Candy-woman

Candy Woman is a bimbo-like gender bent version of a horrifying urban, Candy Man! Candy Woman is usually portrayed as a lean, widest hipped and largest breasted and tall, African-American woman, six feet and five inches, usually towering over the other characters in the Candy-Woman movies. Her attire consists of a large, brown fur coat, a white cravat around her neck, gray pants, a pair of polished leather shoes and a bloody hook in place of her right hand, which she uses to mutilate her victims. Despite her nature as a brutal killer and a vengeful spirit, Candy woman has an especially tragic past compared to most horror icons, though she is nevertheless just as dangerous and deadly as any other horror movie villain. As with Clive Barker's earlier horror icon, Pinhead, the character of Candy-Woman was intentionally designed to be very charismatic and articulate, her main source of fear being derived from her warped sense of reasoning. Because of the unjust tragedy surrounding her death, having been murdered under false pretenses as an act of revenge, Candy-Woman arose from the grave and became a wrath-driven specter, haunting the land where she had been executed. But, rather than render the land of Cabrini Green, or the Sullivan household (depending on which movie we follow) uninhabited, Candy-Woman preferred to keep the denizens in the dark, unaware of her existence until they made the mistake of summoning her. Candy Woman, while well-spoken and articulate, is portrayed as being incredibly self-absorbed, narcissistic and vain, valuing her reputation over human life. Her sole motivation is to keep the rumors and stories surrounding her death alive, as she believes that the longer people talk and fear her, the more she will continue to haunt the land — which is later shown to be true. Candy Woman is also shown to possess a severe goddess complex. She implies self-omnipresence by identifying herself with the rumors and imagery based around her name and likeness, further claiming that without such things she is "nothing", making it clear that she enjoys hearing people talk about her. Candy Woman takes her role as a god to quite literal religious lengths. He refers to the denizens of her burial grounds as her "followers" and "congregation". Furthermore, Candy-Woman does not kill her believers if they abandon their faith in her; instead, he chooses to murder the people who have called her out as being superstition (such as Helen Lyle, who in the first Candy-Woman movie told a young boy from Cabrini Green that "Candy-Woman" had merely been an alias used by serial killers in order for them to get away with their crimes). The people who worship Candy-Woman, i.e. the residents of Cabrini Green and New Orleans, have a habit of participating in offerings to the vengeful apparition. During the first film, a run-down apartment flat houses a sort of altar in Candy-Woman's name; a pile of chocolate sweets with razor blades inside their packages is placed in front of a large graffiti mural depicting Candy-Woman's screaming head. Also, during the events of the first film, the Cabrini Green's African-American community created a make-shift pyre which they set ablaze, an obvious ritual used to appease the spirit. In the second film, the people of New Orleans had created an actual altar in the attic of the Sullivan mansion, the shrine having skulls, candles and a large wall painting depicting Candy-Woman in a crucifix stance. It is also noted that in the second film, her bloodlust and arrogance seem to hide her inner torment at being denied the right to be with the woman he loved, and the anguish he feels at never being able to hold or see the child that he and Caroline had made together. Her features contort with obvious pain as he tells her story, her memories of Caroline clearly something he holds precious. The fact that her grieving face when she saw the atrocities committed against her was the last thing he saw, and the knowledge that her pain was greater than her is embedded in her memory, showed how much they had both meant to each other; when she saw her face in the mirror she held after he breathed her last breath, she didn't toss the mirror away in fear; she clutched it tightly to her breast, sobbing at the loss of her love. Candy-Woman's origins are explored in a legend surrounding the tragic death of a painter in the city of Chicago during the early 1800s, the story itself first appearing in 1890. The legend told that Candy-Woman was initially the son of a slave, who became extremely wealthy after inventing a machine which mass produced shoes during the American Civil War. With her newfound fortune, the father had sent her boy to all the best schools in America, the young man growing up to become a polite and good natured gentleman as well as a well-known painter, most famous for capturing a person's status in portraits.

