Virginia “V-Mad” Madsen (Highlander II: The Quickening) is researching urban legends with friend Kasi Lemmons (Vampire’s Kiss), who almost sinks the movie as the rational best friend trying to hold back V-Mad from her suicidal quest. Rose and his Roeg-ian DP get some good light and imagery, but between the Philip Glass score and Tony Todd’s voice, the soundtrack is the star. Movie seems to get going when she’s beaten up in the bathrooms by a fake Candyman, but soon afterwards she awakens in Vanessa Williams’s apartment with a dead dog, a missing baby, and a knife in her hand, she’s on her way towards becoming an urban legend herself, starting with her faithless husband Trevor (a cop in The Guardian). Much is made of this movie’s themes of racial violence and gentrification, but little is said about how the backstory murder scene has Ted Raimi in it.

Fake Candyman:

Real Candyman:

It’s All For You, Damien: