Chelsea: Hello.

Spencer: Hi, Chelsea.

Chelsea: And welcome to I Haven’t Seen That. I’m Chelsea, and I’m here with my friend Spencer.

Spencer: Hello.

Chelsea: So, this podcast is all about the movies we haven’t seen, but it’s a shame free zone. This is not the podcast where we say, you haven’t seen The Godfather.

Spencer: God, what rock Have you been living under anything? Haven’t been a Godfather.

Chelsea: This is a loving atmosphere.

Chelsea: Yes.

Spencer: I love that you haven’t seen The Godfather

Chelsea: And it was born out of me wanting to share my favorite movies with Spencer. And the idea for the podcast actually came from the movie we’re talking about today. It’s one of my favorite horror movies ever. And when I told Spencer this, he said,

Spencer: Oh, I haven’t seen that.

Chelsea: and I didn’t say, well, what is wrong with you, Spencer? You haven’t seen Candyman.

Spencer: Oh my god, everybody asks me if I’ve seen Candyman, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry I haven’t seen Candyman. But hey, guess what? I have seen Candyman. I watched it like, like, yesterday. Hmm.

Chelsea: Well, now I get the joy of sharing the movie with you, my dear friend. And the bonus joy of chatting about it on mic, which is fun and not scary at all.

Spencer: Just before we began recording, uh, we were talking about how it is possibly a vulnerable thing to, uh, share your favorite things with somebody else because what if they aren’t wild about it?

Spencer: Mm hmm. And

Spencer: And in this case, uh, I am gonna have to surprise you, Chelsea, and say that, uh, well, I, I really enjoy Candyman.

Spencer: Oh

Spencer: Yeah, um, shall we start off with a synopsis?

Chelsea: Okay, so Candyman is a 1992 film starring Tony Todd and Virginia Mattson. The film follows a grad student working on a thesis about urban legends and she stumbles across the story of Candyman, a hook handed murderer who terrorizes the people of modern day Chicago.

Spencer: So, Chelsea, big fan of Candyman.

Chelsea: Mm hmm.

Spencer: Could you tell us why you like Candyman, what you like about it, how it came into your life, and what it means to you?

Chelsea: Yeah, I would love to do that. I’m a real candy man head as they say. A candy head. Yeah. So um, I first saw this movie in high school, I think. Um, and I loved it then, but what I found is that the more times I watch it, because I’ve revisited it multiple times over the years since high school, um, and there’s always something new that I appreciate.

Chelsea: And I think when I was in high school, there were some nuances and social commentary that I perhaps did not pick up completely, maybe just bare minimum. And then I find when I watch it more and more, I’m like, oh, oh, oh, yes, yes. And that can only come with age, growing older and wiser and. having life experiences.

Chelsea: I, I think of it differently every time. Uh, but the first time I watched it, what I really appreciated about it was number one, Tony Todd.

Spencer: Yes.

Chelsea: Tony Todd

Spencer: He

Chelsea: is the best villain of all time. Truly the commanding presence, the iconic fur jacket, and the voice, the voice. And what I really love about it is he’s not in the film a lot.

Chelsea: But you feel him. You feel him all throughout the film. Um, it has this sort of like, almost romantic, gothic, sort of like Dracula esque thing going on that really surprised me, I think, the first time I watched it. I think it was probably billed to me as like a slasher. Um, but it’s so much more than that.

Chelsea: Virginia Madsen also expertly plays her descent into madness and what I’ll also say about her character Helen is that as a former academic, I really appreciate that. resonated with, I think there’s like, if you’re an academic or maybe even a creative, there’s a fear of like losing yourself in your work.

Chelsea: And I think that really hit home, especially on this most recent viewing. The scene that stuck with me the most, I think, from high school is when she wakes up from the trance in the apartment. Covered in blood, holding the cleaver, Anne Marie is screaming, and you see the

Spencer: the dog,

Chelsea: yes, that scene. Terrifying.

