The Jordan Peele-produced Candyman reboot was originally scheduled to hit theaters last week before becoming one of the countless projects to be delayed as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. While there’s been rumors that the movie could potentially be dropped into cinemas and on digital on the same day, horror fans are a lot more likely to want to catch this one on the big screen.
The Academy Award-winning creator of Get Out and Us may only be serving as producer and co-writer, but his previous work in the genre has shown us that he knows how to put a fresh spin on some familiar tropes, and Peele has already made it clear that director Nia DaCosta is a much better fit for the material than he could possibly hope to be.
Like a lot of recent long-delayed sequels to popular horror franchises, Candyman will serve as a direct continuation of the 1992 original and ignore the vastly inferior follow-ups Farewell to the Flesh and Day of the Dead, with Tony Todd and Vanessa Williams reprising their roles to provide the connective tissue to the first movie.
The first trailer set the reboot up as an atmospheric, terrifying update to a series that has largely remained stuck in cult favorite territory, but DaCosta has now debuted a second teaser on her Twitter account that looks sure to get people talking.
https://twitter.com/NiaDaCosta/status/1273293842113089536
Using paper puppets as part of the marketing campaign to tell the origin story of your title character is certainly a unique method of selling Candyman to the masses, but an ingenious one nonetheless. The footage instantly establishes the eerie and haunting tone that the reboot is aiming for, appeals to original fans and also explains how the title character came to be for those that don’t have much knowledge of the lore. If the finished product is anywhere near as inventive as this, then horror fans are in for a huge treat.