Candyman is a genuinely
scary horror film with an intriguing and believable plot that
supplies a generous amount of suspense and terrifying thrills.
The film's heroine
is Helen, a doctoral candidate and the wife of a college
professor. For her thesis she's selected urban folklore,
legends, and superstitions. Together with another woman she
enthusiastically launches into her research which takes her
into a degenerated ghetto housing project where a vicious
unsolved murder was committed. Ghetto residents believe the
murderer to be Candyman, a mythological serial-killer who has
committed more than twenty murders. Helen learns that the
mythic Candyman had been an educated son of a slave who was
put to death by having his hand cut off and throwing him to a
massive swarm of bees as revenge for impregnating a wealthy
young white woman. Legend has it that Candyman can be summoned
by repeating his name more than four times while looking in a
mirror. Her enthusiasm and dedication for the subject matter
put Helen at the kidnapping and subsequent murder of the baby
of a ghetto resident which lands Helen in police custody. As
the plot unfolds there are numerous bloody and violent
confrontations with Candyman and his victims.
As the film begins,
thousands of swarming bees fill the screen. This scene was
accomplished via the use of optical special effects. Added to
the special effects were a series of closeup shots of real
bees. The bee wrangler placed a large number of bees on a wall
and queen bee hormone was used to keep the bees in that
particular spot. To get the effect of bees exploding towards
the camera, a special vacuum was used with a reverse suction.
This was superimposed with special effects to give the overall
total effect.
Real bees were used
in several other scenes. In a scene which takes place in a
public toilet, Helen discovers a toilet bowl filled to the
brim with bees all feeding on something unseen. To achieve the
effect, a queen bee scent was applied by a professional bee
wrangler to the inside of the toilet bowl. This wrangler
released the bees from the hive into the toilet which had no
water in the bowl and was not a functional toilet. Vaseline
was applied to the upper inside of the bowl to prevent bees
crawling up near the lid. After the scene was filmed the bees
were collected with the special soft, safe, gentle vacuum and
returned to the hive.
For a scene in which
both Helen and Candyman are covered with bees, the queen bee
scent was placed on the actors and then the bees were placed
on the actors by pouring them out of a container. A special
bee vacuum was used after to collect the bees. For a scene in
which bees fill Candyman's chest cavity, bees were placed in a
special body appliance which was filled off stage and strapped
to the actor. Utmost care was taken to be gentle in placing
the bees properly for the scene and then collecting them
afterwards. Very young bees were used when placed on the
actress as the young bees were unlikely to fly or sting.
In other animal
action, a Rottweiler barks at Helen as she takes pictures
inside the ghetto tenement. The dog is held on a leash by the
actress and barks in response to his trainers cues. In a later
scene the same dog has supposedly been killed and decapitated
with a meat cleaver and the head of the dog is seen lying on a
kitchen floor amid a puddle of blood. The decapitated head was
a lifelike fake rubber model. The blood was, of course, fake
stage blood.
