Candyman

Despite the fact that this is based on a very solid short story by Clive Barker, Britain's more literate answer to Stephen King, Candyman is a tremendous letdown: it's all bark and no bite, full of the vacuous sound and fury that denotes a film with a serious identity crisis. Set in Chicago's infamous Cabrini Green (perhaps best known as the housing project with the highest murder rate per square foot in North America), Madsen plays a graduate student caught up in the urban folklore of her blighted city. Remember that old campfire tale about the lovers' lane killer they called “the Hook?” The Candyman is a similar creation, a murdered slave who had his right hand cut off and replaced with a vicious twist of iron. Legend has it that he still haunts the area of his death and when precocious ghetto kids and their moms alike start turning up eviscerated, Madsen and friend Lemmons decide to take a closer look. Surprise, the Candyman is real (or is he?) and before you can say “mangled carcass,” they're turning up all over the place. Tony Todd is effectively creepy as the towering, breathy apparition and Madsen's no slouch either, but taken as a whole, Candyman simply falls apart – there's too much going on here, and little if any explanation as to the why's and wherefore's of the rationale behind the horrors we keep witnessing. Director Rose seems not to know what to show next, and whether this is in an effort to keep his audience guessing or not, it only ends up making what could have been an exceptionally disturbing film exceptionally annoying.