Page 7 - Pop History: Candyman

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman...CandymanWant even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7PodcastKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

be a tale to frighten children. To make lovers cling closer in their rapture. Come with me and be immortal. I'm in a trance because hypnotism was used in preparation for shots. Are you sure? I think Candyman was not aiming for you, Holden. I think he was maybe. Probably going after somebody else.

If a daddy of that status wanted me, to go. I probably, especially like you were saying, Jackie, right now, I'd be, I'd just take it. I'd be like, all right. That's just, it's not bad. Please, come with me and be immortal. Yes, please. I think that sounds awesome. And yes, we are talking about how awesome Candyman is today. We are going to get into the ins and outs of where it came from, how it came to be, all of the respect that went into the making of this movie. Candyman is one of my favorite movie. Candyman is one of my favorite movies of all time. Y'all, Candyman

rules. Let me just throw out the synopsis really quick, could get out of the way so we can get to the gush. In 1992 American Slasher film that sparked a franchise written and directed by Bernard Rose and starring Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, who fucking is so cool, Zander Berkeley, Cassie Lemons, and Vanessa Williams. It is based on the short story titled The Forbidden by Clyde Barker and follows a

Chicago graduate student who is completing a thesis on the urban legends and folklore which led her to the legend of the candy the ghost of an artist and son of a slave who was murdered in the late 19th century for his relationship with a white painter's daughter. This movie holds up so well. In fact, I think I originally watched it back when I wasn't that into horror films and when that type of setting was even kind of like hard for me to even deal with in my dumb privileged ass fucking background. And like since moving to New York, being a little more steeped in and that sort of culture and things,

and just like rewatching this just as now a full-fledged horror fan. Man, what a great, great horror movie. Well, you know, it's not really even a traditional horror movie when you go back and look at it. It's like a very, very gory tragedy. Yeah. Like romance movie. Even Clyde Barker said that he wrote it as a dark romance.

Yeah. Oh, wow. That is what the intention is that Candyman to him is a romantic figure and not a villain. So if you look at it from that aspect as a dark romance, well. So I got it while I was, you know, obviously watching it again for this. And I was talking with Jeff about it. I was like, this is what most

women want. You know, most women want to be seduced and taken away. He's like, I don't think that's true. I think that might just be you. But I maybe I do. You know, I want to be seduced. Well, Tony Todd said himself that he was looking for his own

version of Phantom of the Opera and that is what this character is. I love that. I love that description. And he is so good. I couldn't imagine anyone else doing this movie. Definitely not fucking Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy. I love, I love Eddie Murphy, but I could not picture him in this character. Like, he doesn't even have the stature. The fact that Tony Todd is so, um, he takes up so much of the frame. He's six five. Yeah. He is actually six five. That's part of the reason why it. So originally, they did see Eddie Murphy in this role. And number one, he wanted.

way too much money. And number two, he was five, nine, and just not physically intimidating enough. Yeah. For sure. I mean, that you, this character is like a looming character. It does hold weight on screen. And so I think Eddie Murphy just wouldn't have been able to sell that as much. Not that he could, not that he's on a very talented man. Oh, yeah. I just think that it would have been a very different movie. And Tony Todd, who is such an acclaimed actor. And he, He is a trained performer. Prolific actor, too, over 100 films. It's insane.

Outside of just his television work and Broadway work and off-Broadway work, I mean, it's really, really amazing. And he knew when he was brought on to do Candyman that when he read the script, he even was talking about how it was unlike any, especially horror movie he had ever read for him to be in. And that he wanted to do it in as, like, he acts his. ass off in this movie. He's terrifying in this movie and also looks great as well. Go ahead. Take me away.

I want to be immortal. Right? Um, yes, please. Okay, I guess you can be mad. I like your hook. Oh, my God. It's really cool to get some scared. Oh, my God. Your hook's like so big. Can I touch it? All right, ladies, please. You put the bees in my mouth to get it.

Get a towel. Come on. Oh, my God. You love animals? You like bees? Oh, my God. I like these. I will say too. Very similar. We just did the crap for pop history. If you're listening to this out of order.

Very similar through line of being surprised by like, oh, this was written and directed by white guys. Okay. But at least, again, kind of like how the craft they brought in, the Wiccan expert, you know, it does seem like our director, Bernard Rose, did take lengths to make sure that they were not creating a bunch of racist tropes and caricatures. and things like that. And that was great. And I think it was a surprise, much like the craft was a surprise, only in the sense that you're like,

oh, wow, I didn't feel like they were being exploitative or that any of this was, again, caricatures or bad examples in a film. It sounds as though he really, he didn't go into this going, I'm,

let's make something for our black audience. Like, it sounds like he, he was actually affected by what, was happening in the real world in Chicago and really wanted to portray a story inside of that world that wasn't a cliche, you know, which I can see people being mad that it wasn't a person of color doing it, but I do think he came from a good place at least. For sure. And that's what, hopefully with the reboot with Jordan Peel, that's exactly what's going to be happening. And I can't even

believe how excited I am for the Jordan Beale release of the new Candy Man. But they did go to great lengths because really what Bernard Rose wanted to do with Candyman is to shine a light on the issues of the fact that so many, and obviously still to this fucking day, unfortunately, there's so many, especially when it comes to murders in the projects, things, like crimes that happen in lower class neighborhoods where police just close a blind eye to it. And that is something that is really the light is shown on because Candyman is also based on which we will get to real life murders that were happening in the projects that were affecting people that nobody was doing anything about. And on top of that, specifically with Cabrini Green. And it's something that I've definitely experienced like living in parts of Brooklyn and things like that where Cabrini Green also just happens to be located in like the middle of surrounding upper class yuppie.

ass neighborhood. I mean, yeah, lots of New York is like... It's gentrification. It's that where one block is housing projects and very low income. And then the next block is literally some ridiculous, like, high-rise. $5,000 a month apartment. And it's all smashed up against each other. And I think that is one of the more interesting parts of Kennyman,

how she can see this terrifying location with this monster living within it from her dope high rise Her like ivory tower. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that is one of the more fascinating notes that this speaks towards that you can only get in a big city like Chicago or like New York where they can't just push everyone out to the outskirts.

You know what everybody has. Everybody coexists in the same space and it. Yeah. What that does to people psychologically and everything. I love it. Did you guys see this as kids? Oh, yeah. Sort of again.

I came to horror in college. So I believe I do have a recollection of seeing this movie. I think I've told this story before, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the films that were a part of. My mom had this coworker that she literally had so many VHS tapes, had such a big movie collection,

that she would rent them out. And like, so my mom, I filled out at the beginning, that's great. At the beginning of the summer, I filled out a checklist of like movies I was interested in. And it was pages and pages of movies. And then based on that, she would send me ones I,

selected and then ones that she thought I would dig based on my selection. That's great. That's awesome. My mom would show up once a week with a giant grocery bag full of VHSs and I saw do the right thing that way. I saw fucking just everything like clerks and like all those

you know what I mean? Just like all these different. It was just this big mind blower and I believe Candyman was in there but I don't even know if I finished it because I just was not the horror fan that I became. Well, I was similar to, for me, I was always fascinated by scary stuff and horror stuff, but I was terrified of it. So I like to like, I'd like to peek at it, but I would always ultimately want to escape.

And I remember being at a slumber party at about, I don't know, 10, 11, where the mom got that movie for the party. Like she was the, my friend was allowed to watch it for the sleepover. And I, I left the room. Like, I, and that was to me. I'm yeah single mom you know she's single young mom trying to make a make it okay for her kids and everything but let him watch movies that's great perfectly fine if your kid can handle it have that I wanted so badly to watch it but I was too scared and so like embarrassed myself essentially by kind of like creeping out of the room and sitting with their mom it also has that vibe of like silence the lambs and other movies of that like even just the tone of it The look of it is disturbing, I think, especially to a child who hasn't, like, been in dilapidated

apartment buildings and seen that side of the world. It's not cartoonish. It's not like a Freddie. It's not like a, you can almost, you can, it's harder to separate yourself from it when it's kind of grounded in reality like that. Yeah. And it's scary reality that we don't want to acknowledge when we didn't live in that sort of situation that you're like, God, people really live like this and people do fucking

live like that. And at the same time. it's not all scary people who live like that. It's actually a lot of decent, hardworking people. And I think that the film, again, does a great job to acknowledge that and actually even literally state it in the film. Like, you think everybody who lives here is like a bunch of criminals and, like, dirtbags. I mean, yeah, we grew up in Queens.