Chelsea: Unsettling. All of those things. So scary. So that’s what, uh, really stuck with me. And I mentioned earlier that, uh, I appreciate something different about this movie every time I watch it, and What I really appreciated this time, which I had appreciated before, but I think I was really keyed into it this time, was the score.

Spencer: That was certainly most top of mind for me just because I that was the least expected thing for me

Chelsea: thing with

Spencer: With this movie that Philip Glass had written the score for a horror film like it makes perfect sense given The kind of music that he writes, but I was not expecting that

Chelsea: I really only know Philip Glass from this film. I’m like, yeah, that guy, he must score, and I was like Googling him, and I was like, he must score a bunch of horror movies. And I don’t think he does?

Spencer: no his his work in film is more like the hours

Chelsea: Oh,

Spencer: Yeah, so it’s like more like like brooding contemplative kind of kind of things like that’s what I’m most familiar with and then you know All of his like chamber and orchestral work that just is meant to stand on its own also Einstein in the beach Which is just the strangest opera that I’ve ever seen in my life.

Chelsea: Einstein on the beach?

Spencer: Boy, we should definitely circle back to that because I’d love to tell you for 20 minutes straight about this Crazy ass thing.

Chelsea: I never, I, I, I want nothing more than that. Yeah, I mean, you’ve listened to me talk about Riverdale. It also got you roped into, which I can also speak about for 30 minutes, about every insane thing that’s ever happened.

Chelsea: So, yeah,

Spencer: first time that you saw it did it stick with you in the way that a good horror movie does

Chelsea: it did. It really did. Especially like I said, that scene where she wakes up in the apartment. Yeah. Just the kind of like. The vibe, the vibes, the vibe of it, just the, the atmosphere, as I mentioned earlier, you just sort of like feel Candyman around you. And as a female presenting person who has walked in a parking garage, that part especially was horrifying.

Chelsea: And I was just thinking about, like, Helen is so, she’s feeling on top of the world, she’s smiling as she’s walking into the parking garage. She’s gonna have the best thesis ever and then he’s there and it’s so eerie and you just hear that, that voice from Tony Todd and it’s just, it’s like you feel his voice around you.

Chelsea: So, yeah, those, those things really stuck with me. One thing that I love about horror in general is that it can tackle so many different things in such a unique way that, like, drama or comedy or whatever, I don’t think do it with as much finesse, I think, as horror movies can do it, while also scaring you.

Chelsea: And I just think that’s really impressive. And I think that in recent years, it’s not as bad, but I think horror is just like, Historically has been looked down upon as a genre. I mean, it doesn’t get any love at the Oscars. Tony Collette, uh, Justice for Tony Collette, Hereditary. Yeah. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Academy.

Spencer: Gavin. But

Chelsea: so in this movie, in Candyman, it tackles issues of discrimination. White saviorism, lynching, gentrification, a white woman going where she should not be going and is not welcome. And it tackles it in a really… Amazing way to the point where like, as I mentioned, I see layers of it each and every time I watch it.

Spencer: Yeah, that exactly what you’re talking about hit for me when I was watching it and it made me think of years ago when somebody pointed out to me that, um, science fiction isn’t about what we hope the future is, it’s what we’re afraid of in the present. And horror movies are exactly the same kind of thing.

Spencer: And the best ones are used metaphor in incredibly powerful, vivid. Potent ways like this film and yeah, I was so struck by that because I was expecting, you know, a slasher movie with maybe some supernatural elements. I’m going to say the movie was dreadful, not in the way that it was bad, but like it was full of dread. I spent the whole time just going like, Oh, no, but it wasn’t all that scary, which I was surprised by. Like there were startling things like the dog suddenly jumping up in the window, um, and the canine man’s hook coming straight out of the bathroom cabinet. What was really quite interesting about that was how the director, whose name escapes me,

Chelsea: Bernard Rose,

Spencer: Bernard Rose, was able to create such dread, such horror, such tension, in like perfectly normal situations.

