Candyman (DVD)

Helen Lyle and her best friend Bernadette are mature university students, who are studying Urban legends for their thesis. The Candyman legend in particular has caught their attention, as so many people in the area have a tale to tell and are afraid of him. Since the legend is situated around a deprived area of Chicago, the two friends believe that the people use the legend as a reason for their situation. Curiosity gets the bet of the friends especially Helen, and they visit Cabrini Green where a series of unsolved murders has taken place. The locals believe the deaths are the result of the Candyman, who was murdered on the estate many years ago. Helen ...

A horror movie at once technically brilliant and thematically quite troubling. With a stunning Philip Glass score and superbly controlled direction from Bernard Rose, it's the story of a researcher into urban myth who gradually discovers the legend of the Candyman, a hook-handed spirit who comes to slaughter when his name is called three times in succession in front of a mirror. The effects and soundtrack, coupled with some genuinely great shock moments, and sense of an unfolding and unstoppable nightmare, make the film very scary indeed. Like a lot of Clive Barker material (adapted here from a short story 'The Forbidden'), it has a weird and ...

Anyone who has read a few of my reviews will see that I like horror movies, which is something of a bane because the horror genre is packed with movies which are simply derivative at best or plain trash at worst, far more so than any other genre of movie. Most of the criticisms levelled at such movies by those who do not like them is that they are simply not very scary and for the most part I would have to agree with them. Gone are the days when a cinema-goers would walk into a theatre and scream at something like Bela Lugosi’s Frankenstein, or Max Shrek’s vampire. As it happens today, you can see far more horrific events simply by turning on the news than ...