So, like, so, yeah, I mean, we grew up next to the project. So it wasn't, like, I mean, this was our, this was our life as well. And it's like, as an anxious kid, I loved watching horror movies because. because I think that it gave me something that was in my brain fake to be scared of instead of all. I was a very anxious child. So I think that I found solace in horror movies because then, oh, I could be scared of a boogeyman instead of, I was from a young age, very scared of being murdered. I thought that that was, I thought that was just going to happen to me on the street. But that's because we were raised of like, well, you can't ride a bike to school because kids in my neighborhood would get killed for riding their bike to school.

so that someone would steal their bike. And that was the reality we were raised in. So watching Candyman, honestly, really, between Candyman and it, it made me horrified of the bathroom. I was so scared of the bathroom growing up that, like, talk about when people would creep past the projects. No, no, no. I just would, I always would go in, I would sneak under the bathroom mirror, and I'd open it because I was so scared of closing it and having something behind.

So I'd go into the bathroom, open up the mirror so I couldn't see anything behind me because I'd rather not know. And then open up the shower curtain so I can immediately see in there. I would look into the pipes of the bathroom in the sink and in the tub to make sure that I didn't see like an eyeball or anyone coming back. And then, of course, you think the other side of it. People are like, oh, maybe you shouldn't have been watching those movies so young. But I think it made me vigilant. And you know what? I'm still standing, baby.

Did you have a plan for if there was an eyeball in the drain? Yeah, what were you going to do with eyeball? I mean, probably stab it? I don't know. I had a lot of scissors around. But if it was just some horny guy, then you got a murder on your hands. You know what I mean? And then I'll end up like Virginia Madsden.

And I think that this is also, I remember as a kid, realizing for the first time, because I know that it happened in other movies, but I remember it viscerally of I always used to think about Well, on the outside, like Freddie Kruger, these people are just getting murdered. Someone's doing the murdering. I love that this movie addresses the idea that maybe it's just a mentally unfit human being that is killing everyone and blaming the Candy Man on it. And Katie Man is a physical manifestation of urban legend. Isn't that cool as shit?

Yeah, I love that. And that's a lot of what the short story centers around. Yes. That was really fascinating to read because I hadn't ever read the short story before this episode. And I didn't realize until about a quarter of the way in that it was taking place in England with like. Liverpool. With a completely different set of circumstances until they were the one woman in the story was saying, I was visiting me, mum. And I was like, what?

Who the hell are you talking about? This is Chicago. But this doesn't seem accurate. And then I realized, oh, they're using a bunch of British slang. So this is a different place. And it's actually not based on race issues. More of a class issue. And let's get into it.

Let's dive in. First, let's talk about Clyde Barker before we get to the Forbidden, just very briefly. Clyde Barker, English, playwright, novelist, film director, and visual artist. he was born in Liverpool, his mother was a painter. I feel like we could do an episode on Clive at some point. I loved, especially because he talks about very openly that, like, he didn't really have that crazy of a childhood. And everyone asked him, like, oh, what are all of your crazy ideas based on?

He's like, I don't feel that my taste was shaped by anything in particular that happened in my childhood. I remember strange things from my childhood, but there were no traumas. It would be wonderful if I could produce something gross from my past. asked, but my pets lived to ripe old ages. None of my relatives died in particularly odd circumstances. The most dramatic thing was the sheer banality of growing up in a town that was not of great interest to me.

See, I do have one factoid that would say otherwise, so I hope it is a true fact, is that at three years old, he saw the French skydiver Leo Valentin fall to his death during an air show performance, which did have an effect on his maybe possibly later work. This is very Lynchian in the backstory, or David Lynch was also very middle America kind of bland, except for the one weird woman he saw walk out of the woods nude. Yes. Yes. As a child.

You know, sometimes you just need the one thing. Yep, you need the one. So he started out in theater while going to school and started writing his own plays and later co-founded the avant-garde theatrical troupe called the Dog Company in 1978. And there he... Yeah, sounds like somewhere where I'd work. Oh! Oh, right. No one let him out, Jackie.

Yeah, welcome to the dog company. No one let them out. But there he connected with many long-term collaborators such as Doug Bradley, who went on to play Pinhead in the Hellraiser series, as well as Peter Atkins, the writer of the Hellraiser sequels. See, this is why I really want to get into an actual episode on Clyde Parker, because he's another one of these dudes that works with a lot of the same people. He likes, he's like found the creators he enjoys working with, the people that respect his work, like Bernard Rose does, and that he like has such a cool infrastructure of making weird, higher brow, well, at times. Yeah, at times. It's a good addendum.

He still did Hellraiser 2 and 3. But, you know, they're unique and they had a new, interesting voice to them. And I think we were talking about earlier, Jackie, as far as we know, he was the first openly queer, like, mainstream horror person. We could be wrong, and you guys can correct us. But he did bring that new fresh vibe to the horror world. Well, and that's what was so cool, is that he came out in 96, which is obviously after Hellraiser and Candyman. But he was working with, like, a lot of underground queer bookstores. and he was going and doing lectures and reading his stories.

And he's really big in the queer community and reaching out and including it, which is why Hellraiser, which we have to do Hellraiser at some point, is a quintessential queer horror movie, which is cool as shit. And then I started reading a bunch about that. And I was like, man, Jackie, Candyman. I know. It's hard not to go down that path. But I was so happy that I ended up picking up his books of blood.

Because I did not realize how good of a writer he is. He, after he, after a while of writing plays and things, he ends up writing what I just mentioned, the books of blood, which are his short story collections. They're all horror short stories and they're phenomenal. And the one that Candyman is based on is called The Forbidden. And it's awesome. It appears in volume five. Wait, did you ever get into him in theater school, though? You never did any of Clive Barker's plays or anything like that?

You know, it's possible. I just don't remember. Do you remember his more famous plays? I mean, I was obsessed with Sacrament, but there's also, I believe it was called Incarnations. That was another book of plays that he did. He did a lot of, I mean, just imagine this kind of writing. Yeah.

But in a play, it's very foreboding. It's not all horror necessarily, but they're very, they're like, it's more like fantasy horror journeys. Yeah, and I believe he also wrote a couple kids. safe, like scary books, like that were sort of dark fantasy as well. I think I read at least one of them. I've been like really enjoying that level of horror lately. Maybe it's because like I'm so scared of the world right now, but I just, right, this month for this Halloween month for me has been more like jump details to terrify your very boats. Like nothing. Yeah, of course. Also, Sacramento is a book.

I was, I was wrong. Sacramento is the book that. But it is really good though. I definitely would love to check more of his stuff out. And I will say, if you are curious about the forbidden, it exists in volume five of the books of blood, which is easy to get. And, yeah, and also just touching on the queer culture part, it's even notable, even when you're just reading, he casually has gay characters in the stories that are not cartoonish and they're not the gay characters. They just happen, they're like, they brush by being gay in the story and then move along. And it's like that wasn't necessarily a thing that existed at the time because if it was a gay character, they were the gayest character.

Right. Which I think also speaks towards where we get to with Candyman later where it's like, yes, it is a black monster, you know what I mean? But it's not like a caricature of an African American man as the killer. It's just like he just is black. That's not like his whole identity. And that's why I actually was very surprised in doing like the fact that they had to go to the NACP and bring this script to them.

Because if you look at it also, Bernadette is a black character. The cop is a black character. There are other black characters. So it's like, I think that it also does touch on, it really brings out the class issue way harder in the movie and that was the intention of Clive Barker originally. Yeah.

But it's also really cool because Clive Barker is the executive producer of Candyman. So he is in it. He knows what's going on and signed off and Bernard Rose worked with him to keep his vision for the movie. It's also, it's interesting that he you basically

took every element of that short story and put spots of it in the movie. Even if he, it's like the characters are in it. Even if the characters are changed every little element of that story is in there at different points. That's even what Bernard Rose said about it. He's like, it's so much better to adapt a short story because you get to add to it rather than take away from it as you have to do with a novel.

Hell yeah. It's so smart. I agree with that totally. So the forbidden set in Liverpool centers around the segregation of the and culture of poor urban areas there. It follows a university student named Helen doing a thesis on graffiti and selects a run-down estate for her to study. So right there is the first difference. Yeah. She's would do it. Make so make so much sense. So, um, Jeff used to be, he used to tag and he did a lot of graffiti artwork, right? And so in looking at it, he was a bit of a hoodlum. Yeah, he was a bit of a hoodlum. Yeah, I've got myself a bad boy that's good. And he was taught, like, I never thought about that either. He was like, it's so cool because it looks like they got real graffiti artists to do the work that it's not just Hollywood graffiti that they would just like. And I was trying to find, yeah, I was trying to find like the graffiti artist. artist that worked on it and I couldn't find any names for it. But he was like showing the different things that were incorporated to know that that is what taggers do instead of just what a set deck person would do as well. It's like Kyle was here.