Spencer: I’ve never seen a horror movie with so much of it that takes place during the daytime.

Chelsea: Yes!

Spencer: I was so, so unnerved by that.

Chelsea: It is very unnerving. Another really unnerving thing, uh, about the, Helen’s apartment? Uh, that atrocious pink paint. I mean, the best thing they ever did was

Spencer: my god,

Chelsea: over it. Helen

Spencer: I hate the color scheme Helen says Maybe really really laugh. Yeah

Chelsea: was

Spencer: That like, you know It’s just like recovering from the sedative that she was on and just you know All the lost time and this possible psychotic break that she’s having she’s still just like I hate the color scheme

Chelsea: It’s

Spencer: It’s that

Chelsea: It is that bad that you have the looming fear of Candyman, but God, that pink paint. Cabrini Green also, which we’ve mentioned a few times, what I love about it is it’s like kind of a character of its own and everything about it reinforces the idea that Helen is an outsider.

Chelsea: Like, she shouldn’t be there. So, like the, the people in front, just simply how like. There’s kind of no one around, uh, the residents live in constant fear and Helen is like sort of in a way like Anne Marie’s foil, right? Like Anne Marie is a working class black single mother and Helen is a wealthy white woman, no children and is coming in this place where Where people are really just trying to live and get by and she’s like, well, where’s that monster? Helen cannot see beyond the lens of her own perspective. Like she can’t, she, she just like does not care that Jake, is it Jake, the, the kid that she meets is like. I was sitting there like, where does this kid live?

Spencer: It wouldn’t have been out of character. I was fully expecting her to just, to just like slip him a couple of bucks, like, like she’s doing him a huge favor.

Spencer: Yeah, right. Yeah. I don’t know why I wrote this in my notes, but it’s in all caps and I bolded it.

Chelsea: Oh, it’s important

Spencer: I wrote, everyone’s so horny.

Chelsea: Okay, wait, I think I might know what this is about well, not everyone being horny, but one thing that I was absolutely cracking up about is that when Ellen gets the, or when she first hears the story of the Candyman, and it’s like the, the babysitter, and she invites her boyfriend over. They’re so horny saying Candyman in the mirror.

Chelsea: What? That is the least sexual thing in the world. And they’re like, oh yeah, Candyman. So

Spencer: I think that must

Chelsea: maybe that’s what that was in reference to?

Spencer: yeah. And there was the extra added layer, like, Xander Berkley, who played Trevor, is a great actor, but he only ever plays jerks.

Chelsea: Yeah.

Spencer: so

Chelsea: And so,

Spencer: it was like, you know, he is cheating on her, but like you’re waiting for this other shoe to drop in some other way. He’s going to turn out to be some other secondary villain rather than just like a shitty husband.

Chelsea: right. No, he’s just, he’s just a dick. And does he just go after… His own grad students? I couldn’t figure out how Helen and Trevor met originally, because when we meet them they’re already married, but she is also a grad student working on her thesis. So I’m wondering, did they meet? In the classroom, and does he just have this pattern of, of going after his blonde, uh, grad students?

Spencer: that would make total sense.

Chelsea: Yeah, what a scummy guy.

Spencer: seriously. Yeah, there was speaking of the graduate program, the most I think my absolute favorite part of the entire movie was the incredible cut that came right after. Annemarie says Candyman. That’s the first time she says it after, you know, being the harbinger, giving the legend about the Candyman.

Spencer: It cuts immediately to all of the pretentious university wanks, just going as, as if they’re reacting to the real fear and respect that people have for this urban

Chelsea: Yeah.

Spencer: It was so, so good.

Chelsea: That was really

Spencer: Yeah. And it like, you know, everything is so deliberate. In in this movie, going back to the music, the music is so unusual for a horror movie because it’s not like this is a scary moment.

