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Posted : 1 year, 9 months ago on 18 July 2022 11:42
Really like the original 'Candyman', itself a well done adaptation of Clive Barker's excellent source material. Find it well-made and genuinely scary with great performances from Tony Todd (terrifying) and Virginia Madsen (in a difficult role) and a goosebump-inducing score from Phillip Glass. My only real problem with 'Candyman' has always been the for my tastes tacky ending, maybe a little bias as "open"/"it's not over yet" endings can not be my cup of tea.
A type of ending that gave way for two follow-ups, of which 'Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh' is the first (the other being the straight to video 'Candyman Day of the Dead'). Sadly, for me and it seems many people, both are nowhere near as good with almost all the components executed the complete opposite to how they were executed in 'Candyman'. Unlike the first, don't consider either sequel good films, with 'Farewell to the Flesh' being the lesser of two evils, and don't really see much reason as to why they were made.
Lets get the good things out of the way. Liked the colourful and creepy back-drop. The score does induce a few goosebumps, even if it is derivative.
It was great to have Todd back, cannot imagine anybody else as the titular character and Todd still evokes imposing chills which is more than his somewhat wanting material deserves.
However, the rest of the acting is mediocre at best and most of it downright bad. Madsen is sorely missed here, Kelly Rowan lacks the charisma and bite to carry the film or that's how it came over to me. The characters are uninteresting and unrootable, with motivations that are either vague or illogical (both at times too). There is nothing thought-provoking about the script either, the flow is long-winded and never natural and a lot of it descends into facepalm-inducing cheese. Was really surprised that it was directed by Bill Condon, he has done some good films (particularly 'Kinsey' and even more so 'Gods and Monsters'), but there is next to none of the flair, assurance or fluency those later films had, detected an inexperienced feel throughout here.
Despite the setting coming over well, it was a surprise to find that 'Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh' was not straight to video because it could easily have passed for it with its elsewhere under-budgeted production values. The story is the biggest problem, the complete lack of risks and originality (basically one big re-hash with derivative elements) further adds to the constant feeling felt throughout the film "why does this exist?" Furthermore there is no tension, suspense or dread, killed by a deadeningly sluggish pace and everything being so predictable. Not only does it feel watered/dumbed down because of this lack of atmosphere, but the over-reliance of cheap-looking gore gives the film a cynical, mean-spirited edge and cheapens the atmosphere.
Concluding, even with the over-reliance of gore there is very little flesh (meaning substance or atmosphere) on display. 3/10 Bethany Cox
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh Reviews
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh review
Posted : 4 years ago on 11 April 2020 07:37
A woman seeks the truth behind the accusations of murder lobbed at her brother and finds herself plunging deeper into her past. As her investigation unfolds she finds disturbing connections between her family and the legends of the Candyman, a mythic figure that the lower income denizens of New Orleans speak of only in whispers.
It would of seemed almost ironic, given the thematics of the film, if the continuity of the original "Candyman" would of served as the true basis for a sequel. Maybe even "sacrilegious", given that the titular boogeyman had died and a white woman had taken his place. Though there was no true need for a follow-up it was inevitable given the critical (and financial) response the original garnered. Three years after the exceptional first came the anti-climax that was "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh".
No longer attached were director Bernard Rose, whose reimagining of the source material resulted in a transcendent horror experience that demanded the respect of both haughty critics and the hoi polloi with its audacious social commentary weaved seamlessly into the fundamental beauty of a monster flick. Instead, the reins were handed off to one Bill Condon whose career is far from a disaster but not an especially remarkable one either. Clive Barker, the producer and writer of the short story that inspired the original film, returned to his production duties and even had his hand in the conceptual foundation. The beloved Tony Todd would reprise his role as Candyman, after all none could truly replace him. Finally, Philip Glass' score form the first movie is recycled (less effectively) and a few new cues are in play. In short, the film's grasp to its predecessor is tenuous at best.
Indeed, "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" is best described as a vastly inferior retelling of the same concept. And believe me, when I say inferior, I mean it. Everything in this movie struggles to function at levels below the benchmark of quality that similar elements worked without a hitch in the first. The narrative is overly convoluted and bloated, the actors are abominably shoddy, the effects go from unimpressive to embarrassing, the direction is an abomination, and, worse of all, they reduce Candyman to a stock horror villain. The affair as a whole feels more like a poor direct-to-video effort than a legit picture.
