Candyman (2021)

In 1977, at Chicago's Cabrini–Green housing projects, a young boy witnesses the killing of Sherman Fields, a homeless African American man with a hook for a hand. Suspected of giving a white child a razor blade in a piece of candy, Sherman is beaten to death by police but later proven innocent when more cases of razor blades in candies come up.

In 2019, artist Anthony McCoy lives in Chicago with his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright. Seeking inspiration, Anthony explores the projects after Brianna's brother Troy and his boyfriend tell them the story of Helen Lyle, who is believed responsible for a killing spree and briefly kidnapping a baby in Cabrini-Green. Stung on the hand by a bee, Anthony meets laundromat owner William Burke, the boy who witnessed Sherman's death. William introduces him to the urban legend of the Candyman, which Anthony tells Brianna and jokingly performs its curse: by saying "Candyman" five times to a mirror, Sherman's spirit will appear and kill the summoner.

Inspired by Sherman's death and the Candyman legend, Anthony creates an elaborate art piece titled "Say My Name" for a show curated by Brianna and her colleague Clive, but his work is disparaged by critic Finley Stephens and other attendees. Later that night, Clive and his girlfriend Jerrica unwittingly summon the Candyman, who brutally murders them; Brianna discovers their bodies, triggering childhood memories of witnessing her father's suicide.

Anthony compulsively paints gruesome portraits of unknown men, becoming obsessed as he investigates Helen Lyle and her own Candyman research, and has a vision of Sherman's ghost in an elevator. Interviewed by Finley, Anthony goads her into summoning the Candyman herself, and has another vision in a mirror of himself as Sherman. Joining Brianna at a business dinner, he leaves abruptly when he learns Finley has been murdered.

Anthony goes to William, who explains that the legend originated in the 1890s with Daniel Robitaille, an artist who had an interracial affair with a white client's daughter. After the daughter claimed Robitaille raped her, he was mutilated and burnt alive. The legend has been renewed for generations with the souls of other murdered innocent black men joining the Candyman "hive"; these are the subjects of Anthony's paintings. Anthony attempts to protect Brianna, but only frightens her with his increasingly erratic behavior.

Meanwhile, a female teenager, who previously attended Anthony's show with her parents, and her friends are killed after summoning the Candyman in their school bathroom, with one of their classmates, who wasn't involved in the summoning, having arrived after and survived. Anthony undergoes a physical transformation, spreading from the bee sting on his hand across his entire body. He confronts his mother, Anne-Marie, after visiting a hospital and learning that she lied to him: he was born near Cabrini-Green, and was the baby taken the night Helen died. Anne-Marie admits the Candyman was responsible for the bloodshed blamed on Helen, and the community vowed never to speak his name.

Brianna seeks out William, who abducts her to an abandoned church, where Anthony is in a fugue state. Shortly after Sherman's death, William witnessed his return as the Candyman when his sister and her friend summoned him and were killed. William plans to resurrect the Candyman "hive" as a form of retaliation against gentrifiers. Sawing off Anthony's hand and replacing it with a hook, William calls the police to have Anthony wrongfully gunned down as another vengeful spirit to join the hive. Chased into the Cabrini-Green row houses, Brianna stabs William to death with a pen. She is confronted by Anthony, who collapses in her arms and is shot dead by the police.

Detaining Brianna in the backseat of a car, the police try to intimidate her into agreeing that Anthony was the killer and that his shooting was justified. Instead, she uses the rearview mirror to summon the Candyman, who appears as Anthony and massacres the police. Swarming with bees, his face transforms to Daniel Robitaille, instructing Brianna to "tell everyone" what she has witnessed, as more police officers arrive.

The film's end credits feature a shadow puppet montage of members of the growing Candyman hive, including Daniel, Sherman, Anthony Crawford, James Byrd Jr., George Stinney, and Anthony himself.