Candyman (1992)

Grad student Helen is working on a thesis about Urban Legends.  She and a friend decide to investigate the legend of Candyman, a killer with a hook for a hand who comes after you if you say his name five times while looking in a mirror.

Helen doesn't believe any of this silly stuff since urban legends are all the same. It happened to the friend of a friend of a friend, but no one can ever provide an actual name of the victim or meets someone who knew them first hand.

So when Helen meets a cleaning woman at the University who claims a woman in the projects who was killed by Candyman, Helen is intrigued.  She finds newspaper articles about the death, and decides to visit Cabrini-Green, a real life housing project in Chicago (where they hired gang members to be in the film and help keep the crew and actors from getting shot).

As Helen becomes obsessed with her investigation into the Candyman legend, she decides to tempt fate by saying his name five times. Nothing happens. So she and her friend have a good laugh.  But later she starts seeing him -   at the garage, in the projects, at her apartment, when will it stop?  And why does Helen know all the people who are being murdered?  Is Helen hallucinating Candyman and killing people herself? Or is the Candyman real?

It doesn't look good for Helen since she's found with a weapon in her hand at two of the murder scenes. Note to victims: never never NEVER pick up a murder weapon at the scene of a crime you're not involve in.  Otherwise when the police burst in and you're standing above a body with a bloody weapon, they'll think you're the murderer.

Tony Todd is striking as the Candyman, and manages to menace even with his eloquent speaking voice and regal robes.  The meaty wrist where his hook attaches is disgusting in it's simplicity, and very effective.

This is a decent movie with a twist on the Bloody Mary theme. As an added bonus, the female lead doesn't spend her time screaming. In fact when I watched the bonus features, the director talks about how he hates screaming in movies because it's annoying. Hurrah, finally someone who gets how irritating constant screaming can be.  So this is why the lead female character doesn't scream in horror. Instead she sort of goes into a trance, which they state is because they actually hypnotized her.  Weird.