31 Days Of Hallowe’en: Candyman (1992)

Welcome to JOE's 31 Days Of Hallowe'en. For each and every day of October, we'll be bringing you a horror movie to tuck into for the lead up to the big night. It could be new, old, an undiscovered gem, or a classic you'll have seen a thousand times. No matter what it is, we guarantee you that it is brilliant, and it is SCARY.

For Day 16, we're looking back over 1992's urban legend made bee-keeping flesh, Candyman. "Candyman... Candyman... Candyman... Candyman... Can.....t do it!" That is usually what everyone remembers from this horror movie, that it requires you to look into the mirror and say his name five times to your own reflection, and it will bring him forth and he'll kill you with his big hook hand. But if you haven't seen it, that is probably all you know of it. Which is a shame, because Candyman is a tremendously scary creation, and deserves to held alongside Freddy Kreuger, Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers in the pantheon of horrific bad guys. Clip via Smegfromhell Tony Todd plays the Candyman to perfection, a mythic creation that a young student (played by Virginia Madsen) decides to investigate when she happens upon the fact that at least 25 different people seem to have died in a very similar manner. When she accidentally pins the murders to the wrong person, Candyman appears to her and tells her that innocent blood must be shed, in order to regain the fear of the people, and it will be on her hands because she was passing his murders off on to someone else, someone real. There is a kind of operatic mood going on here, the same kind of left-field, everything-feels-a-little-bit-off vibe that you'd find in Hellraiser, which was also based of a story by Clive Barker. This time around though, the violence is punishingly real, and the monster isn't some inter-dimensional S&M creature. Candyman was scary enough to convince an entire generation not to say his name into a mirror. How many other horror movies can you say had that kind of affect on their audience? Canydman is being shown on Film4 on Friday 27 October at 11.15pm. Check out our previous recommendations below: Day 1 - The Omen Day 2 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Day 3 - The Ring Day 4 - The Invitation Day 5 - Scream 2 Day 6 - It Follows Day 7 - Eden Lake Day 8 - The Thing (1982) Day 9 - Switchblade Romance Day 10 - The Babadook Day 11 - 28 Weeks Later Day 12 - The Strangers Day 13 - Friday The 13th (1980) Day 14 - [REC] & [REC]2 Day 15 - Bone Tomahawk