Spencer: I’m going to underscore it with scary music. It’s just, it’s like the kind of plotting up and down, uh, sounds on the synth and they can, and it can actually kind of sound like kind of glorious, like with sort of a, uh, an almost religious feeling to it. And sometimes it will sound like a funeral dirge, but it’s actually at odds with the, you know, anxiety and tension of the thing.

Spencer: So it had this unreality to it that most movies, especially horror movies, don’t have. Yeah, it was, it was really quite captivating.

Chelsea: It reminded me a lot of these Italian horror films called Gialos. Um, and they have like somewhat similar scores where, it’s kind of like you said, where it’s not really scary music, it’s kind of synth y, but it’s like very fast tempoed.

Spencer: Ah,

Chelsea: Uh, like just sort of feeling on edge the entire time, which I felt on edge the entire time I watched Candyman, so it’s very similar.

Chelsea: Yeah.

Spencer: yeah, absolutely.

Chelsea: One of my favorite scenes is when Helen goes to see the psychiatrist. She’s like, I can conjure Candyman right now. And she says Candyman in the mirror, and it totally subverts what you expect, because you think, like, or at least I thought, like, oh, okay, now the Psy Chi is just gonna be like, see, you’re, there’s something wrong with you, there’s no Candyman.

Chelsea: But then he just,

Spencer: Yeah.

Chelsea: that was awesome.

Spencer: was and how incredible that she actually had power over Candyman that made me think about the other thing that was like so subtle about this, which is that what else is more horrifying than smug men being condescending to intelligent, capable, strong women.

Chelsea: Oh, yeah. Oh, boy, do I know. That is terrifying. Yeah. Yeah.

Spencer: I felt just as. Tense and unhappy in that dinner scene where The British professor guy is explaining the urban legend to her like it took him Having to knock her down several pegs to actually like give her information.

Chelsea: Yeah, just the worst, the worst character in the whole movie, possibly.

Chelsea: Yeah, worse than Candyman. Worse than Candyman? Yeah. I mean…

Spencer: I can more easily get on board with Candyman’s motivations than professor dude

Chelsea: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, Candyman suffered a horrible injustice, so you know what? I get it. I mean, I don’t actually get it as a white person, but not as bad as

Spencer: as the first one. Chelsea. Chelsea. I wrote down so many of Candyman’s lines. Oh,

Chelsea: okay. That’s perfect because I was just about to say, should we talk about some of the lines? Yes. Yeah.

Spencer: were you going to say?

Chelsea: Uh, be my victim. And also, so good. So good. So good.

Spencer: Mm hmm. So good. So good. So good. It’s like his supervillain speech, like his, I am inevitable, um, speech, but also fully acknowledging that he exists only because people believe that he exists. I am still an urban legend. Like people write candy man, you know, on a, on a, on a, on a bathroom wall. That was incredible.

Spencer: I love. That element of like a supernatural kind of thing where somebody only exists because other people believe in it. Like, where does that come from? Like, what, is he, is he made of anything tangible? Yeah. The, the rules are what he wants them to

Chelsea: Yeah, I really love that. Also, similarly, ooh, God, Tony Todd.

Spencer: Todd.

Chelsea: It wouldn’t be the same. I have a very fun fact about casting later, and it has to do with it not, potentially not being Tony Todd. And I just cannot imagine a world where it was not Tony Todd.

Spencer: It’s you, Tony. It’s always been you. No, sorry, it was always you.

Chelsea: was always you, Tony. Um. What

Spencer: what was it?

Chelsea: it? Ooooooh.

Spencer: Incredible. What a thing to say to somebody that… You’re

Chelsea: Is

Spencer: propositioning?

Chelsea: works? Is the

Spencer: Flirting with? Does the Candyman flirt? Is that how he flirts? Is

Chelsea: that who you were talking about?

Spencer: about? That must have been what I was talking about. Yeah,

Chelsea: Candy man is so

Spencer: so horny. He’s

Chelsea: So horny. So

Spencer: horny.