Right. Yeah. So they incorporated that. The fact that she was doing her thesis on graffiti artwork in the short story was then easily transcribed for the movie by doing. that. And that's such a cool way to reference the short story by not being like, but yeah, she was, but now she's not. And you know what I mean? So of course, this graffiti she discovers makes reference to an urban legend, the Candyman, which she ends up connecting to recent murders

and mutilations in the neighborhood. She eventually encounters the Candyman himself and becomes his latest victim. The Candyman scene here is described as having waxy, jaundiced skin, rough, uh, rouged cheeks, blue lips, eyes like rubies, and a patchwork coat. So that is obviously a big difference. Yeah, that's a big difference. But he did have the hook hand, right? Yes. And he was also, and he was also an enchanter.

He was still an entrancing character that D.D.L. character was sort of hypnotized by. And bees. And the bees. And the bees. So that's so in the short story, obviously some of the differences. It was set in Liverpool. But as we will talk about it.

fairly soon, they had had issues with that due to Hellraiser that they had to redub. Such a weird story, which we'll get into. Yes, they just originally just, so they just immediately moved it to America. So things that they incorporated in the movie that also weren't in the short story. You didn't have to say his name five times. You know, that was part of like, again, adding in other urban legends for him to be just a manifestation of folklore. Yeah.

And in the short story, there's no backstory for the Candyman. And that was a big part of since Bernard Rose wanted to elevate it to make a social commentary about the projects, obviously turning him into almost a hero for the community to represent the black people that lived in the projects is why he wanted to change the character. And also fleshing out the backstory to give him more. of, you know, obviously a reason of why he's doing the things that he's doing. Yeah, and I think one of the joys of a short story is the ability to just leave things a little bit more mysterious and leave your brain to work out some of the stuff. So, like, in the short story, you're not really told anything about this character. It's just this, it's like this enigma, this like manifestation of suffering from this community.

And in the longer version, you get to hear, oh, this is like a guy who had a whole life before. and this is why he's this way. And I think they both really work. I think they managed to like turn it into this storyline really well. Oh, yeah. One thing I read was that Tony Todd actually created that backstory. Yeah, that he worked with them in creating, but a lot more of the backstory, like the further backstory into it

is actually what he added into, I believe, Hellraiser 2. Like the one that is about more of his backstory, he added more into the lore that he, had created for himself while making the first one. You mean Candyman, too? Yes. Oh, yeah, Can you Man Too? Oh!

We got to do it. Never mind. We're pulling in Audible. Hellraiser episode starts now. Hellraiser. It was directed. I don't know what year. I'm pulling up the Wikipedia.

It's my nightmare. I don't have the research. No, please God, no. But Jackie, you do have research on the things that were actually in both the short story and the film, and I'd love for you to give us those now because there were so many things. It's kind of insane. Oh, yeah. There's so, there's so,

much, but I'm actually not even done with the differences yet. Okay. Because, so in the short story, they also don't deal with Helen's sanity as well. Yeah, that's true. And this line was just so interesting to me. It said, it's easy to see it as her punishment,

both in story terms, for doubting Candyman's existence and in a moral sense for daring to step outside of her ivory tower community into the literal slums. So that is part of, so all of that mental warfare that was against her was a way to punish her from deigning to come down

from her upper middle class life down into the projects. And again, it furthers the urban legend. And another thing that was very surprising to me is that they changed the ending of the short story for the movie as well. So both of them end in the bonfire. but in the short story, spoilers. Yes, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.

Helen is goaded into being trapped in the bonfire in a wicker man style sacrifice because Anne-Marie, who is the woman who's the mother of the child, put her baby's corpse in the fire knowing Helen would try to retrieve it. As we know, because now we know what's going to happen with the reboot. Obviously in the movie, the baby lives. so that it can further the idea and further the story down the line

which makes a lot more sense movie-wise. I can't believe the studio shied away from all those dead baby scenes in the short story. No, I get it. But then it turns her into a martyr. And that is where the difference lies. She becomes legend, yeah. And she becomes the legend.

And in saving the kid immediately becomes something to fear but also respect in the same way the community did with Candyman. My favorite part of the short story, and again, spoiler, you might want to skip this part if you want to read the book, but I love at the very end of that short story was her shitty husband's trying to find her and she sees him inside when she's burning alive. And she's like, I want him to see me. Not so he can save me, but so he can be haunted by this forever.

Yeah. This is something scary. Yeah, fuck that guy. Also, I love that they totally have the same Trevor. All the names are like the same. And I know you're going to get into that, but that Trevor's this cheating, shitty husband is in both, which I thought was interesting,

like these very specific notes that are in both. Down to what's so cool is when you're reading the story, you can see the shots in the movie. Yeah, right? Totally. The opening of the short story even has the line of how it's going over the town from a bird. eye view because Clive Barker writes in a way that is visually stimulating as well as environmentally

scary. And that's why it's so not easy, but interesting to change his stories into a different medium because there's so much to play with. It's such an open-ended world, which is why when Bernard Rose went to him was like, I really want to turn the forbidden into a movie. He's like, cool. Yeah. Have it?

Which is Ersum Sirs. And a flawless Clive Barker impersonation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other similarities and things before we move on to Mr. Bernard Rose? I'm not right now. No, I'm good. Okay, wow.

Playing coy. I like this, Jackie. Yeah, I'm playing coy. A bit of a... I read a lot of like intense literary journals about Candyman for this. So I apologize if I'm just over here pontificating. but my English major gets lit up when I start reading through like the idea

of the what is it called the monstrous feminine ideology that is in Candyman. I just, I went a little nuts, sorry. So let's meet our director and get to move away from this mad rambling of a woman who clearly needs to be. It's her thesis, okay?

She's been awake for days full of Adderall making sure that we know of it. Commit her to the looney bin. So Rose. How dare you? I think I need to get off. See, this is why I feel bad for it. Back in the day, woman's hysteric, get her off.

Nowadays, they got a tire to a bed. Just get her off. Just get her off. Or murder like a witch. But either way, do something. Yeah, she's not fucking her husband. One or the other. So, Borneard Rose was born in London to Jewish parents

and began making films on a Super 8 camera when he was just nine years old. He won an amateur film competition hosted by the BBC when he was only 15, which got some of his early work broadcast on British television. Then he worked under Jim Henson on the latest, on the last season of The Muppet Show, as well as Henson's film, The Dark Crystal, as a production assistant, which is a pretty cool early gig to get. He also attended the National Film and Television School, graduating in 1989, with a master's in filmmaking, then got into directing music videos in the early days of MTV, most notably for the song, Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. You know that song, Relax. Don't do it.

It's a weird video. It's an odd video to say the least. It is. He's a weird dude. Don't do it. And what really seduced Clive Barker into saying yes, I know that you've got this little line about his movie The Paperhouse. That Bernard Rose directed. I need to see this movie now.

I know. Me too. I want to see it. Dude, so even just the little blurb on what it's about. A lonely and rebellious 11-year-old Anna, angry with her oft-absent father, finds herself increasingly called into her feverish dreams towards the image she drew in her sketchbook. A soul foreboding house in the vast English countryside with a single occupant, a melancholy boy unable to walk. None of the adults believed her, she comes to realize the violently terrifying

figure she senses approaching the imaginary house might affect the real world as well. I want to see this movie. Hell yeah. And that's what seduced Clive Barker, is him seeing this and he's like, oh, Bernard Rose, yeah, you could do

yeah, you could do gaming. Oh, they're fucking good. All right. Yeah, cool. Rose said, horror was considered a debased genre in the early 90s, which I totally get it. We had its heyday in a big way in the 80s it kind of hit a peak. And by the early 90s it was very much looked down upon and there wasn't a lot of prestige horror out there.

And people, going back to Rose's quote, and people were looking for a new direction. I found a story in Clyde Barker's Books of Blood Collection that I thought had potential, the forbidden, about a middle-class woman fascinated by a Merseyside housing estate. I knew Clive a little, so he gave me a free option. After the nightmare he had had on Hellraiser, where it was reddubbed into American English,

I decided to set the film in the U.S. And here we have the tale of just the weirdest. Annoying. Hollywood dumb thing. I kind of want to see the original now without the overdubbing. And that'll be really interesting to go rewatch it and see. Jackie, Natalie, do you want to explain what the fuck happened to Hellraiser? I mean, essentially, it's just that.

