Candyman: Day Of The Dead - 1.5/5

According to the mythology of Candyman, he can only be killed by the lack of fear of his existence, but with "Candyman: Day Of The Dead" (the 3 is not actually on the title card for the film) its finally proven that poor script work, poor acting, and shoddy film making can't even kill him. With word on the street claiming there to be a fourth film on the way late 2010, it seems even this poor film couldn't kill our rumored slasher ghost. Looks like there's still a little fear that he might be real to keep him ticking on.

Caroline has found herself dreaming about the Candyman as of late. It would seem that she is a descendant of the late artistic lover turned ghostly slasher and after saying his name 5 times in the mirror (will they ever learn?) she is now being stalked by the hook handed monstrosity. Her friends and acquaintances are suddenly falling like flies (perhaps bees is a more appropriate insect) and she is being blamed for the deaths. Now she must find a way to prove her innocence and put Candyman to rest before he does it to her.

Although the second film tried hard to continue on with some of the more intelligent threads from the impressive first film, "Candyman: Day Of The Dead" turns out to be pretty much a straight on slasher. Like many other smarter slasher films, this one also falls prey to its own continuity errors and new found focus on making deaths rather than intelligent Horror story plot turns. It tries to follow in the footsteps of the series, but fails on most counts creating a clunky paced and rather boring film all considered. Too much focus on making a high body count and tons of pointless nudity take up to much run time that could have been spent on making it more intelligent or building on the Candyman mythology.

What elements that the film does try to use to make use of that worked in previous entries seems rather forced. Candyman's short riddle like monologues pop up in random places out of the blue, whenever he appears there is a bright white flash and pop noise that gets annoying very quickly, and the urban setting (graffiti and all) is downplayed far too much. It's as if the writers and makers of this film never even watched the original and just decided to take him and make their own thing of it. For example the entire 'Candyman cult' that worships him filled with Gothic young people seems far to ridiculous for even what this series should have been or even how Candyman is done away with in a sort of Dorian Gray style. The details might be there in sparse moments, but the makers missed the picture with this picture.

"Candyman: Day Of The Dead" sacrifices most of the intelligent threads about beliefs and the realism of myths in society for a general slasher style that never really raises itself above a straight to DVD quality. The acting is poor most of the time (sans our awesome villain), the dialogue is poorly crafted, the pacing is clunky, and the film focuses on the wrong elements that made "Candyman" such a great film. Count this one as a sequel one could skip and not worry too much about missing anything.

BONUS RANT: Nothing against the Hispanic community and how its represented in the film, but why is the Hispanic community one of the back story focuses for this film? It makes sense in the first one for the urban African American community to believe in this ghostly figure or the community in New Orleans to fear in in the second film (since it was his birth place I guess) but why a Hispanic community in LA? The film never tries to explain that, except that we are supposed to gather that he is just hunting his relatives now I guess, but it felt a bit out of the context of the series to have it that way. WHY CAN'T THESE FILMS GET THEIR CONTINUITY RIGHT?! 

Written By Matt Reifschneider