Candyman and the Horrors of Cabrini-Green: Soulless Sequel Lacks the Original’s Hook

Americanthinker.com ^ | 10/24/2021 | William Sullivan

[rktman]

Halloween season is here, and for me, that means horror movies. Among the bill of fare this year was the new Candyman, which follows in the footsteps of 2018’s Halloween in the sense that it is a sequel that both exists in the same universe and timeline .....

In this case, that original film was 1992’s Candyman, starring actors Virginia Madsen as the curious folklorist, Helen Lyle, and Tony Todd as the ghostly killer, the Candyman. Nostalgia undoubtedly fuels much of my affection for that movie, and it was almost enough to carry the 2021 sequel.

Almost. And it wasn’t until the movie was over that I realized what the problem was.

It wasn’t the politics of it all, to be clear. Yes, it overtly messages that gentrification of urban communities is destroying communities of color, and that cops are racist murderers that are hell-bent on murdering innocent minorities, and lots of other blah, blah, blah social commentary that requires much less thought to compose than any common Bazooka Joe comic strip of yesteryear. The social messaging lacked any subtlety whatsoever, making it more a caricature reflecting a warped vision of reality than any artistic representation of it. This all prompted more than an occasional eyeroll, but hey, it’s a supernatural slasher flick. Copious eyerolling at some stupid things you see on screen isn’t something that’s ordered, it just comes with the meal.

There were more important questions. What made the first movie so scary for me, and what was the new one missing, I began to wonder?

Well, for one, I was a kid in 1992. That helped. But even as a child, I knew very well about urban gang culture and government-funded ghettoes like Cabrini-Green, which was depicted in the movie, where life was truly a horror movie

[rktman]

Paging Iran's fave daughter valerie jarret. Please pick up the gold plated courtesy phone. Chicago Housing Authority as well as, well here is an excerpt:

"Chicago business credentials: CEO of The Habitat Company, a Chicago developer of housing ranging from luxury to public; chairman of the CTA; chairman of the board of the Chicago Stock Exchange; a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago."

Corruption at it's finest. Cabrini Green debacle. Chiraq.

[Don Corleone]

A lot of the Chicago higher-ups were getting kick backs on that and other Chicago ghetto projects.

[rktman]

Weird how that works right? Pritzkers as well IIRC.