New World Pictures is an American company. They saw what they were making. And they're like, oh, wait, no. Can you make an American instead? set in America, too, which is so weird. What if it's like, what if he's like surfing? It's on a skateboard. It's so weird. Drinking like a Coca-Cola.

Yeah. The entire movie. Yeah. With American accents, which I feel like it would have been scarier with British accents. British people are scared. Also, what the fuck does it matter? Yeah. Like, you just leave it.

And it doesn't matter. Yeah. And I don't think it would have stopped anyone who loved Al-Razer from like going to see it in the video. Oh, wait, never mind. It's British. We got to see the Mickey Mouse movie. Also, fun fact about Hellraiser, that very famous scene where what's his name's being split apart at the end of the movie and he goes, Jesus, wept. That was an adlet by the actor.

Hell yeah. Wasn't even in the script. Good for him. Hell yeah. I love that. We'll do Hellraiser. Oh, we'll do Hellraiser. But either way, going back to Candyman, the film was bought by propaganda films, which Rose referred to as, quote, forward thinking as they had been doing.

Twin Peaks before that, which is fun. Rose said, I picked Chicago to set it in quite randomly, simply because it was a place I'd heard of. I asked the Illinois Film Commission where the worst public housing estate in the city was, and they said, without pausing, Cabrini Green. And also what's cool is that apparently right after he ended up spending some time there with the Illinois Film Commission after he had picked Chicago, and then he said, I spent some time there and I realized this was an incredible arena for a horror movie because it was a place of such

palpable fear. And rule number one when you're making a horror movie is set it somewhere frightening. And the fear of the urban housing project, it seemed to me, was actually totally irrational because you couldn't really be in that much danger. Yes, there was crime there, but people were actually afraid of driving past it. And there was such an aura of fear around the place. And I thought that was really something interesting to look into because it's sort of a kind of fear that's at the heart of modern cities. And obviously, it's racially motivated. Sure. But more than that, it's poverty motivated.

Sure. I also think it's easier to put that label on that to not have to look at people in poverty. I think to be able to avoid dealing with your own feelings about it, you can go like, oh, don't go over there. It's dangerous. Well, yeah, then you also don't have to deal with the murders that happen there. You don't have to deal with the mentally ill population that lives there. You don't have to deal with any of it if you just turn a blind eye. The injustice that happens there 24-7, yeah.

Which we'll get into with the real true story that some of this is based off of. But also steeped in history, the site of Cabrini Green before it was built was actually a gas works in the late 19th century. and it was known locally as Little Hell. So this place, whether you believe in energies or not, is one that makes your chest hurt. Even Virginia Madsen, who grew up in Chicago, knew Cabrini Green and was afraid to drive past it and was raised thinking that you don't drive past it.

So there was also something that emanated from there. What's a gas works? I'm going to assume it's some sort of big, scary factory. Would they make gas? It was originally conceived as a model of civic redevelopment being built in stages on Chicago's near north side, starting in the 1940s. It got up to 3,600 public housing units with more than 15,000 people. And when Candyman was released, Chicago held both three of the country's 12 richest communities, as well as 10 of the country's 16 poorest census tracts, all of which had large public. housing complexes.

Also, yes, gasworks is a factory where coal is made into gas for use as fuel. That sounds like poison air, probably. Yeah, it's scary. Sounds like a terrible place, too. Sure, nobody died during No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

1900s. Didn't look intimidating at all. Though other public housing developments in this city were larger, poorer, and had higher rates of crime, they were more out of sight, out of mind. Like we talked about before, whereas Cabrini Green was located in a spot that pushed the poor

black community up against a white rich one with yuppies flocking to high-rise neighborhoods in that part of the city to the point where it literally gets, I believe it gets torn down eventually and fully gentrified. And that's a lot of what the new movie is going to be about, which I'm really fucking stoked for. And that won't be the last time you hear us. Again, you can't talk about it. You can't just move the tombstones. You got to move the bodies. You only moved the black people, but you didn't, I don't know. Yeah, you didn't move all the horrible years. of crime. Of oppression that happened there.

Yeah, exactly. There you go. Very interesting, too, that so when Tony Todd went to start the shoot of this, he was talking, there's so many awesome interviews of Tony Todd, who everything that I read and see and the people that I've talked to that worked with him, he is just delightful to work with, very professional, very chill, cool guy. And he was talking about how Cabrini Green was ruled by five different gangs at the time. It was real bullshit.

We said, we went on a tour before shooting and it had to be at 8 a.m. Because they had their own store in the complex with the thickest plexiglass I'd ever seen. And we had to get our provisions there by 10 a.m. Or your life was suspect. There were five different factions. They are controlling territories which consisted of vertical buildings. You know, it's modern day indentured slavery through the power of crack, which was created by the government. But hell, that's a whole other thing.

Yeah. Because also, I mean, I guess I'll just jump into it real quick. Tony Todd after this becomes a gang interventionalist that goes to create dialogues between gangs. Like this inspired him to start working with gang members to try and talk between gangs after he realized what was going on, especially in the projects. And he even says one of my dream projects is a foundation where teenagers from different backgrounds can be taken. place every year to get them together and see that there's a different world out there. Talk to them about disparities between culture and classes in a society and hopefully they come back and spread whatever joy they get. I want that to be my legacy. I love Jordan God. I mean,

for real. And also it's like people forget when they put that label or, you know, gangs call themselves gangs. But when you think about gangs, sometimes they want to put the idea that these big scary men are in it. But so many people in gangs are fucking kids. And they're like, early 20s. To protect themselves and to protect their family. They need nothing but suffering. Like, to have joy in your life is so, I mean, that's just cool as hell that he does that because it's like, sometimes you just need to find something that makes you smile.

He says he's used it as an introductory tool in gang intervention work opening with, what frightens you, what horrible things have you experienced? Yeah. Yeah. To actually talk to people. And that's what they do. So they get to get permission to shoot in Cabrini Green. they agreed to cast some of the residents as extras.

And since the area was entirely controlled by rival gangs at the time, Tony Todd said they had to be paid by the film company to not interfere with the production. But it makes so much sense. Bring some money into, like, if you're going to use them as a way for this white woman to, like, they're stared at like they're in a fish bowl, at least give them some fucking money for their time. For sure. They shoot for just one week, by the,

way in Cabrini Green to get the wide shots and exteriors. The rest is all done on a set in Los Angeles. And by the way, shout us to that set designer because I thought that was all shot on location. Those sets are incredible. The dilapidated interiors. Well, they're very, they're very like sadly beautiful. They're mournful, but like so pretty. Like the painting is just so cool.

Yes. Which by the way, that whole face as an opening, it's more of a doorway. in the original, but that is all in there, even the description of the way it looks where it looks like his head is tilted up so you see the nose and then the eyes directly above it. I used to have nightmares about that. I had nightmares.

I always remember that a doorway would open up like in beer juice with like the big crazy cartoonish features, but then with the Candyman over it. Rose said they wouldn't let us go there at first without a police escort. The social divide was really extreme compared to anything in a Liverpool housing estate. But despite its reputation, most people there were just getting on with their lives. The fear people had of walking around there was the very essence of racism. It is ultimately based on the fear of the other or the unknown, which definitely this film explores.

You already mentioned Jackie about the NWACP. They were concerned about having a black man as the fear. monster. Rose had this to say, I totally agree. I argued that a very strange thing happens in horror movies. People actually sort of identify with the boogeyman. It's him they dress up as, not the victim. And Candyman is almost an avenging angel. Tony Todd had such a wonderful handle on him as a tragic hero, a character with more in common with Dracula than Freddie Kruger. Yes. That's what Clyde Barker went on further to say that it's a lot more like and Edgar Allan Poe since it's the romance of death.

He's a ghost and he's also the resurrection of something that is kind of unspoken or unspeakable in American history, which is slavery as well. So he's kind of come back and he's haunting what is the new version of the racial segregation in Chicago. Yeah, he's pretty, he's goth. I would go so far as to say, Jackie, he's a goth daddy. Oh, yeah. I am, to talk about, I may, I probably shouldn't.

But you know what? He looks great. He, I love his, I love his coat, which we will get into. I love his style. I love his voice. How could you not give me a kiss? Make me a mortal. Give me a bees.

I'll just be just like evanescence. Unfortunately, Tony Todd was born with a rare birth defect. He was born with, instead of a penis, he was born with the claw of a cat. Wow. So, yeah, you cannot have sex with him. Yeah. One huge cat, ma'am. Just one big cat paw claw.