Chelsea: Uh, that quote, this is not a quote, but that quote reminds me of, uh, I do love the nod to the other infamous urban legend of razor blades in the candy. Loved. Yes! So good.

Spencer: I also love that, like, Helen She’s wearing gloves, and she’s going through the candy, and then she cuts her finger, we hear a sound effect of like, and she goes, Ow! But doesn’t do anything about it. She’s wearing gloves!

Chelsea: I, it, truly baffling.

Spencer: Bleeding all over the inside of her gloves!

Chelsea: She’s just pulling up in her, in her glove and she’s just like, Oh, okay, I’ll take more pictures. Taxi

Spencer: she’ll go to hail a taxi later, and then everything’s just

Chelsea: then just like,

Spencer: pours down her arm. That was so strange,

Chelsea: So weird.

Spencer: but also added to the, the unreality of everything at the, at the same time. Like every time, speaking of the camera, every time she took a picture and the flash happened, the frame would shift.

Spencer: That was so weird. It was like, it was cutting to a different take or something. It felt like there was going to be something subliminal in

Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, or some, I was totally expecting, if this were like some sort of like, normal quote unquote horror movie, like there would have been a jump scare. Yes. But because this is not a normal horror movie and it’s It subverts your expectations a little more than that.

Chelsea: There wasn’t a jump scare. Um, also that whole sequence of scenes, uh, has one of my other favorite shots where she climbs through the hole and she’s like climbing through his, his mouth. Ooh, so creepy.

Spencer: he’s consuming her and it also makes me think of like carnivals where they have those, those ghastly clown heads that you walk through like you are entering his fun house. Oh, oh, oh, oh, do you know what else I love is that it’s the 90s and she goes to prison because she’s caught, you know, with a cleaver in her hand, just covered in a dead dog’s blood and, uh, she has to make her one phone call, but she can’t reach her fucking husband because they have a landline.

Spencer: And

Chelsea: he’s off fucking his other grad

Spencer: leather dress. Yes, absolutely, yeah. Infuriating.

Chelsea: would still happen if

Spencer: You know what? I feel like that would still happen if you got your one phone call and you happen to be able to remember somebody’s phone number. I don’t know a single person who has the ringer on, on their phone. I would definitely go, go to voicemail.

Chelsea: Well, and anyone who answers a call from an unknown number, I don’t know

Spencer: Oh my God. Yeah.

Chelsea: Yeah. I’d be stuck with

Spencer: yeah, I just realized that like with, uh, with phone numbers that I don’t know what they are and they leave a voicemail, I won’t listen to it for quite some time. They’ll just sit there with the, until I get annoyed by the little red dot.

Chelsea: Yeah.

Spencer: Oh man. Oh, so it would be worse

Chelsea: It would, it would be so much worse. Um, a

Spencer: call, but can I text someone?

Chelsea: yeah. Can I just send a text really quick? Can I, can I just get my phone? Yeah.

Spencer: sorry, yeah. Hey honey, this, I know this is gonna sound fake, but this is actually me, Spencer, uh I’m in jail.

Chelsea: I’m in jail. I didn’t do it. I definitely didn’t do it. Yeah. I am too.

Spencer: Because that was quite a scene that they arrested her in, in, in amongst after she had, you know, committed assault against, um, Anne Marie with a cleaver.

Chelsea: I mean, she was literally caught Cleaver handed. Uh huh. Yeah, just covered in blood. That was, uh, probably some white woman privilege, I think.

Spencer: You’re right.

Chelsea: Let her out. It’s fine. It’s all good.

Spencer: Oh, her husband’s a respected academic.

Chelsea: Oh, yes, yes.

Spencer: You know how they do that in movies where, where somebody is like known and respected for a thing that, that wouldn’t, they wouldn’t actually be known and respected for in real life. Like being a professor at the university of Illinois. Oh, it’s a professor Trevor from the anthropology department.

Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, yes. It’s all good. Murder charge. Dismissed. Dismissed.

