A dream sequel to Candyman - what could have been...

 A dream sequel to Candyman - What could have been...

Spoilers ahead!

About a month ago, a killer IG account I follow by the name of Spookshow_girl posted a really killer photo. Here was actress Virginia Madsen as Helen in the end of Bernard Rose's highly underrated 90's horror film Candyman. Trish aka Spookshow_girl is a fellow horror fan, who owns one HELL of a horror collection, and has amazing taste in movies. Her post basically said how badly she wished a direct sequel was made with Helen's character becoming the new villain aka Candyman for the next installment in the series. 

Instantly my jaw dropped.

This was genius. 

Basically Candyman tells the story of a young married grad student named Helen. Here she's researching urban legends for her thesis. A skeptic, she debunks a popular ghost story from the projects in Chicago. This legend is based off a spirit named Candyman. A slave, murdered after having an affair with his owner's daughter nearly a hundred years ago. The innocent man was beaten, his hand sawed off with a rusty blade, and then honey smeared all over his naked body, in which thousands of bees stung him to death. Over the years the story changed, and after a series of grizzly murders of people killed from inside their apartments. All doors and windows locked from the inside. Helen links it all back to a recent murder at an apartment building where a woman called 911 screaming that somebody was coming through the walls to murder her. When the police arrived yet again, doors and windows all locked...but the woman was torn to pieces. Helen figures out that actually these apartment buildings, as well as her own condo across the city has the small design. The  medicine cabinets are built into the actual walls. If you took the mirror off, you can climb into the next apartment. After taking some huge risks, she finally proves the truth behind this so called "ghost story" and leads it all back to local gangs in the area. 

That is until...the actual spirit of Candyman, sensing that Helen has proven his story to be that of myth, he crosses over after she makes the fatal mistake by saying his name five times in a mirror. A few weeks after she research has prove to be on the right track...he appears, and instantly she's hypnotized. When she awakes, she's covered in blood, and found in the apartment of a woman she interviewed for her paper. The woman who lives in the apartment is hysterical. Her dog has been slaughtered, and her infant son is missing. Helen is arrested, and has absolutely no idea what happened. She's taken into police custody, who believe she took the baby. Unable to remember a single thing, Candyman begins to appear only to her, haunting her, and making her look crazy. Time moves on, and more innocent people are slaughtered, all making it look as if Helen is the one responsible. Committed to a mental hospital, Helen knows that she's the only one who can stop this madness once and for all. On her journey, she discovers that her husband has been unfaithful, and has moved in his girlfriend, while abandoning her at the hospital believing she was crazy. Here it all leads back to the apartment where the baby was kidnapped. She climbs into a massive trash heap, full of broken furniture, that's nearly thirty feet tall. She climbs inside, and finds the baby, before Candyman appears. Outside the people of the community can't hear Helen or the baby's screams, and light the mountain of trash on fire. Here Helen grabs the baby, and crawls out, leaving Candyman to die, before crawling out, badly burned, hair missing, skin horribly disfigured, as she slides the untouched baby to it's stunned mother. Here the people witness that Helen was actually innocent, and dies from her injuries before them.

At Helen's funeral, her unfaithful husband Trevor stands with his girlfriend, before suddenly hundreds of people from the projects come to pay tribute to Helen, and throwing the hook they found in the fire left by Candyman on her grave. Weeks later, Trevor...Helen's asshole husband clearly is riddled with guilt. He goes into the bathroom, looks in the mirror and starts to groan and say his late wife's name who he wronged so badly. Over and over he says her name. "Helen, Helen, Helen, Helen...Helen." Just then the lights go out and flicker. Trevor turns, and sees his dead wife, her hair missing, horribly burned. Here she smiles, and holds up the large hook. "What's the matter Trevor? Scared?" With that she guts Trevor before vanishing. His girlfriend walks into the bathroom, before screaming in horror at his torn apart body in the bathtub. 

In my eyes this was one of the best endings not only to a film in the 1990's, but one of the best endings to a film ever. I constantly tell people this film is worth checking out, and a perfect example that believe it or not a whole handful of awesome horror films did come out in this decade long before Scream. We all know Candyman got two more sequels. 