But either way, Rose said, I tried to listen to the black actors and not fall into the Hollywood trap of imposing racial stereotypes and to make people rounded characters, not ciphers or caricatures, just to restate that as we move away from the racism elements of this

and into, do you guys want to hear a scary story? Yes. Okay. This is a real true scary story, though, so it's not actually like a fun. ghost story. It's actually really sad. No, it's very upsetting. Here is the true story for inspiration.

And again, honestly, like, just this will return us to the racism issues. I mean, it is so disgusting how this whole thing went down. Let's get into it. On the near west side of Chicago, so not Cabrini Green, which I believe is near north side, there was a public housing development called the Grace Abbott Homes where a 52-year-old woman named Ruth May McCoy resided. On April 22nd, 1987, someone entered her 11th,000. floor apartment through her bathroom cabinet around 9 p.m. at night and murdered her.

So we need to do a quick because I don't even think that we've said this yet. So, you know, obviously comes in through the bathroom mirror and the movie. That is a real way that the projects were created. The architectural structure is that they can get in that people can get in through your medicine cabinet, but also through there, you can get into the walls of the building as well. Terrifying. Terrifying. Truly terrifying. And this wasn't like a quick like he just slipped right in and did it.

No, at 845, this is the scariest part to me. She calls 911 and she, to report an intruder to say, hey, someone is coming through my bathroom mirror. Like I'm watching it go down right now. And the operator disregarded her as she was a bit unintelligible because she's freaking out and noted that the call was a quote, disturbance with a neighbor. But police were finally dispatched after. other calls 911 reporting screams

and gunshots which is again so horrifying the police then get there and after knocking on the door they get no response they end up trying to use a key given to them by an attendant in the housing office but they left after the key didn't work

they left so all right I read this article if you want to read like the crazy details about this it's called they came in through the bathroom mirror by Stephen Bogira and the Chicago reader in 1987 And what is so ridiculous is that after they felt that they did a fine job after knocking on the door and not going in, that there was absolutely no further investigation afterwards. They're like, no, we did our job.

We knocked. Nobody came. So, I mean, it's not really our fault that we didn't go in and investigate. Yeah. Totally crazy. And then. Because they're in the projects. And nothing.

And probably nothing would have happened for. weeks, if it wasn't for another neighbor of this victim, calling 911 again, being like, hey, I have not seen this person. I'm, like, really worried about them, especially after the screams and gunshots that came from the apartment the other night. And the police went back to the apartment. They get no response again, wouldn't you know, because the person's dead. And then finally, the day after that, the housing, the day after that, the housing development

security guards drilled the lock on the door to get in. and McCoy, of course, is found lying on her bedroom floor, shot four times. There were two men aged 18 and 21 who were charged with the murder. They saw them carrying like TVs and stuff from her apartment out in the courtyard, like super late at night. They were charged, but the charges were dropped after two years of the trial. Probably didn't have enough evidence or whatever. And then this article that apparently's cabinets were only secured by six nails. In some areas of the building, you can even climb.

I'm vertically in the pipe chase to an apartment above or below the one you start in. It's the way to go from one apartment to the next, even if you're not killing nobody, the janitor said. If you're just peeping, maybe you're just giving a little look, you know? Truly,

truly scary. And the name the Candy Man also talk about another inspiration came from the Candy Man Killer. And the Candy Man Killer, his name is Dean Coral. Oh, yeah. The Kidnap, Torture,

and murdered at least 28 young boys between the years 1970 and 1973, and he earned his sweet nickname from the fact that his family owned a candy factory, and he was known for passing out sweets to kids in the Heights where his family had the candy factory. You can listen to a little podcast called Last Podcasts on the Left, he does a series about him. There it is. But either way, let's move from reality to, I guess more reality, actually. I want to talk about the cast, which are really.

But either way, Virginia Madsen, let's talk about her. She plays Helen Lyle, of course, the lead. Her mother is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker and author, her father, a sexy firefighter. And her brother is the actor Michael Madsen, who you might know from a bunch of Quentin Tarantino movies. I do know him. He's great. And either way, she grew up in Chicago and there attended acting schools as she wanted to be an actor from a very early age, one of her first big roles to mention David Lynch for the third time in this episode.

episode. Her big, one of her early big roles was Princess Irulon in David Lynch's Dune. So there you go. Weirdly Lynch is just like all over this episode for some reason. He just gets his creepy tindrils on it. And it makes sense. Clive Barker makes weird shit. Yeah.

I mean, they're both very like ethereal and, and I don't know. They just have similar styles in certain ways. Makes sense. Yeah, similar vibes. I get it. And similar time period too for like heyday. But either way, she was actually friends. with Bernard Rose himself and his wife, Alexandra, Pig.

And it was pig that was originally to play the role. It's a very unfortunate last name. I'm very happy that my last name is not Zipig, C, because I don't think I would be, I don't think I'd be alive. I think I'd have to be dead. Your name does mean zebra, which is interesting. It's a different animal. Oh, really?

Oh, it's a different kind of pig. That's right, she's got all those stripes on it. But either way, um. Striped pig. That's what we call zebras in this house. Pig was originally to play the role of Helen with Madsen as the best friend. But then they decided, and I think smartly so, to cast the friend as African American. So, but then and then, then, right before they were about to shoot,

Alex hit your pig got pregnant and sick like a big old pig. Pig. Just before the shooting started. Can you imagine? I would change my last name so fast. So fast. The second I was able to. Ma'am, are you pregnant?

No, it's just my last name. No, I'm just pig. But either way, no, she did get pregnant. And so Helen was offered, or Madsen, rather, was offered the role of Helen. We already said the Eddie Murphy thing. I'm so glad they weren't able to afford them. So that's where we get to Tony Todd as the Candyman who grew up. But I will say, though, about Virginia Madston.

Please. She's very open with the fact that she is not your typical. Final girl. This is another thing that, of course, you know, before this, there's alien. There's Halloween. But she is older than both of them and not your typical final girl. And what I love is Virginia Madsen said, most horror films just go for the gross out and always combine sex and violence. As soon as someone's getting it on, their head is chopped off.

It's biblical most of the time. Yes. Because Bernard immediately takes out that scene of getting punished. for your sins, which is so exploitative of women. It really is. The fact that this seduction has nothing to do with guilt. It's not the guilt of being a, and like even which I never thought about too, we were talking about the fact that when she shows her breasts in the Virginia Madsen, it's never

in a like, oh, my titty's a popping out. It is in very uncomfortable upsetting scenes. Like in the scene when she's shooken and she just gets out on bail and she's like washing herself and she knows that her husband is cheating on her. And like, of course the 12 year old in me goes like today. Well, sure. Hey. Because I do that every time there are breasts on the screen because again, I am a child. But it is in such a tasteful way that's not just being like, you see that tip.

Right. It's not her being a quote unquote slut. No at all. And she's not being. And she's not even. She gets fucked over, you know? I mean, she gets cheated on with the young hot girl, you know what I mean?

That girl was such a dumb bitch. When I put on Candyman at first time, it was just like, ew, yuck, who is this old? Why is this old on the screen? You know what I mean? Where is the youth? Where I feast on the youth. But then I was like, wow, she's really killing this.

You know what? I can deal with her oldness. Yeah, I'll look past the cracks on her skin and enjoy the film. But either way. Also, Sandra Bullock was almost Virginia Madsen's role as well. But she turned it down. She did spruce. I think actually she would have actually probably also killed it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I really love Virginia Madsen in this movie. She's fantastic. Yes. Agreed. But either way, definitely Sandra Bullock better than Eddie Murphy. Oh, yeah. That can you imagine.

But either way, Tony Todd grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. He went on to study at the U.S. Gene O'Neill National Actors Theatre Institute and the Trinity Repertory Company and Providence Rhode Island. So in other words, just a legit as fuck actor. He has acted on and off Broadway on tons of TV shows, including

several characters in the Star Trek universe. He's appeared, I think we mentioned this before, over 100 theatrical and television films, which includes Platoon, Night of Living Dead, The Crow, the Final Destination series. Todd stated at one point that he, quote, always wanted to find my own personal phantom of

the opera and even came up as mentioned that backstory, which is very Phantom of the Opera-esque, I will definitely say a tragic backstory. Todd also said, I'm also a blues musician, and all blues artists can trace their pain to the slavery fields of the Mississippi

Delta. Anyone who's a fan of jazz and blues can hear that howl. I consider this film a direct descendant of that. I knew I wasn't going to create a caricature and that I wanted to root the character deep in the history of slavery in America. What I do love as well is that,

So Tony Todd's like hit most of his stuff. All of his stuff was shot in L.A., but he did go out to Chicago to obviously see Cabrini Green to get the feel for it. And so he went out drinking with Bernard Rose to show him around to some of the blues venues in Chicago and all of his favorites. And he said, see, Bernard Rose is a genius. We bonded over blues and beer. I took him to this great place in Chicago called the Kingston, minds with my good friend Frank Pellegrino from Goodfellas. He says, we're drinking.