A "whodunnit" setup sends events in the movie into motion and overstays its welcome with a ridiculously prolonged search for the truth that, unfortunately, any viewer with an iota of sense has figured out in the first few minutes. It's irritatingly interminable and then some. The movie also attempts to further pad this out by introducing a menagerie of sublplots and supporting characters that seem to come and go at a moment's whim only to reappear just when they've been completely forgotten about. I wish I could say they return due to some ingenious plotting mechanism but they usually crop up out of convenience to the shambles of a story.
Oh, and don't get me started on a startling overreliance on the cheapest of jump scares. Cats hopping out of cupboards, hands on shoulders, mysterious hobos popping into frame...we've seen them a million times if we've seen them once. It's almost as if the studio or director were not confident enough in the material so they just riddle the picture with these undeserving "scares". Some are so incompetently set up that they actually show you the thing that is supposed to startle you before the scare happens.
Most egregious is how they utterly destroy the mystique and almost regal aura of the Candyman. In the first he is a mystery, a legend born of belief and looking not only to recover all he once lost in life but to reinstate his presence by exercising his will. He is like a romanticized haint of gothic literature, doomed to walk the mortal coil. His appearances are sparse but meaningful, his plight sympathetic despite his methods being ghastly, and there is method to his madness. In the sequel he is reduced to a slasher, often killing without rhyme or reason or for the sake of splatter and thus obfuscating the empathy we as viewers felt for him in the first. Not that the filmmakers didn't try to exploit that too. Indeed, here we get an unflinching look at the gruesome lynching that made him the Candyman but it falls flat, looks cheap, and, most offensively, further humiliates the character by retconning his history to be that of a slave rather than a freeman.
Gone also are the stinging overtones of social commentary about privilege, racial and social divisions, perceptions based on class or color, and the power of belief. We are expected to find the location (a wasted opportunity since it was New Orleans) and fleeting glances at its populace sufficient "commentary". They didn't need to make a particularly elevated film to make a good sequel (the first walks a fine line and manages to still be as much a monster movie as a piece of social commentary) but here they don't even bother to give Candyman the honorary of "monster", he is just a poor man's slasher. They even introduce an "out of the blue" mcguffin that can defeat him that is as cheap as the jump scares given there was no previous mention of it. Tony Todd does his best with the role but the material is poor, the dialogue weak, and the director has no idea how to shoot him in the effective way Bernard Rose did. Often times he is over exposed or framed in such a way as to look downright silly or pedestrian.
The sound design too can't even replicate the Candyman's omnipresent, breathy vocals. He sounds as average as you and I. The music feels ill fit and uninspired. Glass' repurposed themes don't match the material and the new compositions add very little. Effects? Physical ones are lacking and there is a woeful use of mid-90's CGI that goes over as well as you think.
"Canydman: Farewell to the Flesh" was an unnecessary follow-up but its worst crime is that it doesn't even bother to be that. It trods over the material that spawned it and spits on its memory. It is cheap, ugly to look at, poorly constructed, badly acted, and terribly written. It is a sequel best forgotten. There are a few moments, here and there, were you get glimpses of a decent idea or two, but they come an go so fast that you'll forget they were ever there. I give "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" a 1/10.
There was another sequel that followed this that is somehow worse. In the near future we will be getting a reboot to the franchise that directly follows the first and ignores this one and part three. Hopefully it will not fall into the same abyss that this one did.
It would of seemed almost ironic, given the thematics of the film, if the continuity of the original "Candyman" would of served as the true basis for a sequel. Maybe even "sacrilegious", given that the titular boogeyman had died and a white woman had taken his place. Though there was no true need for a follow-up it was inevitable given the critical (and financial) response the original garnered. Three years after the exceptional first came the anti-climax that was "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh".
