Candyman
Universal Pictures | Release Date: August 27, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 54 Critic Reviews
Positive:
43
Mixed:
9
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
ConsequenceOkla JonesAug 25, 2021
Candyman pays homage to the original, while still maintaining its uniqueness with a fresh and provocative plot Read full review
91
The PlaylistLeslie Byron PittAug 25, 2021
DaCosta’s continuation of the “Candyman” saga becoming not only fascinating but terrifying in how even the events of the first time are craftily repurposed depending on who’s mentioning the story and why. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshAug 26, 2021
DaCosta, who made her directorial debut with the remarkable abortion drama “Little Woods,” firmly announces herself as an artist at work with Candyman, a genuinely terrifying and artful horror film that speaks with a bell-clear voice to the current moment, the product of centuries of racist power structures. Read full review
90
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaAug 25, 2021
Nia DaCosta’s slow-burn sequel makes Candyman feel vital, both building on and course-correcting the movies in the series that came before it. Read full review
88
ABC NewsPeter TraversAug 27, 2021
The scares are off the charts, but only as a means to confront the film’s thoughtful messaging about racial injustice. Dynamite star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and director Nia DaCosta make you think hard about everything you see. Welcome to a new horror classic. Read full review
88
ObserverBrandon KatzAug 25, 2021
Candyman feels like a reclamation project of sorts. One that will scare the pants off of you, yes, but also one that adds depth and resonance to the once-static slasher format. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 25, 2021
From the opening moments of Nia DaCosta’s gory yet strikingly beautiful and socially relevant “Candyman,” it’s clear we’re in for an especially haunting and just plain entertaining thrill ride. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonAug 25, 2021
Candyman caters to fans of the original without sacrificing its own vision and story. Read full review
88
The Associated PressMark KennedyAug 25, 2021
DaCosta can make a stroll down a well-lit, modern and clean hallway somehow creepy. This is confident, smart filmmaking. There’s a stunning scene in which the Candyman mirrors his prey’s movements and one in an elevator where blood droplets create their own horror-inside-horror. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 25, 2021
This is horror with grandeur, a movie that pays homage to history and feels so of-the-moment as to seem fresh out of the lab...Candyman, the glossiest horror movie in ages, isn’t just horror. It’s horror that reaches for the Latin in that MGM (which produced the original film and gets co-credit here) logo we see in the opening credits — “Ars gratia artis,” “art for art’s sake.” Read full review
83
Original-CinThom ErnstAug 31, 2021
What the film lacks in traditional scares, it makes up for with an unsettling scenario that plays slowly throughout the film, indicating harsher realities even legends can't compete with. And DaCosta's vision is highly stylized, accented with performances that resonate with disquieting accuracy. Read full review
83
The Film StageJared MobarakAug 25, 2021
The filmmakers utilize Rose’s intent with Barker’s story and run with it to find the most terrifying, resonate, and scathing conclusion. Read full review
83
IndieWireKate ErblandAug 25, 2021
While DaCosta ably toys with the usual genre trappings — jump scares, things that go bump in the night, eye-popping gore — the filmmaker, directing only her second feature, effectively adds unexpectedly artful touches. Read full review
82
Paste MagazineJacob OllerAug 25, 2021
While the kills, perpetrated by a being mostly just seen in mirrors, are sometimes a bit too obfuscated by their gimmick to be viscerally satisfying, they slot in perfectly with the film’s themes and aesthetic even when they’re not dumping cascades of blood. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 31, 2021
Candyman is a work held together by thoughtful choices, and it has a lot to say. Genre conventions are themselves like urban legends, a framework that each new generation adds to and builds upon. Candyman is just one reason we continue to believe in them. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 26, 2021
The filmmakers find a way to expand their slashifications into provocative reflections on the white world’s fear of ostensibly menacing Black men, and, secondarily but importantly, art’s power to shape our understanding of the world around us. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeAug 26, 2021
Nia DaCosta, young director of the fine Little Woods, is behind the camera and she shows a real gift for gruesome showboating. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 26, 2021
It’s easy to shock viewers with splatter but the old gut-and-run gets awfully boring awfully fast. Far better is the slow creep, the horror that teases and then threatens. The dread inexorably builds in Candyman, which snaps into focus after Anthony learns of the boogeyman. Read full review
80
Time OutAmon WarmannAug 25, 2021
It helps that Candyman is exquisitely shot. Right from the first frame, DaCosta is always doing something interesting with the camera. There is smart visual storytelling almost everywhere you look, from the clever use of mirrors, to edgy scene transitions, to set design that starts to mirror Candyman’s look in interesting ways. The jump scares are rare but hardly needed: all this contributes to a growing feeling of dread as the film speeds towards its bold conclusion. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 25, 2021
We don’t need to continually revisit every horror movie ever made. How many versions of “Friday the 13th” are we up to? Too many. But the best thing about this is that Candyman is not just another sequel. More like a revelation. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 25, 2021