Bernard is standing there twisting his hair like a maniacal madman and he tells me, this movie is going to change your life. And I was like, dude, easy. You want a shot of tequila? I love Tony Todd. I love him. He's the coolest man. And he's so, I know he's said it before, but man, is he not just an absolute force in

this film? I mean, I can't imagine this movie being successful without his incredible, like, stoic, terrifying performance. That's really totally accurate. Like, when you're saying stoic, he is a force, but it's not like the way I would probably be a force by just screaming and screaming. Yeah.

Always. She's always screaming. It's literally just like, you're now mine. You're now my thing. And I'm going to take you now. And it's like so, which is, again, going back to that one comment from, I believe, Rose, it is kind of more like a.

Dracula than a, you know. Yeah, sweets for the sweet, baby. I want sweets. I want sweets. Sweet for the sweet, by the way, that is a line from Hamlet. Yeah, no. And I also, while we're talking about Cass real quick, I did meet DeWan Guy. And DeWan Guy plays the little boy in Candyman.

What about the other guy? I mean, this is, you know, it's difficult to not make the joke. But, oh, you're DeWan guy. Oh, boy. He was very, very sweet. And it was very funny because he was, he asked why Jeff, because I was with Jeff and he was selling his horror artwork. And he asked why he didn't have a Candyman piece. And we didn't know who he was because he's an adult.

And then he just kept saying the lines from the movie at us. And we're like, hell yeah, man. Yeah, we don't have it. Yeah. And he's like, you want a picture? I'm like, sure. Yeah. So we took a picture with him.

And then he told us who he was. And we're like, oh, that's awesome. That makes a lot more sense. That's so funny. We thought you just wanted to take a picture with us. But sweet, just the sweetest. And also, he's as a little kid actor, great in that movie. Killed it.

He's better off dead. Killed it. And it's one of the scarier things is seeing that boy sitting in that hallway alone with no parental supervision in this very dangerous feeling place was like one of the more, I feel like, scary realities that one phase is. He's very vulnerable, yeah. Yes. He's here. But either way, Cassie Lemons, I will say,

I don't really have a lot on the rest of the cast. They're kind of more in the background. But Cassie Lemons, who plays Helen's friend Bernadette, she went on to become a very successful director in her own right. She ended up directing that recent biopic Harriet in 2019, which is highly acclaimed. And also Bernard Rose shows up in the movie in that dinner scene with the academics as a university researcher named Archie.

What I love for. when I give factoids to my co-hose is when they stare at me in silence. And go, wow. Now I know how Jaggy feels when she does the list. Yes, so that you guys just look at me with glazed over and I'm like, are you listening? I've got things to say. Let's talk about Candyman's look for a second because I do feel that is quite iconic and I just want that coat so bad. I got some of this stuff kind of blew my mind a little bit.

I've never thought about what Candyman wore ever. Right. But it is so cool. Like his look is so cool. And it's very, it is, it is all chosen for a reason. And you feel like you've, as soon as you see him in the movie, you're like, oh, this dude's from like otherworldly, like compared to everyone else's fashion, everyone else's basic sensibilities.

You're like, oh, this guy comes from like another world. And Todd wanted this look to be a, quote, primeval boogeyman. but without overacting too much, which was a tricky balance for him to find, and the look, I feel like, had to be the same kind of thing. Well, and that was the thing. It's very difficult. So his costume designer is Leonard Pollock, very difficult, especially because Tony Todd is 6'5, to put something on him that doesn't look like a costume, that something that this character

would actually wear, that they wanted to give him a sense of royalty. Because if you think about it, in his backstory, in the movie, He was the son of a slave, but his family got rich because they had created a device to mass produce shoes after the Civil War. So this is an elevated person that came from a not elevated background. But also what I never fucking thought about is how why they zero in on his shoes and how cool his shoes are is because his father was a cobbler so, of course he would have the best crafted shoes available for him. Doesn't that make so much sense? I was like, God damn it.

This movie's so good. I love it. He also worked with Bob Keen on his look. Bob Keen had done makeup for Hellraiser as well and did special effect type stuff as well. Keene originally had him try out a fake mechanical right arm, but the movements were too clunky and it just didn't quite work with the look. So then he ran off and created that awesome, terrifying hook. which yeah yeah really well-downed yeah they wanted to make it period enough but also

contemporary since it was modern day and then that's what like they got really pissed off because they think it was roger ebert that called it a pimp coat and they're like fuck you iberts says some really questionable stuff man he says some fucking bullshit dude i it really he's dead well you know i'm sorry r-i p but still it's not a pimp coat if anything of all the things with this movie Isn't that a racist bullshit thing to say? Yeah. He at least did. I believe he praised the movie at least.

I think he did give it a very glowing review. He just called it a Bimpco. I mean, from a place of complete condescension. Yeah. Anything else about the look before we talk about bees? I think that it's really smart. They went with a, it is a very royal and like a fancy outfit, but it's very subdued. The colors aren't bright because like you said, on his frame, it could look like a

costume really easily. And that it held that sense of royalty without being over, overly in your face about it. Yeah. Clancy. I want to climb that sticky, sticky man. All right. Cats paw. Oh, he does it.

He has a penis. Now can we talk about bees. Bees. Rose said, I was watching Johnny Carson's show when it featured a professor of intomology, Norman Gary, who had an act where he would play the clarinet, covered in bees. He had synthesized queen bee pheromone and would cover himself in it.

How do you find that as your gig? It's like, I know that it's like, oh, over time, now we're podcasters because we just kept doing it. But like, where did that start? Like, oh, well, you know, I was out there on my fife and I just, you know, some bees starting to come on me and I'm playing my fives. Maybe he was playing the fife so much so deeply that he didn't notice he was walking into a beehive.

And the bees just came. Also, he's probably, or he's just a bee guy who has like a honey business and he's like getting bored and trying stuff out. You know what I mean? I'm there's a bee guy with my honey business. He was like, I wonder if I could have sex with these bees. So he covered it his penis. I mean, it is a little sexual. It's a little like phallic.

For sure. And fair men, it's fairomones. They're on his body because they want that good. They want that good. I get it. I get it. Ooh, they want that fucking dirty good. It is that.

Back to the bees. Either way. So he got this pheromone and would cover himself in it so they wouldn't sting. This is Rose talking again. Immediately I knew this was how we would do the scenes where the bees in Gulf Candyman and Helen. And actually this guy was the bee guy in Hollywood. He did a movie called The Deadly Bees. He did a little movie called My Girl.

He can't see you without his glasses. And fried green tomatoes as well. He's that guy that does the bee stuff. He pulls Gary in And soon Gary is breeding immature bees In hives on the roof of the L.A. studio Imature bees don't have any venom And according to Rose quote,

After every shot he would vacuum them up Into a little soft pouch And take them back to their dressing room Which I guess was the roof. They used over 200,000 honeybees And the crew had to wear protective suits on set And still every single one of them got to stuff. Got to stop.

And still, everybody got stung. I'm assuming they couldn't kill them for like, maybe in the 90s they could just kill a bunch of bees, but you can't do that now. Yeah, they probably set them on fire. But yeah, I would say that without the venom, a beasting is going to be a lot less shitty, though. I mean, if you haven't been this stuck by a bee,

Lexi got stung on her hand by a bee at like, it was so sad to because it was a big family gathering in Jacksonville. She was like at such a good mood. And it ruined her day. She was like crying about it hours later So getting that venom out of there Is is nice but Still Tony Todd

Had to had went through it with these bees He had a dental dam in his mouth To keep the bees from going down his throat Rose commented that he was quote Very courageous It took a half an hour Just to get all the bees into his mouth He said he went into like a trance

When he opened his mouth And they all flew out He was like And also Todd said, I negotiated a bonus of $1,000 for every sting during the B scene. And I got some- So smart. I got some 23 times. I love it. You got paid $1,000 for B-thing.