Spencer: Bail, you know what, that’s on us. We’ll pay you. Please, take your wife, please.

Chelsea: Please. For the love of God.

Spencer: wife. She’s a murderer. She’s talking about Candyman.

Chelsea: She’s talking about Candyman. She’s talking about razor blades and in candy. Take this woman away, please.

Spencer: please. Take this woman, please.

Spencer: Chelsea.

Chelsea: Spencer, do you have anything else to say before we move into some of the behind the scenes fun

Spencer: we move on? I have been waiting for this moment for quite

Chelsea: am very glad you enjoyed it. I’ve been waiting to hear your reaction, waiting and and waiting and waiting. I know. And I’ve been waiting for you to be my victim. All right. Okay.

Spencer: The rules in this universe seem to be that you just won’t leave me alone no matter what I do so. Exactly. Okay. Yeah.

Chelsea: Just like real life. I won’t leave you alone no

Spencer: won’t leave you alone. It was lovely. And I’m glad you liked it. Mhm.

Chelsea: but it was lovely to share it with you and I’m glad you liked it. I’m very glad you liked it. Spencer, we work in true crime.

Spencer: And, uh,

Chelsea: We do work in true crime. And, uh. This story, I won’t say, or this movie rather, it’s never been confirmed that it is based on this Chicago Reader article. Um, there is a little bit of controversy around it, but, uh, and I unfortunately, gosh, do not have the year that it was written, but it was, uh, it’s titled They Came In Through the Bathroom Mirror by Steve Bogara.

Chelsea: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Spencer: like?

Chelsea: It is what it sounds like. So, um, Mm hmm. They, they stole this name, 52 year old Ruthie Mae McCoy, who was murdered in Candyman, a very real, real woman, lived in, uh, the Grace Abbott homes. Which were, uh, it was a project. It was, uh, 15 story towers. Um, many, many children, single mothers, aunts, grandmothers, again, people just trying to live their lives.

Chelsea: Uh, the Chicago Housing Authority officials had wanted public housing to be integrated, uh, to… racially and economically to the extent possible, given that public housing would be mainly for those of modest means. So they suggested all of these sites in a variety of neighborhoods, including the white middle class areas.

Chelsea: And so, of course, the NIMBYs weren’t about to let that happen. So they ended up in areas like where Cabrini Green is. And then they just weren’t. Funded. They were just, they just built them and then it was just like, all right, well, it’s all fine. Yeah, you can take care of yourself, right? We don’t need to make repairs or anything like that or, you know, pay attention to anything.

Chelsea: In April 1987, Ruthie was shot to death by someone who entered her apartment through the hole in the bathroom wall for her medicine cabinet.

Spencer: doing her medicine.

Chelsea: Uh, she heard the intruders coming, called 911, and told the dispatcher that someone had thrown her cabinet down and was breaking in. Two neighbors also called the police, uh, but the officers who responded that night left without entering.

Chelsea: They just didn’t enter.

Spencer: This

Chelsea: This woman’s apartment and two days later, they found her dead

Spencer: And

Chelsea: Ruthie was, uh, it was especially tragic because she had been making a lot of progress in her life. She had been through a lot of trauma and mental health issues, but she had recently begun seeing a psychiatrist and taking GED classes.

Chelsea: And something that Steve Bocchera learned in his reporting is that these medicine cabinet break ins. This was not an isolated incident, and in fact, Ruthie had had it happen to her already, and nobody did anything about it. Oh,

Spencer: uh,

Chelsea: oh, Captain Raymond Risley, an assistant to the superintendent, said that their decision to not break into Ruthie Mae’s apartment was, quote, a tough call, a coin toss.

Chelsea: He said had the 911 calls come from somewhere other than a housing project, the officers perhaps would have forcibly entered the apartment to check on the resident.

