Candyman sequel director releases animated short featuring iconic horror character

An animated short featuring the iconic horror character Candyman has been released by Nia DaCosta, director of the new Candyman, a "spiritual sequel" to the original 1992 movie. In addition to including Candyman, who in the movie franchise is murdered for being part of a multiracial relationship and returns as a murderous supernatural entity, the short features depictions of other victims of racial killings.

"CANDYMAN, at the intersection of white violence and black pain, is about unwilling martyrs," DaCosta wrote when she tweeted out the animation. "The people they were, the symbols we turn them into, the monsters we are told they must have been."

The beautiful shadow puppetry was done by @ManualCinema and the haunting score was created by @lichensarealive," DaCosta noted in another tweet. "There'll be much more where that came from in the film."

The 2020 Candyman stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a visual artist named Anthony McCoy who moves in to a luxury loft in the formerly rundown Chicago neighborhood of Cabrini Green with his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris).

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Colman Domingo) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

Candyman is produced by Jordan Peele, who also co-wrote the script with Win Rosenfeld and DaCosta. “My connection with Candyman is pretty simple,” Peele said at a screening of the film's trailer in Los Angeles earlier this year. “It was one of the few movies that explored any aspect of the black experience in the horror genre in the ’90s, when I was growing up. It was an iconic example to me of representation in the genre and a movie that inspired me.”

Watch the animated short below.

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