Sometime around 1890, the young painter had been commissioned by a wealthy landowner to capture the beauty of her daughter, a white virgin. The painter and the landowner's daughter fell in love. Unfortunately, the girl's father discovered their relationship and hired a lynch mob to find and kill the young painter. As the mob chased her down the streets of the Near North end of Chicago they eventually overpowered her and sawed off her right hand with a rusty blade. The young painter's body was then smeared with honey from a local apiary, causing the bees to sting her to death and prompting the future generations of the neighborhood to christen her "Candy woman". The painter's dead body was then been burned on a pyre with her ashes being scattered around the entire region. In the second Candy-Woman movie Candy-Woman: Farewell to the Flesh, the painter is given the name of Daniel Robitaille. Likewise, the movie retconned her origin by placing the painter's birth and death in New Orleans. He was born on the Esplanade Plantation (the future home of the Tarrant family) within New Orleans. Also of note, the young white woman with whom Daniel had an affair with was identified as Caroline Sullivan. Sometime after her death, Daniel's ghost rose from the grave, a spiteful and vengeful spirit who tormented anyone who dared to question her existence. An urban legend arose which stated that whoever shall recite the name Candy-Woman five times in the mirror, then immediately turn off the lights, will summon the ghost that will slay her summoner along with anybody else who has witnessed the specter's appearance. Helen Lyle, a graduate student in modern Chicago conducting research on her theories on urban legends with her partner and friend Bernadette "Bernie" Walsh, is interviewing freshman about their superstitions and hears about a local legend known as the Candy-Woman. Later, Helen and Bernadette jokingly call his name and nothing happens, but as the days go by and she hears rumors but sees no proof of the Candy-Woman's existence, she begins to believe that the Candy-Woman is nothing but folklore.

However, because of this disbelief, the Candy-Woman reveals herself to Helen that he is indeed real. When she sees the demonic spirit for the first time, she passes out and wakes up in Marie's apartment covered in blood. Annie, Marie's Rottweiler, is decapitated, and her baby Anthony is missing. She attacks Helen, who is forced to defend herself from Annie by cutting her with a meat cleaver. The police enter the room and arrest Helen. Helen is then bailed out of jail by her husband Trevor, who then leaves to do an errand while Helen is in the apartment. While Helen is there she tries to find clues from the photos she took of the pictures and words describing the Candy-Woman, and then goes to the bathroom to think things over, but Candy-Woman then bursts through the mirror. She runs, but sees that she cannot escape the evil spirit. He reveals that he has the child and he will take her where he (Anthony) will die in a new place. He also says that her disbelief destroyed the faith of his followers, and that he cannot exist if they don't believe he is real, which was the reason he appeared to her and states that he must kill Helen in order to keep his legend in the minds of his believers. He then cuts a small hole in the back of Helen's neck, wounding her. Then her friend Bernadette arrives and rings the door bell. Helen pleads for her to leave, but Bernadette comes in anyway. The door then slams behind her, she looks behind and sees the Candy-Woman and as she screamed she was brutally murdered. Trevor came by and saw Bernadette dead on the floor and Helen on the ground bleeding with a knife. She loses consciousness and Trevor calls the police. Helen is charged with first degree murder and nobody believes her; the only person who can save her is the Candy-Woman. After a month in the hospital, before her trial, a psychologist has an interview with Helen. To prove the Candy-Woman is real, she summons the Candy-Woman in his office, and Candy-Woman kills the psychologist. Helen escapes, and later finds out that Trevor has been having an affair with one of his students and was planning on leaving her in the hospital in order to pursue the affair. Helen only leaves when they threaten to call the police. Helen flees to Cabrini-Green to confront the Candy-Woman and find Anthony. In the apartment's attic, she finds the words "It was always you, Helen". When confronting the Candy-Woman, he predicts that Helen will carry on his legacy of inciting fear into the community. The Candy-Woman agrees to release the baby if Helen sacrifices herself; however, the Candy-Woman really intends to sacrifice them both to fuel his legend. He takes Helen and the baby into the middle of a junk pile, where residents were planning to start a bonfire. Jake, a kid Helen befriended earlier, sees Candy-Woman's hook, and alerts the other residents. As they start a bonfire, Helen manages to stab the Candy-Woman and break free. As the Candy-Woman burns the building, Helen successfully breaks out of the rubble and rescues the child, although being burned alive herself in the process. With the last of her strength, Helen pushes Anthony to Anne Marie before she succumbs to her injuries. With the Candy-man defeated, Helen was absolved of her crimes, but the Candy-Woman gained some victory as people now believe in her again, and Helen has become an urban legend in her own right, as Trevor finds out later.