Spencer: many

Chelsea: But so many 911 calls from the projects are hoaxes. An actual police officer said that. Yeah, said the quiet part out loud. Yeah. Yeah. Ruthie’s daughter Vernita has fought for her, uh, and two men were charged with the murder, home invasion, and robbery, but unfortunately they were found not guilty after two years of trial due to a lack of evidence. Um, so she really, really never saw justice.

Chelsea: And Steve Bugera, so here’s where some of the controversy comes in. Several months after this story ran in the Chicago Reader, Steve Bugera got a call from John Malkovich. And he was in town for a Steppenwolf production when the story was published and he read it and he said, uh, I see a movie in this.

Chelsea: Malkovich proposed that the lead character be a white reporter investigating a medicine cabinet killing and Steve told John Malkovich that he was uncomfortable with the idea of a movie about poor black people focusing on a middle white, middle class white person. And then, as far as Steve knew, the conversation kind of ended there and he never heard back from him, so he assumed no one had been interested.

Chelsea: And then, of course, a few years later, Candyman comes out and Steve’s like, well, that looks familiar. So this movie was adapted from a Clive Barker short story called The Forbidden, um, which was initially a story about modern British classism. Yes, did the director Bernard Rose. He is the one who decided to place the film in America, most specifically Cabrini Green.

Chelsea: Um, it was also filmed, uh, the Cabrini Green scenes were filmed at the real Cabrini Green, which was actually torn down like three years later.

Spencer: Oh, wow. Oh my gosh.

Chelsea: Bernard Rose is the one who changed it from British classism to race in America, and Helen is obsessed with an urban legend in the book, uh, and she is convinced the legend is a collection of social need to explain terrible things in someone’s life.

Chelsea: Which is kind of what happens in the movie as well. Uh, Be My Victim, which we’ve said a few times, I’ve

Spencer: refuse to say it.

Chelsea: Uh, is, is from the book. Uh, so that, that is true to, to the book. It has been described as something like closer to a ghost story rather than the kind of like, Gothic slasher that the film ultimately became and the film came to fruition after a chance meeting between Bernard Rose and Clive Barker.

Chelsea: Clive Barker had recently completed his own film adaptation of Nightbreed, uh, and Bernard was like, hey, I really love your story, The Forbidden, and Barker agreed to, uh, license the rights. And here’s the, the fun casting. Fun fact, uh, the original choice for the role of Candyman? Eddie Murphy. Right? Right?

Spencer: Huh. I don’t like with the same tone. Do you think

Chelsea: I can’t even, I can’t even fathom that at all.

Spencer: is like, and this is well before the trend of like comedic actors doing their breakout dramatic roles.

Chelsea: I’m very glad that Eddie Murphy, they, they couldn’t afford him.

Spencer: Oh, is that what?

Chelsea: is why. And so I’m very glad they couldn’t afford him. Though Tony Todd deserves all the money in the world for the role. Uh, but Tony Todd also brought so much to the role because, uh,

Spencer: came up

Chelsea: He came up with the backstory for the Candyman’s character in the film.

Chelsea: He totally came up with it. Isn’t that incredible?

Spencer: incredible? That’s incredible! Right? Like the, the whole thing about being the son of a slave and, um, falling in love with a white woman?

Spencer: Wow! Amazing! Tony Todd is a

Chelsea: just. Absolute icon. Oh, here’s a great quote from Tony Todd. Bernard Rose is one of the most intelligent directors that I’ve ever worked with. I mean, I’m not going to make any excuses for his lack of depth of racial comparisons, but I know the man’s heart and I know he fought. Not only did he have to fight with the NAACP who was afraid of a horror film that was going to depict an African American man in a bad light, but it is a horror film and I think we won that battle over the test of time.

Spencer: Wow! Yeah, absolutely. Cause the, I mean, this villain is so larger than life, um, and transcends the fears of, of all cultures. I, I would think

Chelsea: Yeah.

Spencer: he’s like a mythical figure. Sorry, is Bernard Rose American? I know I’m just typing.

Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I

Spencer: I’m just responding to a slack.

Chelsea: Slack. He’s English.