I'd be like, oh, man, more bees, get on me. Yeah, punching them and stuff, getting the fights with them, you know, insulting their families, insulting their queen. Your queen sucks. Your queen sucks. Everything, but I love this quote from him. everything that's worth making has to involve some sort of pain. Once I realized it was an important part of who Candyman was, I embraced it.

It was like putting on a beautiful coat. I love you, Tony Todd. I love you. I read that Mattson was highly allergic to bees, which seems like a problem to be castanis. When she was offered the role, she said, I can't. I'm allergic to bees. And then Bernard Rose said, No, you're not allergic to bees.

You're just afraid. Wow, she was gaslit? She said, I had to go to UCLA and get tested because he didn't believe me. I was tested for every kind of venom. I was far more allergic to wasps. So he said, we'll just have paramedics there. You'll be fine.

Wow. You know, actors, we'll do anything for a paycheck. So fine, I'll be covered with bees. This is just, I think it's very funny. and I think that we come across this often where people always think it's like oh actors such cushy jobs oh they make so much money for what they do

this woman to get a paycheck because I get it we've all been here I will continue to forever be there the things we do for money and that she's like well I need this job so let's hope I don't get stung I'm like that's horrifying terrifying

and she had 500 Bs on her and they had to be super careful only to use freshly hatched non-stinging and non-flying bees as Madsen was super allergic to bee stings like you just mentioned so they had to be like innings. Yes and they had to use a tiny bee vacuum that wouldn't harm the bees to get the bees off of them so after they would do the scenes it would take at least 45 minutes to get the bees off so you are talking hours at this point of having bees on you. And she said that it was like, they're all covered in fur.

So it was like little cue tips all over your body. That's cute. It's cute, but also it's bees. I'm glad that in the 90s, I wouldn't have been surprised if they were just like, dump these bees off, get some new bees, throw them in the trash. I'm glad that they at least had some regulations for it. Yeah, I hope they better be abused bees. I only want abused bees on my set.

I'm sorry, would that make them abased? Oh, my God. Jackie, that's horrific. She's the funniest woman alive. So I like that, Natalie, you mentioned the whole, like, how he's super stoic and how powerful that was. And that actually, a lot of that came out of Rose, Bernard Rose's, like, least favorite thing about horror movies is that screaming noise.

He hated that noise. Yeah, he'd hate this podcast, that's for sure. Yeah. And so another thing he did in order to avoid that with his heroin, is he had actually Virginia Madsen hypnotized in those scenes where she confronts the candyman

it took about 10 minutes it was done by a professional hypnotist but Rose himself had this key word that he would say to her right before they would roll right before they would call action that would put her into this trans like state it was Madsden

it was just her last name and I was like how did shit how did that work that was just her last name it was her last name her last name was a A terrible keyword. Yes. I mean, at the DMV, she's just like drooling, like, for her picture. I think it was, but she does save it, like, she was legitimately hypnotized.

Yeah. And what's so cool is that looking at her eye, like, how do you not focus like that? Like, if you, because, of course, then I'm really looking. I was like, I want to see if I can see a difference in those scenes. And that glassy-eyed look, I don't know if you could do it any other way. Like, to have her just not respond at all. And then with a single tear, makes it so fucking effective. Even, yeah.

I mean, it's brilliant directing to you. And that very first scene when she sees the Candyman in the parking garage, there's no fear reaction. She's immediately, he's calling to her and she's going like, I can't go. I have to be somewhere. Like, immediately just under the spell. Make me a mortal.

Also, I will say Tony Todd did sing about the hypnosis in his, song cat claw penis says of course he's a blues musician cat claw penis i'm gonna hypnotize you with my cat claw penis which she's i don't think that that's blues at all i think you just made somebody else have the blues though he's definitely depressing rock uh cock rock rock either way none of that was made up but what was made up and uh wonderfully done always love to hear this uh even if it is for budget reasons rose wanted traditional effects and high Martin Bresson for the job who did effects on films such as Waterworld. He did visual effects for The Abyss.

Of course, that had a lot of like hocus pocus in there. And escape from L.A. And really got all that stuff was like so real. I mean, we just talked about the bees. The crew who did the fire effects for the film Backdraft, the firefighter movie, that Jaggie's probably rubbed a bean or two off to. Oh, at least three beans. And designed, they designed the set for that awesome bonfire scene in Candyman.

They used 1,500 gallons of propane for the look. The fire got up to 70 feet wide and 30 feet high. That's terrifying. Very scary. Yes. Very, very scary. Awesome. It's like Burning Man.

So very cool. If we don't have much more about the practical effects. I'm sorry. Burning Woolman. Right, guys? Man, I'm killing it. She did burn alive at the end of that. But either way, if you don't have anything else about the practical effects,

I think Jackie's going to take us a little walk-down score-lame. done by the amazing Philip Glass. And as we know, the score for Candyman is almost as remembered as Candyman itself. It is like Helen's theme in it is the kind of thing that like I would just think about randomly. And the fact that it just keeps, it is such a, Philip Glass is such an amazing job in this movie. But if you know anything about Philip Glass, you know that Philip Glass sees himself as an artist. And you're right. He is an artist.

He is. But he's definitely above the idea of making music for just a low-budget slasher flick. So when Philip Glass was asked to produce the score of the film, he agreed because he wanted to create a Gothic score with pipe organs. But he hated the final version of the movie. He felt that he was lied to by Bernard Rose and manipulated into thinking it was an independent project. with, quote, integrity. He said the story that we learned afterwards makes a lot of sense.

So Bernard Rose wanted to make the movie with more social commentary on the boogeyman than it actually obviously came out with. It is still there, but it's not as important as Bernard Rose originally wanted. But he wanted African Americans living in the projects of which white people

like Virginia Madsen's character, Helen, are terribly afraid. That was, that was the project that Philip Glass signed up for. And he was so mad about the final product that he refused to release the soundtrack. He didn't want them selling the soundtrack. He was very, his least favorite project.

He was embarrassed by it. In 2001, so this is nine years later, a friend of Philip Glass's Don Christensen, they were in a meeting one day. And he pointed out to Glass how the music for Candyman was a hot commodity on the bootleg market and that he should really consider releasing it.

And Glass of the time had a record deal with a company that definitely did not want to identify itself with a horror movie soundtrack. So Philip Glass told Christensen, go ahead, put it out. If you want to put it out, you put it out. So his friend created Orange Mountain Music, a record label able to release archive items

like the score to Candyman. And Candyman was the label's first. release. So he did it just because people wanted the soundtrack so badly. And Philip Glass then made no money off of the selling of the soundtrack later on. And this dude did. And it's amazing because now Philip Glass has gone out to say it has become a classic. So I still make money from that score. Get checks every year. Yeah. And that's all he says about it. Doesn't say anything about the movie that that's what he says about it. He's amazing though. He did he did scores for films like Kogana Scotse, which is a big

classic, which is like largely the score is such a huge important part of that short art film. And then the hours, which is one of my favorite scores. Oh, good. Oh, my God. I love the hours. I love the hours. But yeah, that's

the deal with the score, kind of hilarious. And it just goes to show how much shit horror the genre still gets, but was so getting back then, because I consider this to be more on the prestige side of the horror genre. Absolutely.

Very much so. Fliar flick. And also Bernice. Bernard Rose. That's his alter ego, yeah. When he shows him, sometimes on set as Bernice. Don't talk to Bernard when he's Bernice because he just flashes out. I'd be scared.

I think that that is fun and I like it. He also directed one of my favorite sad romance movies, Immortal Beloved, which I definitely recommend. It's about beta. I don't. Okay. I haven't heard of that. Oh, it's great. Awesome. Oh, yeah. You guys should totally watch that movie, you and Lexie. I'm down. It's great. I loved this, so yeah, for sure. But yeah, the movie comes out on October 16th, 1992. It does pretty well for itself in the box office. It's pretty well received by critics.

I mean, on the budget of six million, it made 25 million, which for a horror movie in 92, it's really not bad. Solid. Rose said the film was successful, but not super successful. It was never in anyone's best of lists in the 90s, but it's grown over the years. Now it's talked about as a precursor to what Jordan Peel and other black filmmakers are doing. I never set out to make some great social statement, though. Confronted with the reality of what was there, it just came into the film and made it a lot better. And of course, we get Jordan Peel. We're going to talk about that in just a second.

Now, even Virginia Madsen says, most people recognize me from Candyman more than anything I've ever done. She says it means a lot to me. It was after years of struggling. As an actor, you always want a film that's annual. Like it's a wonderful life or Christmas story. I just love that I have a Halloween movie. Now it's kind of a legend this story. People have watched it since they were kids and every Halloween it's on.