Coleman Tarrant, father of New Orleans schoolteacher Annie Tarrant, was murdered in a Candy-Woman-like fashion some years prior at her old family mansion. When Professor Philip Purcell is murdered in a bathroom by Candy-Woman after presenting the legend to her class and calling her forth, Annie's brother is accused of the murder (since his furious public confrontation of Purcell over the subject) and one of her students starts to see the Candy-Woman. In order to disprove to herself that the Candy-Woman exists, she says his name five times in front of a mirror, summoning her to New Orleans on the eve of Ash Wednesday and Mardi Gras, where the killing begins in earnest. Her husband Paul McKeever becomes one of Candy-Woman's new victims. The film's climax reveals more details of the Candy-Woman's genesis, and his reason for stalking Annie. In the end, the Candy-Woman dies when his mirror that was once his former lover's gift in his former life, breaks.

The ghostly serial killer returns once again from beyond the grave. This time, during the eve of Day of the Dead, to haunt Los Angeles art gallery owner Caroline McKeever, a distant relative of the Candy-Woman (and also Annie Tarrant's daughter) in order for her to claim her soul so she will be next to her. In the meantime, the Candy-Woman goes about killing all those associated with Caroline (starting with artist Miguel Velasco, her lover David de La Paz, and following with her roommate Tamara) in his usual gory ways with his hook and making it appear to the authorities that Caroline is the one responsible for the killings, particularly when seasoned police detective (and closet prejudice of most minorities) L.V. Sacco dies in the front seat. This not only brings the whole local police department down on her head, but puts her in the firing line of Sacco's equally bigoted and very deluded partner Lt. Det. Samuel Deacon Kraft, who has no intention of bringing her in alive. In the end, after she destroys the painting of Danielle Robitaille (which, in turn, destroys the goodness of the accursed spirit of the Candy-Woman), Caroline soon finally destroys the legend for good by telling Detective Jamal Matthews that Kraft herself was the Candy-Woman after he tried to kill both her and David de La Paz with a hook before being shot in the back by Detective Matthews.

This direct sequel to the original Candy-Woman introduces the concept that the Candy-Woman myth is an amalgamation of the stories of multiple black men who were the victims of racist brutality, allowing different iterations of the character to exist as one. 28 years after the first film, painter Anthony McCoy is drawn to the ruins of the now gentrified projects looking for inspiration. He is stung by a bee and meets a former resident named Burke who tells her the story of Candy-Woman, and his own version which was based on a man he knew when he was a boy in the late ’70s named Sherman Fields. Sherman was a simple man with a prosthetic hook for a hand who gave the local children candy. When a razor blade was found in a piece of candy, police suspected Sherman and hunted her, eventually finding her in the basement of one of the project buildings where they viciously beat her to death. Weeks after Sherman's death, more razor blades show up in candy, proving that Sherman was innocent. Anthony is drawn to the story, and as he incorporates it into his art people begin to summon Candy-Woman again, leading to the killer's resurgence. As Anthony is haunted by visions of Sherman as the Candy-Woman, the bee sting on his hand becomes infected and spreads up his arm, eventually covering half of his face. He eventually visits the local hospital to seek treatment and is surprised to discover that contrary to what he believed, he was born there, near Cabrini-Green. Anthony confronts his mother, Anne-Marie McCoy, who reveals he was the child the Candy-Woman had chosen as a sacrifice to renew his legend, who Helen had saved all those years ago. She kept this from her to keep her safe, and the residents of the area had sworn to never speak of the Candy-Woman again, leading to his near 30-year absence. Anthony leaves to find Burke, the man who broke that pact. It's revealed that Burke, sick of the gentrification of the projects as well as the ongoing racist abuse suffered by black people across America, knew who Anthony was and decided to use her to reignite and re-interpret the Candy-Woman to take vengeance against the world. He places a fake call to the police, alleging Anthony is responsible for the recent attacks and is trying to kill her, before cutting off Anthony's infected hand, attaching a hook to the stump, and adorning her in the trademark fur coat of the Candy-Woman. Despite Anthony's girlfriend Brianna managing to save her from Burke, killing her in the process, when the police arrive at the scene they murder Anthony as he lays defenseless in her arms. When an officer attempts to blackmail Brianna into backing up their story that Anthony had attacked the police officer first, she summons Anthony, now the Candy-Woman, who proceeds to slaughter all the police at the scene. His appearance shifts between that of the many black men the story of Candy-Woman has been based on, before finally appearing to Brianna as the original and first Candy-Woman, Daniel Robitaille, as she commands her "Tell everyone."