Part 2 was Farewell To Flesh, which I actually have to admit is a REALLY great sequel. It's really not completely a direct film to the original besides a character who appeared in the first film, and is murdered in the opening of this movie. It takes place in New Orleans, has a great cast, huge gory moments, and really expands on Candyman's backstory. I always enjoyed it, but can't really speak for part 3 since I've never seen it. From what I hear, it's really not that great. Still, the first two films had strong female characters, a beautiful haunting score, and what I really loved was Tony Todd's portrayal of Candyman. It's very rare we get to see an African American horror icon. I love Tony, I've met him several times, and I'm sure I'm speaking to anyone who has met him he's a total class act. Candyman which is 26 years old now (damn I'm old!) is a beautiful haunting love story if you really think about it. Watching Helen's sacrifice herself to save the baby always gets me, as well as totally rooting for her when she guts that scum bag of a husband of hers at the end of the first one.

So to build of Trish's killer idea, she wished instead of continuing Candyman's story, why didn't they keep up with Helen's story? I feel in my eyes, it's very rare to have a female villain. Sure there's a few of them (Friday the 13th, The Devil's Rejects, Fright Night II, ect) but not many iconic females that rank along the sides of Leatherface, Freddy, Jason, Chucky, ect. I feel they really could have tried something different by making the next movie completely about Helen, and how years after the original she's become something of legend, murdering unfaithful lovers all over the world. 

I mean think about it.

They could have saved a sequel mostly about Candyman (via Farewell To The Flesh) as the third and final movie in the trilogy. I feel maybe even had Helen (Madsen) returned in the sequel she should have been front row and center as the main "villain" now I really don't like using that term since I found even the Candyman a misunderstood "monster" with a heartbreaking past. This vengeful spirit, collecting wronged souls. Helen is basically the same. Could she have killed right beside Candyman, her soulmate in the afterlife? Sure. But I truly would have just wanted to see just Helen as the killer in the next movie.

My rough pitch is that it should have been made in 1995 (Farewell To The Flesh could be made a year or two later, making this a trilogy.) I would have a series of grizzly murders (maybe mostly men) who have been unfaithful or abusive being found brutally murdered. What if a young rookie police officer begins following these murders, and links them back to the legend of Candyman and of Helen who in her own right has become just as popular as a ghost story over the years. I could totally see this rookie getting over his head, as the murders begin to pile up, and it all leads back to the mysterious woman who will appear, hook in hand, horribly burned, and waiting in the shadows...

Spooky right?

What if this rookie is approached by a biker with white hair, who has a connection to the whole Candyman/Helen murders so many years ago. 

Billy aka Ted Raimi from the opening of the first movie.

It's so hard to tell, but I photoshopped Ted's hair "somewhat" white for this. I'm dying. Super proud of it.

We all remember this killer cameo from the original film. Billy (Raimi) appears as the bad boy biker who comes over, hoping to get lucky with the babysitter. Here the two start getting frisky in front of the mirror as they talk about the urban legend of Candyman. Billy stopped at four, going downstairs to wait and have a beer, while the babysitter makes the fatal mistake in saying Candyman a 5th time, and being slaughtered. In the beginning of this movie, a student tells Helen as she does her research that the babysitter was split in two, and the baby was murdered as well. Billy's hair turned white from fright and lost his mind. Maybe this was part true? What if he was blamed for the murders originally?  What if his hair really did turn white from seeing what he saw, and spent a few years in a mental hospital. Since then he's been on the rode, going from place to place trying to track down any murders connected to the Candyman or Helen. Here he ends up working side by side with this rookie cop to discover the truth and put this to an end once and for all. 

What I love about these movies are how beautiful and downright heartbreaking they are. I would have loved a great killer ending, and Helen making a small cameo in the third movie, showing that Candyman and his long lost "love" are together now for all time.

So thoughts? Yay or Nay? I for one would have LOVED to see this kind of sequel! Who knows, maybe we'll get a forth film after all these years. I'm not too sure if Madsen would be down to return, but she is hands down one of my favorite female characters in a horror movie. Plus, with Michael Myers returning, and maybe Freddy...who knows maybe Candyman and Helen are waiting for us to say their name 5 times!