And they watch it now with their kids. That means a lot to me. The place I get recognized the most is the airport security for some reason. Every person in airport security has seen Candyman. Maybe it makes them a little afraid of me. Amazing. So, well, I just wanted to briefly touch on the sequel. because they do exist.

I literally hit up Jackie. It was like, are these at all worth watching? And she said, no. So if you're a sequel defender, please, email Jackie. DM her on Instagram. She does not read those messages anymore, but do it. You know what makes me upset is that I want to see. So originally, so Bernard Rose, like, as he was making this,

immediately gets picked up to write the sequel, right? And if the original story wanted to do for the sequel, I would have, which also was supposed to be called Candyman 2, the Midnight Meat Train. And it was supposed to follow Jack the Ripper instead. Oh, shit. The first Candy Man was about race. The idea was to make the second Candyman about gender. It was about to be the idea of this faceless, brutal killer who only attacked women in a horrific sexual manner and whose primary objective was to stop whores.

Right. It's a weird moralistic take to it. So the protagonist of the first. film was actually a British police woman who starts to investigate the murders. That's cool. And of course, as in all Ripper stories, the moment she starts to uncover all of the theories, these Masonic influences in the British police force coalesced to stop her. So far, so much like every other Ripper thing you've read, right?

But you start to realize that she's getting more and more isolated from her policeman husband and in the same way as Candyman's Helen. She was being more gasslet by all the people around her. and the closer she got to the heart of the mystery, the more layers of strangeness floated around her. And then it became a weird procedural. And that's the movie I want to see.

Yeah, I would love to see that movie. And it just seems like that would have been such the smart call that taps into what made this movie a fascinating horror film to begin with and unique. And instead, it seems like to me, and Jaggie, you saw them. I didn't really. But it seems like they stripped all the interesting stuff

and just leaned on any of the little elements that made it like a rote, slasher horror film, right? Like that's kind of what it was like, oh, it's like arbitrary setting, and we're going to focus on just the fact that this guy is always haunting these people and killing them. That's what's so cool about Candyman is you watch

Halloween, you watch Freddy Kruger, and it is the, quote unquote, monster going after people the entire time. This is one of those movies where it's like, oh, you think that that's what the movie's going to be, and then it blows all of your, you're thinking out of the fucking water, and that's why Candyman is so fucking good. So for you to

go back to the regular horror laurels that's not what we wanted with this franchise. And that's why a lot of people trash sequels and claim that their money grabs because they take, they are. Yeah, because they pick out the things they think are what

made the movie good or what made the movie what people want to see. Yeah. And then just like completely put no heart or thought into it. They're just like all right, this guy's got the hook. He's got the hook. He's mad. It's in a city. And get that bitch. And they even got Tony Todd for, I believe, both of these, right?

And the first was Candyman Farewell to the Flesh. It came out in 1995, directed by Bill Condon, who actually did, he did Chicago, Dreamgirls, and Jackie. You'll love this. He did the Twilight Breaking Dawn one and two, which I believe are considered horrible. I believe they're considered terrible, right? Aren't those bad ones? They are, but they're still great. They're still great, though.

They're terrible to watch, but fun. But fun, at least. But either way, the film follows a normal. Orleans school teacher who finds herself targeted by the Candyman. The second was Candyman Day of the Dead. It was directed by Tury Meyer, who directed episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show. And it centers around the eve of Day of the Dead, during which he haunts a Los Angeles art gallery owner. But either way, again, it's just like didn't spend much time.

And by the way, the art gallery owner, the scream queen is Donna Dierico, who I remember from just Jayoffing to her from Baywatch. She's not a good actress. Whoa. Just gonna throw it out there so it's just like if that's it. It's the opposite of what they did in the first one Of what made the first one so good.

It's like a hot girl. It's just so annoying. But either way, let's talk about what's awesome and exciting about this franchise with the Jordan Peel sequel. Jordan Peel was announced to be in talks to produce a sequel back in 2018

and will be more racially charged with the plot centering around a now gentrified Cabrini Green. Tony Todd totally was super cool like on Twitter about it. He had heard someone else had already been cast as it was literally like, I have been in love with playing this character for the past, like, 20 years,

but I also understand how Hollywood works, and I just congratulate them for the movie they're going to make. I know it's going to be great. Like, he was so gracious and cool. And then it's so cool that they totally were like, nah, bra, you the Candyman still. And I love that, man. I feel like it was more like, oh, we just assumed you were going to do it. Oh, no, you're weird.

You can't even. Totally. But it's such a weird Hollywood thing where he heard about it online. I hear that about all these remakes that people from the cast are like, I didn't know I was doing this until the internet told me I was. The creator of Jim. The creator, when we did that, we did that for Wizard of the creator of Jim, found out about the shitty remake that Scooter Braun made, by the way,

asshole of from Taylor Swift fame, and totally destroyed her work and what was cool about her work. And she found out about it in a tweet that it was happening. All right. No more Taylor Swift today. All right. Got your limit. She's a miracle. She's a miracle. But either way, going the opposite of Taylor Swift, probably this film.

You do have Tony Todd directed by Nia da Costa, who wrote the screenplay with Jordan Peel and when Rosenfeld doesn't have a ton of credits but did a short film that was apparently so well regarded by Jordan Peel that he brought her in to do this. Now, I have the premise from Universal. It's a big old paragraph. You want me to read this out? No, I mean, essentially it's just going to be a, it's a continuation of the story about the baby that survived who's grown up that goes back to Cabrini Green.

Honestly, that's all I want to know about it. That sounds fucking sick as shit. If you haven't watched the trailer with the beautiful animation and the, like the, what's that called? It's going to be so good. Like the shadow puppet things. Have you watched that trailer? It is beautiful.

I'm so excited. I got to check it out. I get why they pushed back the release till next year, but I will say I was like counting down the days to see. I want to see Candyman, so I want to see the new one so badly. I'm just so excited that we finally got to get to talk about my favorite horror movie. It's just holds up. The other element I love that they're going to play into is, of course, like, he moves back to Cabrini

Green, but now it's this luxurious loft condo. Of course. And fully driversed by like annoying as fuck millennials. And I think that's going to be amazing for a horror story and for especially the type of, you know, get out style. like horror storytelling that just, it makes me so excited to see, I just want to see some, I just

hope they're really annoying millennials and I hope they get killed really, really hard. Oh, I'm sure they will. Oh, they will be. They won't believe in the folklore. Katie Man's got to come back, remind them about what happened in the past. And I just want to end it on this little, I just like this little paragraph from one of the reviews.

I feel like it really just sums up all of this. Candyman is unlike almost any of, American horror movie made in the 1990s. It's smart without ever being snarky or ironic. It often feels like highbrow horror without ever losing touch with the genre roots that make it so interesting. Its villain is instantly iconic without ever feeling like he's been dumbed down to fit into a horror mold.

So much of Candyman's success rests on the shoulders of Candyman himself. Much of his dialogue is plucked straight from the source. And although originally white in Barker's story, the casting of Tony Todd as Candyman, man adds hundreds of years of ugly history to an already complex film. Hell yeah. I love it. Don't say Katie, man. I won't do it.

I won't say it into the mirror. No, fuck that. No way. Why bring the energy? No. Why do that to yourself? Well, I live in a New York apartment with a fucking mirror. Have you checked? Have you checked to see if you could take the medicine chest out yet? I haven't checked to see if I could rip it off. But it definitely would look into the apartment next to mine too, would be so scary.

So I'm definitely not messing with that. But hell yeah. Don't you want to know? This is our episode on The Candyman, and this was super fun, guys. I really enjoyed doing this with the two of you. I think we nailed it. Oh, my God. Yeah, dog.

Thank you guys so much. So much. So much applause for us. Please, if you'd like to throw wreaths at us when we walk down the street, doing our day-to-day activities, we commend you for it. Like a pony? Like a show-pop? Are you pulling a show ponies right now?

Drissage. No, more like a cat clawed nose. No, don't souls us out. Such a blues performer. Thank you guys. Again, this is Candyman. I love you. And my name is Jackie Zabrowski.

You can follow me on Instagram at Jack That Worm. And yeah, I'll talk about having sex with Tony Todd all day. All right, there you go. But either way, you can check us out, Patreon.com, ford slash page 7 podcast. Check us out. Jackie and I do a stream every Friday called Jack and knees on my Twitch channel, twitch.tv.tv.tv.com.

I'm Natalie Jean. You can follow me at the Natty Jean and this show at page 7. LPN. We love you guys. We'll be back soon. Bye, everybody. Bye, baby. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.