Product Description

His myth has endured for generations. His legacy is eternal rage. And now he's back...with a vengeance! Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh continues the tale of the phantom-like figure who wreaksa terrible fate upon those who chant his name five times while looking into a mirrorand come face-to-face with grisly death. A victim of unspeakable evil while he lived, the "Candyman" (Tony Todd, The Crow) has become evil incarnate in his afterlife. This time, he haunts the city of New Orleans, where a young schoolteacher named Annie Tarrant (Kelly Rowan, 187) is struggling to solve the brutal murder of her father. The locals insist that he was slain by the Candyman,but Annie is not convinced...until she unwittingly summons him forth, learns the secret of his power, and discovers the link that connects her to him. But can she stop him before he kills again?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11509 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-08-28
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.com
A stylish though inferior sequel to its classic predecessor, Bill Condon's Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh deepens our knowledge of what made the murdered Daniel Robitaille turn into the monster that haunts dreams and mirrors. But some of it is still pretty routine: schoolteacher Annie takes a long time to connect her family's plantation-owning past and her own artistic talent with the legend, and is far too ready to say the Candyman's name five times in a mirror to debunk her pupils' fears.

The setting: New Orleans at Carnival time with a disc jockey whimsically reminding us that Carnival is the last farewell to pleasure before the rigors of Lent. Tony Todd, who returns as the Candyman, gives a quiet dignity and sadness to the monstrous specter with a hook for a hand. His life was torn from him and he is mad for vengeance, yet he has an artistic temperament and loved Annie's kinswoman Caroline. Condon captures an attractive elegiac tone in much of this, as well as moments of brutal horror. --Roz Kaveney

Customer Reviews

Come . . . Be Candyman's victim
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh takes up the story of the Candyman legend and runs with it, giving us a much greater understanding of the man who would become the hook-gutting avenger of wronged souls; it offers a short and respectable summary of the first movie and then proceeds not to redo what has happened before but to carve its own name indelibly in the flesh of cinematic horror. I think this movie stands as a testament to proper sequel-making in the horror movie genre.

I love the opening sequence of this film. The smarmy academic professor who is an expert on the Candyman but does not believe in him (the same man who needled Helen as she worked on her project in the original movie) is speaking about his new book in a New Orleans bookstore. Naturally, he proves his disbelief by theatrically calling out Candyman's name five times in front of his own reflection. Let's just say he ends up a convert to the Candyman religion. Then we meet Annie Tarrant (Kelly Rowan), a devoted schoolteacher in a poor neighborhood of town. Her brother is accused of killing the lecturing professor, but Annie does not believe his own statements of guilt. She believes something about her father's death is responsible for her brother's unexplainable behavior. That death, we learn, precipitated an enduring tragedy in the Tarrant family. Annie's mother is dying of cancer and seems to be holding something back from her questioning daughter. Annie herself, foolishly trying to prove to her frightened students that Candyman isn't real, calls him, and then things really get ugly. People die, many of them Tarrants, and the Candyman seems to engage in some sort of romantic courtship of Annie. Tarrant family secrets are eventually revealed, and in the process we get a bird's-eye view of the suffering inflicted upon Daniel Robitaille a century earlier - for those who don't know, he was lynched for having loved a white woman; his right hand was cut off with a rusty blade, and then he was smeared with honey and left at the mercy (or lack of it) of a whole colony of angry bees.

By the end of the movie, Candyman is not some horrible monster bent on destruction just because he enjoys gutting people; he is quite real, and his humanity shines through the robes of gore he has wrapped himself in over the decades. If you saw off his hand, will he not jam a hook in the stub of his arm and start gutting people? If you scratch his face, will not hordes of bees pour forth from his body? I love Candyman; he really is one of the most complex, sympathetic yet disturbing "monsters" wandering the horror universe today. Much of the credit for his power must go to Tony Todd, who portrays him brilliantly. Maybe the ending of this movie leaves a little bit to be desired, but the journey features some pretty decent gore and a lot of almost philosophical horror ruminations. If you want to call Candyman, go ahead; he's real enough to me that I'm not going to do it.

Superb; Outdoes Even The Original
A perfect sequel to the original "Candyman", the second - and best - of the series involves the Candyman's modern-day descendants and also delves much further - and more graphically - into the origins of the character. The special effects are ghastily realistic, the production design and production values flawless, vivid characterization, and the acting again award-caliber, with special mention going to Kelly Rowan and Timothy Carhight as the main 'protagonist' couple, the little girl who brilliantly plays their lovable young daughter (sorry, I can't remember her name), and of course the always excellent Tony Todd, who turns in great performances even in weak movies and absolutely shines in something like this. "Farewell To The Flesh" also features some of the most memorable visual imagery around, including the unsettlingly surreal sight of the Candyman in the middle of a vast Mardi Gras celebration, slowly stalking down center street amongst the costumed festivities unnoticed (or possibly Unseen?)

Masterful, probably among the top 5 Clive Barker-related movies ever made, which I feel just about says it all.

Sequel
I thougth that this film would of been better but it wasn't. It was a corney, chessey, and cheap sequel. The film had no value in special effects and meaning, and it wasn't as close to be good as the cult classic orignal. I only gave it two stars because it had the same music, and themes, as the orignal, and that it had characters and pictures from the orignal.