Nia DaCosta, the director of the upcoming Candyman sequel released a visually powerful short story dedicated to the many heartbreaking tales of Black men in America. Before the film shows the story of Daniel Robitaille, aka Candyman, it shows the other tales of black men and boys lynched, jailed and murdered at the hands of angry white mobs and police in this country. The short even shows a representation of George Stinney. Stinney was a 14-year-old child who was convicted, in a proceeding later vacated as an unfair trial, of murdering two white girls, ages 7 and 11, in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was executed by electric chair in June 1944. Stinney is the youngest American to be sentenced to death and executed by electric chair.
In the Candyman film series, Candyman is portrayed as the vengeful ghost of a black brutally beaten, mutilated and fed to the bees by having honey smeared on his body for daring to love a white woman in the 19th century. He was portrayed in Candyman (1992), Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999) by horror icon Tony Todd.
CANDYMAN, at the intersection of white violence and black pain, is about unwilling martyrs. The people they were, the symbols we turn them into, the monsters we are told they must have been. pic.twitter.com/MEwwr8umdI
— Nia DaCosta (@NiaDaCosta) June 17, 2020
The beautiful shadow puppetry was done by @ManualCinema and the haunting score was created by @lichensarealive. There’ll be much more where that came from in the film. https://t.co/JODFdghtvy
— Nia DaCosta (@NiaDaCosta) June 17, 2020
DaCosta’s Candyman is a direct sequel to the 1992 film and the fourth film in the Candyman franchise, based on the short story, “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker.
Candyman is set to be released on September 25, 2020.