Spencer: Oh, he’s English. Okay. Okay.

Chelsea: my gosh, he worked on The Muppet Show? Okay, well, I’m gonna have to look, look into that

Spencer: yeah. That really, that one really scary episode.

Chelsea: Virginia Madsen, so those scenes where she’s like kind of in a trance.

Chelsea: Uh, Bernard Rose convinced her to go to a hypnotist to really capture that entranced look. And the experience was so intense that she had to stop doing it. Which I can imagine that would be extremely intense. Yeah,

Spencer: my gosh.

Chelsea: right? So the bees. Let’s talk about the bees. The bees. The bees. Bzzzzz.

Spencer: buzz.

Chelsea: Uh, that scene near the end where Tony Todd is just Absolutely covered in bees,

Spencer: up bees.

Chelsea: up bees, they’re coming out of his mouth.

Spencer: his eyelid, yeah.

Chelsea: So Tony Todd was actually covered in bees, like real bees. Yeah, they had, they had a specialist on the set. Who cared for the bees, um, he also controlled the bees on the film My Girl. Virginia Madsen is allergic to bees, so he had to be extra careful with her and they had to have, uh, EMS on set for her bee scenes.

Chelsea: Her beans. Um,

Spencer: so frightening, because they were dropping bees on her face!

Chelsea: know! I would be so scared! I would be scared and I’m not allergic to bees. But they did use, uh, what is it? Be bees? Baby bees. Aw, so cute. Baby bees. Because, because they don’t have fully developed stingers. So they’re much less, they will still sting, but it’s much less likely than, uh, an adult bee.

Chelsea: A teenage bee.

Spencer: Teen bee.

Chelsea: Teen bee. Tony had to wear a mouth guard. To prevent the bees from going completely down his throat. Yeah, yeah, that was good thinking. Um, and my favorite thing that Tony Todd did was negotiate to get paid an extra thousand dollars for every sting. Which I think is completely fucking reasonable.

Chelsea: Yeah. Yeah.

Spencer: a hundred percent.

Chelsea: Uh, and so over the course of… Filming, he got stung 26 times.

Spencer: Good for

Chelsea: Good for him.

Spencer: I mean, not getting stung, but he has a down payment on a house.

Chelsea: But there were baby bees. Baby bees. To be in a

Spencer: that’s wild. How can he to be in a position where you can be like, now we must film a scene with bees on me. So I need this or I walk.

Chelsea: hmm. The money you’re saving by not casting Eddie Murphy is going to me and my bee stings. The very sweet, sweet moment where, uh, Candyman and Helen are sort of in his lair spinning together. Uh, Tony and Virginia spent six weeks together learning how to ballroom dance. that so

Spencer: that’s really

Chelsea: I want to see the footage from that. I think it’d be very sweet. And I like that they put all that time into it for like a 15 second scene. It’s very

Spencer: That’s really

Chelsea: But you know what? Now they know how to ballroom

Spencer: Yeah, I love things like that in movies, like not, not the method acting stuff, but like the, you know, um, Daniel Day Lewis learned how to be a cobbler.

Spencer: No, that’s not true. No, he, he was a cobbler when he briefly retired from acting because it was something I think that he wanted to do. Oh, he got really good at butchering meat for his role in, um, Gangs of New

Chelsea: Oh. Whoa.

Spencer: wanted to be able to handle knives. Uh, authentically on screen.

Chelsea: That’s amazing.

Spencer: Yeah. And then, you know, you can just be a dab hand in the kitchen

Chelsea: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Amazing.

Spencer: So on our next episode of, I haven’t seen that we’re going to swap roles. Chelsea will watch a film of my choosing. We’re going to discuss why I love it and what they think about it. And it’s going

Chelsea: I’m excited. Hey, Chelsea. Yeah.

Spencer: Chelsea, have you seen

Chelsea: Spencer, I haven’t seen that. Bye. Bye. Bye, podcast. Bye, podcast.