In Slasher Film ‘Candyman,’ the Horror Is U.S. Housing Policy
The destruction of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project provides the origin story for the movie’s vengeful titular character.
In “Candyman,” Anthony McCoy looks for answers in the remains of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green projects. He’s played by Yahya Abdul Mateen II (“Watchmen,” “Aquaman”), a former San Francisco city planner.
Source: Candymanmovie.com
An early scene in the new supernatural slasher film “Candyman” finds the lead character, Anthony McCoy, standing on a barren field in an otherwise overcrowded section of Chicago. The Gold Coast of the city’s expansive downtown rises just over his shoulder. Something used to occupy this huge tract, it’s clear, but all that’s immediately visible now is a boarded-up church that looks like anything but a sanctuary. McCoy, a visual artist with a camera dangling at his chest, heads over to a set of row houses, the remnant of what was here before: The Cabrini-Green Homes, a series of public housing apartment buildings and towers built in the mid-20th century. The high-rises housed nearly 15,000 people before the last of them was torn down in 2011.
McCoy has come to the area to research Candyman, which, according to local legend, is the apparition of a former Cabrini-Green resident who was killed by police in the 1970s. McCoy draws his camera but can’t seem to train his lens. He realizes, as does the audience, that he’s standing in a ghost town. The vanished properties only intrigue him — prompting him to investigate what, exactly, happened here.