Yahoo Movies First poster for the 2020 sequel to horror classic 'Candyman'
The first ominous – a slightly disturbing – poster for the 2020 sequel to horror classic Candyman has arrived.
It features a massive, worrisome hook, dripping with honey (rather than the inevitable blood), the weapon of choice for the tortured but homicidal spectre of the title.
Produced and written by Us and Get Out director Jordan Peele, and directed by Little Woods and Top Boy helmswoman Nia Dacosta, it stars Watchmen's Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the lead.
Meanwhile Tony Todd returns as the ghostly Daniel Robitaille, aka the Candyman.
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Th original tale was based on a story by horror legend Clive Barker, centring on the urban legend of the Candyman, told in the housing projects of Chicago.
Say his name five times in a mirror, and he would appear to murder the summoner with the hook protruding from the stump of his hand.
It's only when a graduate student begins looking into the history of the story that it is revealed that the Candyman is Daniel Robitaille, formerly a prominent artist in the post-Civil War era who is lynched after he fathers a child with a white woman.
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He has his hand cut off, after which he is smeared with honey, stung to death by bees and burned on a pyre.
Vengeful, he now returns as a spirit when summoned.
Two sequels followed the first movie, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh and Candyman: Day of the Dead, though the latter movies were panned by critics.
Abdul-Mateen plays Anthony McCoy in the new movie, the grown up child who goes missing in the first film, released in 1992, and also starring Virginia Madsen.
Other than that, we're somewhat in the dark on where the sequel will go.
Speaking about Peele's plans for the movie back in 2018, Todd said: “I'd rather have him do it, someone with intelligence, who's going to be thoughtful and dig into the whole racial makeup of who Candyman is and why he existed in the first place.”
With a trailer waiting in the wings, the new Candyman lands on 12 June.
