How 2021’s Candyman Changed the Franchise’s Mythology Forever

Nia DaCosta’s 2021 film Candyman, an update on the horror franchise of the same name, was a critical and commercial success when it debuted, but it seems we still have not grasped the full depth of this film and its place in the modern genre landscape.

Yes, it got good reviews and earned solid money (especially for the pandemic era), and yes it has plenty of fans who’ll happily sing its praises, but DaCosta‘s film, produced by horror master Jordan Peele, still deserves more credit for what it was able to achieve. It’s a film that touches nerves which felt especially tender in 2021, but beyond its topical relevance, it’s one of those films that stretches itself out across time to find meaning that feels not just timeless, but somehow unending. The fears and the traumas at the heart of the film are things we will continue to reckon with forever, and that’s reflected in one key change the film made to the franchise’s mythology. 

It’s a tweak so simple, so self-evident, that you might be tempted to glance over it and get back to the brutal kill scenes throughout the film. But the more you look at Candyman — airing this month on SYFY — the more you’ll find this change to the mythos makes a lasting, emotionally potent, impact across the whole franchise.

How Candyman 2021 changes the franchise mythos for the better

Let’s back up for a minute, just to refresh ourselves: In the first three films in the franchise, the “Candyman” of the title is Daniel (the late, legendary Tony Todd), a 19th century American artist who’s tortured and killed by white men after he has an affair with a white woman. Transformed into a supernatural spirit of vengeance who’s become an urban legend in the present day, he emerges to kill anyone who dares summon him. 

Daniel’s legend is a straightforward ghost story, a spin on hook-handed killers from urban legends, and a reminder of the traumas of America’s past and present, and it works very well. In the 2021 Candyman, we meet Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a Chicago artist who grows interested in the Candyman legend and the scary stories surrounding the Cabrini Green housing project. 

Anthony goes digging, along the way finding connections between his research, the legend of a white woman named Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen’s character in the first Candyman film), and the story of a Black man named Sherman, who was murdered in the 1970s after being falsely accused of tainting Halloween candy given out to white children. In his research, and the resulting art he creates, Anthony establishes a continuum of violence and vengeance, legend and loss. And the most shocking thing about all of this? Through his immersion in Candyman lore, it seems he is becoming more like the character in the legends.

Yes, Candyman 2021 goes beyond the notion of a single supernatural figure influencing mortal lives and deaths, and establishes the notion of a “hive” of Candymen, a long string of brutalized Black men whose spirits now live on as part one giant malignant mass of pain, their only release arriving when they get the chance to pass some of their pain onto others. It’s an ambitious expansion on what came before, and it only enhances the urban legend roots of the story. 

Legends, after all, don’t go away, but they do recontextualize themselves for each generation. They evolve, grow appendages, shift shapes. It’s how they survive, and how they continue to feed on very real fears. With Nia DaCosta’s Candyman, that evolution was given form through one of the most iconic horror villains of the last 35 years, with stunning results.

Candyman airs all this month on SYFY. Check the Schedule for listings, or stream it through the SYFY movies hub.