‘Candyman’ Trailer: Jordan Peele Produces Bloody New Spin on Horror Classic

Jordan Peele puts a bloody new spin on a Nineties horror classic with the new trailer for Candyman, a modern-day reboot produced and co-written by the Get Out filmmaker.

The new Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta, picks up nearly 30 years after the original 1992 movie: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Anthony McCoy, the infant character in the original film who was kidnapped by the hook-handed Candyman. In the reboot, McCoy returns to his old neighborhood, stirring up the spirit of the slasher.

The trailer also makes clever use of Destiny’s Child’s “Say My Name,” as a string of future victims make the ill-advised decision to recite Candyman’s name in the mirror, resulting first in the appearances of bees and then a gruesome death. Although unseen in the trailer, Tony Todd reprises the role of the Candyman.

“For as long as 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 present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials,” Universal Pictures said of the reboot.

“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 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.”

Candyman, initially based on a Clive Barker short story, returns to theaters on June 12th.