No longer attached were director Bernard Rose, whose reimagining of the source material resulted in a transcendent horror experience that demanded the respect of both haughty critics and the hoi polloi with its audacious social commentary weaved seamlessly into the fundamental beauty of a monster flick. Instead, the reins were handed off to one Bill Condon whose career is far from a disaster but not an especially remarkable one either. Clive Barker, the producer and writer of the short story that inspired the original film, returned to his production duties and even had his hand in the conceptual foundation. The beloved Tony Todd would reprise his role as Candyman, after all none could truly replace him. Finally, Philip Glass' score form the first movie is recycled (less effectively) and a few new cues are in play. In short, the film's grasp to its predecessor is tenuous at best.
Indeed, "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" is best described as a vastly inferior retelling of the same concept. And believe me, when I say inferior, I mean it. Everything in this movie struggles to function at levels below the benchmark of quality that similar elements worked without a hitch in the first. The narrative is overly convoluted and bloated, the actors are abominably shoddy, the effects go from unimpressive to embarrassing, the direction is an abomination, and, worse of all, they reduce Candyman to a stock horror villain. The affair as a whole feels more like a poor direct-to-video effort than a legit picture.
A "whodunnit" setup sends events in the movie into motion and overstays its welcome with a ridiculously prolonged search for the truth that, unfortunately, any viewer with an iota of sense has figured out in the first few minutes. It's irritatingly interminable and then some. The movie also attempts to further pad this out by introducing a menagerie of sublplots and supporting characters that seem to come and go at a moment's whim only to reappear just when they've been completely forgotten about. I wish I could say they return due to some ingenious plotting mechanism but they usually crop up out of convenience to the shambles of a story.
Oh, and don't get me started on a startling overreliance on the cheapest of jump scares. Cats hopping out of cupboards, hands on shoulders, mysterious hobos popping into frame...we've seen them a million times if we've seen them once. It's almost as if the studio or director were not confident enough in the material so they just riddle the picture with these undeserving "scares". Some are so incompetently set up that they actually show you the thing that is supposed to startle you before the scare happens.
Most egregious is how they utterly destroy the mystique and almost regal aura of the Candyman. In the first he is a mystery, a legend born of belief and looking not only to recover all he once lost in life but to reinstate his presence by exercising his will. He is like a romanticized haint of gothic literature, doomed to walk the mortal coil. His appearances are sparse but meaningful, his plight sympathetic despite his methods being ghastly, and there is method to his madness. In the sequel he is reduced to a slasher, often killing without rhyme or reason or for the sake of splatter and thus obfuscating the empathy we as viewers felt for him in the first. Not that the filmmakers didn't try to exploit that too. Indeed, here we get an unflinching look at the gruesome lynching that made him the Candyman but it falls flat, looks cheap, and, most offensively, further humiliates the character by retconning his history to be that of a slave rather than a freeman.
Gone also are the stinging overtones of social commentary about privilege, racial and social divisions, perceptions based on class or color, and the power of belief. We are expected to find the location (a wasted opportunity since it was New Orleans) and fleeting glances at its populace sufficient "commentary". They didn't need to make a particularly elevated film to make a good sequel (the first walks a fine line and manages to still be as much a monster movie as a piece of social commentary) but here they don't even bother to give Candyman the honorary of "monster", he is just a poor man's slasher. They even introduce an "out of the blue" mcguffin that can defeat him that is as cheap as the jump scares given there was no previous mention of it. Tony Todd does his best with the role but the material is poor, the dialogue weak, and the director has no idea how to shoot him in the effective way Bernard Rose did. Often times he is over exposed or framed in such a way as to look downright silly or pedestrian.
The sound design too can't even replicate the Candyman's omnipresent, breathy vocals. He sounds as average as you and I. The music feels ill fit and uninspired. Glass' repurposed themes don't match the material and the new compositions add very little. Effects? Physical ones are lacking and there is a woeful use of mid-90's CGI that goes over as well as you think.
"Canydman: Farewell to the Flesh" was an unnecessary follow-up but its worst crime is that it doesn't even bother to be that. It trods over the material that spawned it and spits on its memory. It is cheap, ugly to look at, poorly constructed, badly acted, and terribly written. It is a sequel best forgotten. There are a few moments, here and there, were you get glimpses of a decent idea or two, but they come an go so fast that you'll forget they were ever there. I give "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" a 1/10.
There was another sequel that followed this that is somehow worse. In the near future we will be getting a reboot to the franchise that directly follows the first and ignores this one and part three. Hopefully it will not fall into the same abyss that this one did.
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