‘Candyman’ trailer: Jordan Peele’s remake mixes gore with gentrification
The urban legend of horror is back: The first trailer for Jordan Peele’s revamp of the 1992 cult classic “Candyman” dropped Thursday.
Scored with a creepy altered version of Destiny’s Child’s “Say My Name,” the new trailer is just a tease.
However, the remake — which hits theaters June 12 — will reportedly pay homage to the original, which starred Tony Todd as the deadly title character, who appears to wreak bloody havoc every time some dumb kid dares utter his name five times in front of the mirror.
Once again set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, the 2020 “re-imagining” will focus on the gentrification of the North Side neighborhood.
“Gentrification is what helped us to re-imagine the story because Cabrini-Green is gone,” director Nia DaCosta said at an exclusive screening of the trailer, Deadline reported. “The movie from the ’90s has a vision of Cabrini-Green where it’s sort of on its way to being knocked down.”
“Candyman” stars Teyonah Parris (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Us” and “Watchmen”), Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (“Misfits”) and Colman Domingo (“Fear the Walking Dead”).
The screenplay is co-written by Peele and Win Rosenfeld, but will reportedly be bloodier than Peele’s more suspense-driven thrillers like “Get Out” and “Us.” DaCosta, to be blunt, is really into blood and guts.
“I really love gore,” DaCosta said at the screening. “It’s something that Jordan and I talked about a lot. What’s fun about working with Jordan is that our horror aesthetics are different. Jordan is really brilliant at not showing everything and my instinct is to do the exact opposite.”
The original Bernard Rose-directed film told the tale of the title character, a former slave who fell in love with a white woman and fathered a child in the late 1800s. His lover’s outraged father hired a lynch mob to smear him with honey. As bees attacked him, he was burned to death and his ashes were later scattered upon what became the Chi-town housing project.
So, will the original Candyman, Tony Todd, return for a cameo? DaCosta said, “[Todd] is iconic and what we have done with the film is … great and I don’t want to give anything away.”