tells us about how we build monsters and how they take on a life of their own. And now, with Candyman (2021), we’ve said his name for the fifth time:Ĭandyman tells us more than the story of a hook-handed, bee-infested slasher.

The forbidden candyman book