Candyman 2021: 5 Ways Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Is The Best Candyman (& 5 Tony Todd Is)

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has become one of the most sought-after talents in Hollywood but is he as iconic a Candyman as the original master, Tony Todd?

You Are Reading :Candyman 2021 5 Ways Yahya AbdulMateen II Is The Best Candyman (& 5 Tony Todd Is)

With his imposing physical frame, steely eyes, and sultry rasp, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Tony Todd playing Candyman, one of the most iconic villains in horror cinema. In fact, it’s Todd’s performance in three distinct Candyman movies that have made him such a compelling figure, whose sympathetic take on Daniel Robitaille as a “villain hero” is straight from Elizabethan theater. Indeed, Todd often seems to portray Robitaille, the first Candyman, as a truly Jacobean force of nature, trapped between a cycle of violence wrought by legacy and his desire to inflict the pain he has suffered as a Black man who dared love a white woman.

In Yahya Abdul-Mateen II fans find themselves early in the legacy of a new Candyman, whose entire backstory is unveiled over the course of Candyman (2021), and what is a disservice to Robitaille’s origins becomes the defining point of connection to a more human Candyman. In many ways, Anthony McCoy was destined to succumb to a fate decades before he knew the significance of becoming a symbol of Black trauma, ushering in a Candyman for a new generation.

10 Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: He Feels Like A Real Person

Anthony McCoy, a disillusioned artist who hasn’t been inspired in several years and suddenly becomes gripped by the muse of Candyman, feels like a fully-fleshed-out person. Viewers get to see his story from the beginning of his involvement in the Candyman saga until its inevitably tragic conclusion, making him feel accessible.

McCoy has his own feelings of inadequacy, especially in the art community in Chicago, which his artwork is supposed to represent but often woefully underdelivers. He loves his partner but they have arguments over banal obligations, and he maintains an estranged relationship with his mother. His personal choices have consequences, making him feel relatable as a man swept up into a situation beyond his control, his ultimate fate all the more distressing.

9 Tony Todd: He’s A Horror Icon

Candyman has come to represent many things over the decades, from the vicious cycle of violence, inevitable and relentless, to the collective psychological trauma of Black people living with police brutality and systemic racism. He works best as an idea, timeless and symbolic, destined to become an icon.

In one of his best roles, Tony Todd turned what might have been a simple one-dimensional bogeyman into something more complex, without removing the elegant ferocity that made him a strident figure in the horror genre. Like Darth Vader, he is an intimidating villain with a backstory marked by abandonment and loss, but when he’s embodying a merciless killer, he doesn’t deviate from being the personification of evil.

8 Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: More Backstory

Building on Candyman’s backstory is what makes him transcend his position as a static arbiter of peril. From Jason Voorhees to Michael Myers, every horror icon has a backstory that compels viewers to find the part of their personal history that motivates their mayhem, but Anthony McCoy’s is given even greater detail.

From his first appearance in the original Candyman until this spiritual sequel, his backstory has never been divorced from the Candyman legend. Knowing that he’s an innocent man, no more immune to curiosity than anyone, makes his fall into darkness all the more arresting.

7 Tony Todd: He’s More Mysterious

In the original movie, Daniel Robitaille’s story is told in a mercurial way, without the added benefit of an extended flashback sequence (that would come pieced together from subsequent movies). Even with the sequels, it seems specified that he will remain eternally mysterious, a specter who lives in the deepest recesses of his victims’ minds.

Even when he leaves the sanctity of the shadows and makes his first appearance to Helen in broad daylight, he retains his aura of mystery by speaking cryptically and entrancing her with his hypnotic stare. Even though Helen thinks she knows all there is to know about the Candyman legend, his enigmatic presence proves that there are layers to its chronicle she will never know except by experiencing his pain.

6 Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: He Gives A Complex Performance

Because Anthony McCoy doesn’t spend the entirety of Candyman (2021) as an evil entity, he’s allowed to run the gamut of human emotions as he uncovers the urban legend and is plunged further and further into its depths. His appetite for recognition is so rapacious that he begins to think nothing of the fact that art critics, dealers, and gallerists only become more interested in his work after the body count grows higher.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II vacillates gamely between being a sympathetic partner, a neurotic artist, an investigative journalist, and a madman. His is not a simple journey into hell, and once he learns of his inextricable link to Candyman, his performance swerves one final time into unexpected territories of surrender and solace.

5 Tony Todd: He Has A Seductive Screen Presence

With a distinctive voice like smoke and honey attached to a towering 6’5″ frame, and a countenance capable of expressions that easily slip between carnivorous and regal, Todd makes Candyman a symbol of seduction as much as a slasher trope. His words come like the whisper of sweet nothings to Helen when he asks her for “just one exquisite kiss”, and his movements are often as gentle as they are ravenous.

In an interview with Horror News Network, Virginia Madsen even said that as independent and smart as Helen was, “the power of love could weaken her.” In the end, Candyman’s greatest weapon was the promise of love, which he offered as an invitation and a command with, “Be my victim,” as he beckoned her to her death.

4 Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: He’s An Anti-Hero

By definition, an anti-hero is a protagonist without the usual traits of a hero, namely altruism, courage, and idealism. Though they’re wrought with moral failings they succeed in heroic acts regardless, and because of their flawed character, they’re often more identifiable and relatable to the people they save.

As Candyman, Anthony McCoy becomes a cold-blooded killer on the back of a man already obsessed with recognition and fame. He’s mistreated people who have tried to help him, and he’s succumbed to a legacy that could undoubtedly get them killed. But he’s also become a powerful weapon for the disenfranchised residents of neighborhoods like Cabrini-Green, appearing to those who summon him as an avenging warrior of righteous fury rather than a death sentence.

3 Tony Todd: He Has More Time Being Candyman

When fans meet Candyman in the original movie, he’s been killing people for some time. He spends the entire length of the film being a vengeful spirit, bent on creating a “family” comprised of himself, Helen Lyle, and little Anthony from Cabrini-Green.

Other members of the hive (as introduced in Candyman (2021)) don’t steal focus, meaning that he gets to play the villain for the entire time he’s on-screen without being worried his efficacy as an antagonist will be diluted.

2 Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: His Killings Have Purpose

“What is blood, if not for shedding?” purred Tony Todd in the original movie as he drove his hook into countless victims. Enraged at his fate and humankind, he sought to kill not only whoever summoned him, but anyone they held dear. He is the writing on the wall, the whisper in classrooms, without which he is nothing and so must kill again.

Anthony McCoy’s Candyman kills with a purpose other than perpetuating his legend — to instill fear once again into those who would prey on people of color through gentrification, police brutality, and systematic racism. His first victims are the police officers who murdered him and intend to implicate Brianna in his crimes, making his slayings have meaning beyond his own self-interests.

1 Tony Todd: He’s A Gothic Tragedy

Like the most Byronic of heroes, Daniel Robitaille’s story is both a cautionary tale (cradled by the cruelty of racism) and a dramatic Gothic tragedy. Like The Phantom of the Opera, who pines for Christine despite being shunned by society, and whose ostracization unleashes terror on those who dismiss the threat he poses, he struggles with his need for bloodshed and his desire to be understood on the most fundamental of levels.

Director Bernard Rose once referred to him as a classical character, the “Black Dracula”, which is perhaps why the sympathy viewers feel for Robitaille is possible even in the midst of his most sanguinary bloodbaths. There is a wounded tenderness beneath the wrath, spawned by the hatred he received when he sought only love and culminating in what Virginia Madsen called, “ultimately a very beautiful love story.”

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/candyman-2021-best-yahya-abdul-mateen-tony-todd-comparison/