'Candyman' Trailer: The Reboot/Sequel Looks To Bring New Life To A Horror Icon

Candyman is back with an all-new trailer for Nia DaCosta's highly-anticipated horror sequel/reboot. This new look at the film continues to keep Candyman – at least the Tony Todd version – hidden. But there are plenty of other horrors on display here, along with what appears to be a twist on Candyman's origin story from the previous films. Watch the latest Candyman trailer below.

Candyman remains one of my most-anticipated films of the year. I'm dying to see what Nia DaCosta has cooked up here with co-writer Jordan Peele, and I'm hopeful it will turn out to be something truly great. DaCosta's take serves as a sequel to the original Candyman, and even features some surviving characters from the film.

Here's the synopsis:

For as long as the residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago's Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In the present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, a visual artist named Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, an art gallery director named Brianna Cartwright, moved into a luxurious loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by the upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony's painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind the Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

Anthony, who is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, was the baby Candyman tried to sacrifice in a fire at the end of the first film – you can even see burn scars on the character's hands in a few shots here. One thing to note is that there's an interesting twist on the traditional Candyman origin story here. Traditionally, Candyman was a Black artist living in the 1800s. He fell in love with a white woman, and was murdered by a lynch mob because of it. But in the story told in this trailer, Candyman appears to be someone who lived in the 1970s or 1980s, and he was a local who handed out candy to kids. When a razor blade was found in a piece of candy, the police were called in – and murdered Candyman in the process.

It makes sense to bring the very real problem of police violence into this tale, but I do think it's curious that the traditional origin is being altered here. That said, I'm guessing there's more going on in the film than what the trailer is showing us.

Candyman opens August 27, 2021.