Candyman director Nia DaCosta refuses to say Candyman five times in mirror!

October 26th 2020, 3:45pm

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Last week, Slashfilm conducted an interview with director Nia DaCosta about her "spiritual sequel" to CANDYMAN – which was supposed to come out this month – but has been pushed back to next year. One of the more fun tidbits during the talk is that, while not inherently superstitious, DaCosta still refuses to this day to say "Candyman" any amount times in the mirror, like the victims in the horror franchise:

I don’t deal with that tom foolery, and demons, gargoyles, superstitions and things like that…When I was in elementary school, I think that was the first time I heard someone say, oh, we should say Candyman in the mirror. I was like, you know, I heard about Bloody Mary, that’s not really my thing. Like, I won’t be saying anybody’s names or summoning any demons. But I remember hearing about it, always got dared to do it, I still haven’t, and then eventually I saw the movie and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s Candyman, this is what everyone’s talking about’. Because for me, I grew up in Harlem, across the street from the projects, my school was next to another project complex and so for us, we were like, oh yeah, he’s over there, like he lives there. He haunts that building. And so, it was still a part of my childhood in that way.

More substantive, however, is how she said the film will be more "body horror" in nature, stating:

In the original, he’s already a fully formed…I guess monster, we’ll say, because that’s definitely how he’s positioned in the original film, as a monster. And so, it’s really like a reveal of like, ‘Here’s my chest. I’m fully formed, I’m fully grotesque’ and in this one, we really wanted it to be a slow progression, and for me, I really wanted to trigger the response of like, you know when all of us have had a rash or something, and we’re like, hmm, what’s that? Maybe it’s a heat rash, and then maybe it doesn’t go away for a while and you’re like, hm, interesting. Should I go to the doctor? No, it’s probably fine. And then for a vast majority of people, it goes away. In this movie, of course, it doesn’t go away, it gets worse, and so I wanted to have that effect. If someone goes home after watching this movie and looks at their own rash, or bump, or mosquito bite and is a little more freaked out, then I’ve done my job. And that’s really what I wanted to do, it’s about getting inside the head of the audience and really viscerally disturbing them and tracking it psychologically with the sense of the main character.

Meanwhile CANDYMAN – starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Tony Todd – will hit theaters August 27th, 2021!

Here's the official synopsis:

Anthony, a socially pronounced artist in Chicago who researches the urban legend of Candyman. After investigating the killer’s last known whereabouts, strange killings begin to occur around Anthony. The protagonist will serve a role similar to that of Helen Lyle, the main character of the original movie.