Nia DaCosta infuses Candyman with body horror and incisive commentary

If you have a tendency to be squeamish at the sight of blood, fluids and viscera, you might miss an incisive and smart new horror movie.

Don’t say his name. Never say his name.

You know how it goes – if you say Candyman in front of a reflective surface five times, he comes out and kills you.

A direct sequel to the first and fourth Candyman movies of the 1990s, the 2021 version picks up the story almost three decades later and interrogates the origin and legacy of Chicago’s bogeyman.

Centred on the now adult Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen) – he was the baby stolen and rescued in the 1992 film – the muscular Candyman is both a classic slasher that expertly builds dread and fear and an examination of the betrayal of black communities in the US in the march towards gentrification.

Anthony is a successful artist whose latest installation delves into the urban legend of Candyman, not realising his own history to the events.

Filmmaker Jordan Peele’s involvement as a producer should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen Get Out or Us, two movies he directed that appropriated horror narratives as commentary on modern American race relations.

Peele didn’t direct Candyman, but he hand-picked another filmmaker who could infuse the movie with a similar, incisive perspective, Nia DaCosta.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Anthony McCoy in Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta.

DaCosta is a New York-born, Harlem-raised storyteller who made 2018 movie Little Woods, a grounded portrait of economically marginalised women starring Tessa Thompson and Lily James.

Following that impressive debut, DaCosta booked the Candyman gig after pitching to Peele, joining the project as both director and co-screenwriter.

The vision DaCosta pitched to Peele is all through the finished film, especially her fascination with body horror – there are stomach-churning close-up shots of fingernails falling off, skin being peeled back. It is a squelchy movie – not for the faint of heart.

At only 31 now, she was barely a toddler when the first Candyman movie premiered but she grew up hearing about the legend without understanding that it came from a film.

“When you watch it when you’re younger, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, scary movie, crazy’, but then you’re older and it becomes, ‘Oh, this is very interesting that we decided to have this point of view,’” DaCosta told news.com.au.

“The discourse around Candyman and how we see him is very interesting, and so being able to add my own perspective and point of view on that has been really great.”

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and director Nia DaCosta on the set of Candyman.

That point-of-view crafted a movie that uses the story of a supernatural monster to have probing conversations about inherited trauma. In that sense, Candyman isn’t the monster, he was made one by the dark American tradition of violence.

“The most important thing to me was that the humanity of the characters stayed intact in a story like this,” DaCosta said. “Because what I wanted to do was complicate Candyman and expand on who he is, what does he mean?”

The blend of psychological fear and body horror plays right into it, the physical manifestation of a legacy of violence against black bodies.

“I really wanted [body horror], and exploring and mapping the psychological break of the main character on his body.”

Unusually for a slasher movie, Candyman doesn’t rely on jump scares to elicit terrors. DaCosta eschewed the tactic in favour of slow reveals and subtly building suspense.

“It’s a balance in a movie like this, where it’s not just about the horror,” she said. “It’s also really serious about real life, real pain and real people’s trauma. So, sometimes jump scares aren’t really appropriate.

“That was important, to be true to our story and our way of doing horror.

“Also, I wanted to honour what the original film is, which is a unique and specific division from a great director, [Bernard Rose].”

Teyonah Parris in Candyman.

There are many who think DaCosta is a great director, or at least on the path to becoming one. Being entrusted with Candyman is a huge endorsement for a young director. But having a much bigger budget is a double-edged sword.

“It goes both ways, right” she said. “It’s more money, so amazing. A bigger team, so there’s a lot more support. At the same time, more money means more pressure to deliver something in particular. And a bigger team also means more opinions, you have more discussions.

“You get a lot, but you also have to give a lot.”

And that’s going to come into play on her next project – a Marvel movie, and it doesn’t get bigger than a Marvel superhero epic.

Soon after wrapping Candyman, DaCosta was announced as the director to the Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, which reunites her with Candyman actor Teyonah Parris.

A very different proposition to her first two works, but one which she’ll surely bring her perspective into again.

Candyman is in cinemas now

Share your movies and TV obsessions | @wenleima