I’ve tried to avoid spoilers, but since some people these days consider even the tagline on the DVD box to be a spoiler, you’ve been warned: this could be spoilery.

Our next Halloween film fest selection was Candyman. For almost 10 years, the tagline of my blog(s) has pretty much been, “pop culture and politics.” To that end, you’d think I would have been very excited to discover, as I viewed Candyman, that it’s a sharp political and social critique of race and economic inequality in America. You’d be wrong. I wanted a brainless teen slasher movie that I could half-watch while I tried to salvage a knitting project gone horribly wrong.

Candyman is a slasher movie with a slightly rather peculiar pedigree. Story by Clive Barker, score by Philip Glass. Director who reached this project by way of the Muppet Show and then went on to make an acclaimed version of Anna Karenina. Plus, the lead is played by Virginia Madsen, who’s not your typical scream queen.

It’s also got loads of late 80s/early 90s poofy hair.

It wasn’t the ankle-length jeans and penny loafers that made me periodically fast-forward through the movie, though. It wasn’t even the gore. It wasn’t even the left-turn into “women in prison” territory. It was when the movie landed in the hospital for the better part of the 3rd act. I don’t do hospital movies, I’ve had enough of doctors and hospitals.

The end was almost as uplifting as The Mist, but I have to say that as far as one can say that the ending to a supernatural slasher film is “realistic” or plausible, this one is plausible and realistic. Again, I mean within the context of the movie – I don’t think it’s realistic in the Ken Burns sense.

Although it’s rather dated and the broadcast print I watched was faded, it’s still a pretty impressive outing and I understand the critical acclaim now, it’s not just another teen slasher movie.

Of course, there’s allegedly a remake brewing.

Today, I think I’m going to watch the first “horror” film I ever saw, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It scarred me for life, but at least I know how it ends.