Director Nia DaCosta’s follow-up is both bitingly satiric and elegantly suspenseful, illustrating how race and class still bedevil modern life. Produced and cowritten by Jordan Peele, and featuring an arresting performance from Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Candyman has an unmistakable anger embedded within its scares, persuasively depicting how Black Americans feel traumatised by a country that treats them like monsters. Read full review
80
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaAug 25, 2021
A dark, ominous undercurrent runs through "Candyman," signaling Nia DaCosta as a filmmaker with a firm, unique grasp on the genre. The original "Candyman" already had a few sequels, but none of them are as clever, as interesting, as effective as this. Go ahead. Dare to say his name five times in the mirror. "Candyman" will live on. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 25, 2021
Director Nia DaCosta, working from a script she wrote with Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, uses Bernard Rose’s 1992 film as a jumping-off point for bone-chilling horror that expands provocatively on the urban legend of the first film within the context of Black folklore and history, as well as the distorting white narrative that turns Black victims into monsters. Read full review
80
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanAug 25, 2021
DaCosta uses a range of thoughtfully considered media to shape their already-sharp script; the film’s violence is equally startling whether it’s depicted graphically and up-close, or through old-fashioned shadow puppets and oral traditions. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 25, 2021
This film is a very tasty confection of satire and scorn. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenSep 2, 2021
What’s really spooky about Candyman is that the movie is confused in almost exactly the way that the first film was. Maybe the material itself is haunted. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 31, 2021
This is one instance in which the return of a horror icon has a greater purpose than the exploitation of a recognizable brand. Would that more genre films were as thoughtful and thought-provoking, mixing substance with splatter in a fashion that builds uneasiness on more than one level. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 31, 2021
While the movie could be a notch scarier, the unsettling imagery and slow build to chaos make me want another movie by this director stat. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonAug 25, 2021
Candyman doesn’t merely note the connection between fear and remembrance, it also interrogates it from every possible angle. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubAnya StanleyAug 25, 2021
The Candyman of 2021 represents more than he did three decades ago—indeed, more than a 91-minute movie can adequately explore. But there are worse crimes for a movie to commit than having too many ideas. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRobert MorastAug 25, 2021
Of course, DaCosta’s restraint keeps its interesting. There’s an elegance to her storytelling, always giving us just enough to keep us moving forward without signaling too much of what’s to come. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 25, 2021
Hide your mirrors and look out for bees: Candyman has returned, more relevant and terrifying than ever. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 25, 2021
Many will find DaCosta’s take on the story didactic, I suppose, or low on genre payoffs. I’m eager to see it a second time, flaws and all. It’s alive and awake to where we are now. Read full review
70
Film ThreatDante JamesSep 9, 2021
I will say Candyman is worth watching. But I will advise not going in with preconceived ideas or comparisons to the original because that is where the disappointment will hit you like a brick to the head. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyAug 26, 2021
For all its symbolic heft and keen-eyed flair, there’s a scattershot quality to Candyman that has to do with the seemingly inescapable demands of its genre source. The horror-film combination of constrained tautness and calculated gore keeps some of the themes from fully developing and leaves narrative loose ends dangling. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanAug 25, 2021
The new Candyman references the plot of the original as a sinister fanfare of shadow puppets, as if to say, “That was mythology. This is reality.” It’s less a “slasher film” than a drama with a slasher in the middle of it. Read full review
70
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiAug 25, 2021
While introducing a few arcs it doesn’t fully explore, Candyman is replete with haunting imagery, disconcerting horror, and thought-provoking themes. Read full review
67
UproxxVince ManciniAug 26, 2021
Candyman is certainly elevated in terms of acting and of composition (with fittingly spooky shots of the Chicago skyline), it was just hard to appreciate much of the action on a visceral level. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 26, 2021
The golden era of slashers was defined by vicarious, often overblown pleasures, while the mood of Candyman is overwhelmingly dour and gloom-cloaked. No surprise, considering the weightiness of the issues at hand. Yet there are pointed discussions between Anthony and others in the art scene about the relative power of overt depictions of brutality and metaphor, something that somehow eludes this Candyman. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 25, 2021
Who can take a reboot, sprinkle it with something new, cover it with blood and bumblebees and a pointed social commentary or two? Candyman can, at least for a little while, even if the movie doesn't really find its more-than-body-horror groove in the end. Read full review
65
CNNBrian LowryAug 26, 2021
For all that the film does well, in trying to balance its cerebral, visceral and sequel aspects, Candyman appears to have bitten off a bit more than it can chew. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 26, 2021
Acute and skillfully made, Candyman is also pointedly political. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 25, 2021
Candyman can’t seem to decide whether it wants to scare you or make you think. Read full review
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