It Lives Inside includes many of these tropes and fans of the curse movies noted above will find much to enjoy. Furthermore, Dutta, who co-wrote the script with Ashish Mehta, innovates with the central character’s background. While curse films do come from Japan and Korea, there is a long tradition of white women encountering these horrors, from Naomi Watts to Alison Lohman to Sosie Bacon, sisters of the Final Girl protagonists of many a slasher, from Laurie Strode to Laurie Strode’s granddaughter. It Lives Inside focuses upon Samidha (Megan Suri, “Missing”), the daughter of Indian immigrants to the US, Poorna (Neeru Bajwa, “Criminal”) and Inesh (Vik Sahay, “Captain Marvel”). An Indian protagonist is something different, not simply because of skin color but because Indian folklore is less familiar to western audiences, and the immigrant experience allows for other tensions.

The history of Samidha’s family is expressed efficiently without being heavy-handed. Poorna largely speaks Hindi and expects Samidha to attend traditional events, while her daughter speaks English with no Indian accent, and prefers to go by the name Sam, hang out with (American) friends and spend time with boys, especially Russ (Gage Marsh, “Riceboy Sleeps”). This context also highlights a tension between tradition and modernity, as different generations do not understand each other. The familiar trope of the teenager distanced from her parents is therefore refreshed by this cultural background, and as Sam grows increasingly frantic over something strange happening, her inability to discuss the matter with her parents is a logical extension of that. Sam’s relationships with her school peers also draws attention to the universal experience of feeling different and out of place, but with the added weight of being from an immigrant family and designated as “Other.” This might sound like too specific an experience for general audiences to engage with, but as described by the great film critic Roger Ebert, cinema is a machine for generating empathy. It Lives Inside highlights the feeling of being looked upon as “Other,” in such a way that any audience can get a flavor for this feeling, much like another very different film of 2023, “Joy Ride.”

In case this sounds like a social drama along the lines of “Blinded By The Light,” “Moonlight” or “The Florida Project,” it is important to note that It Lives Inside is also bloody scary. Sam’s former best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) approaches her one day at school with a strange story that Sam dismisses, only to disappear in mysterious circumstances. Sam then starts feeling a presence and spotting an ephemeral figure. This malevolent shadow that appears in closets and mirrors has the right level of uncanniness, humanoid and yet identifiably wrong. Dutta paces the film carefully, drawing the viewer into Sam’s experience as she steadily becomes more fraught and frightened. Uncertainty over possible madness gives way to set pieces with vicious attacks, featuring precise gore which is all the more compelling. Seeing a person literally ripped in two can be more comical than creepy, but the sight of small wounds appearing in a forearm with no visual cause allows the viewer to focus on this injury and wince accordingly, as well as being placed in the character’s frightening position of not knowing what is happening. These sequences ratchet up the suspense and culminate in visceral jump scares, that may lead to gasps and even screams.

As is sometimes the case with these things, once ambiguity gives way to certainty the film becomes less scary, as the explanation into what is happening is a little pat and provides a solution that you can probably see coming. Some possibly overdone flashback editing in the climactic scene signposts the direction. The coda, while effective, has been done better elsewhere. That said, throughout the film the stakes remain high and the central conceit of having to balance the demands of family and tradition with being a contemporary teenager are played out effectively, as the route taken by Sam is interesting as well as arresting. Overall, It Lives Inside offers an effective take on an established formula, encapsulating various social and familial tensions along with some serious terror.

Odessa A’zion (“Hellraiser”) plays Tara, a teenager in contemporary Fall River, and a descendant of the Borden family. Tara faces typical growing pains — her boyfriend Carl (Michael Cooper Jr., “On the Come Up”) is going away for college; she and her younger brother Caleb (Jackson Dean Vincent, “The Secrets We Keep”) bicker over their infant brother Jack; parents Emily (Leslie Bibb, “Running with the Devil”) and Ben (Dermot Mulroney, “The Mountain Between Us”) are having difficulties, leading Caleb and Tara to wonder which parent they will end up with. There is also the matter of Tara’s aunt Diane (Mary Buss, “Lord Finn”), locked away in a psychiatric hospital because she murdered her infant child, a crime linked to the infamous ancestor.

Perhaps more pressing is that there are murders taking place in Tara’s neighborhood. The police initially treat them as missing persons, but the audience are treated to scenes of murder. These sequences are suspenseful as the victims sense someone is nearby, sometimes in isolated surroundings like a pre-dawn jog through the town, or during a walk home through woods. But other murders take place within the home, making it clear that nowhere and no one is safe. The murders are shocking and brutal, featuring ample blood spatter but also injury detail. This makes the film wince-inducing, especially when limbs are split, accompanied by screams of agony. No quick and simple kills à la Michael Myers here — while the killer’s face remains out of shot, the ax and its impact are there for all to see.

Who is responsible for these murders? Each victim is linked to Tara. Could someone be striking on her behalf? Is Tara losing her grip on reality? Or is there something supernatural at play? This obscured face or silhouette of the killer sets up a whodunnit, perhaps akin to “Scream,” and The Inhabitant does borrow from the slasher genre with its stalk and slay set pieces, though the wider context is more reminiscent of psychological/supernatural horrors like “Secret Window,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Gothika,” where the source of the horror is ambiguous. Lauder’s direction as well as Kevin Bachar’s script maintain this ambiguity throughout the film. At times we are drawn towards one suspect, but as more details are revealed, we are treated to other plausible answers. Dream sequences as well as a seance are thoroughly eerie, with quick cuts creating a distorted perception, closely tied to Tara and ensuring the viewer is as confused as the protagonist or indeed those around her.

Furthermore, the environment in which this takes place itself feels inhabited. Tara’s home is an extensive interweaving of rooms and corridors, a place of comfort but also tension and even menace. Tara’s relationship with her parents is as fractious as that between them, and her best friend Suzy (Lizze Broadway, “Ghosted”) is her closest confidant. It turns out, however, that there is more to Suzy than meets the eye. While her character is perhaps under-served, the attention paid to her allows the film to refer to various issues around identity and relationships. Sequences focused on Suzy are among the most tragic, not least because she is the one Tara can always go to, but Tara remains ignorant of much of Suzy’s pain.

Pleasingly, the film’s focus is maintained on the females, with the male characters — Carl, Ben, Caleb — kept on the periphery. Horror is well served when focused on women, because of the genre’s inherent concern with victimhood. The frequent victim position of women, such as Tara receiving unwanted male attention and the institutionalization of Diane, adds to the sense of women’s compromised subjectivity. The largely absent father suggests that Emily is neglected, and that Tara must force a space for herself, which is all the more difficult when her own mind is unreliable. Thus, one could read the murders as a violent eruption in the face of female suppression, just as much as a mental illness or a family curse, although the uncertainty that pervades the film allows for multiple readings.

This uncertainty is facilitated with a fluid visual style, including long panning takes as well as a delicate shifting of position within shot/reverse-shot patterns. During an early conversation between Tara and therapist Dr. Sanchez (Sabreena Iman, “The Line”), the camera pans behind one character’s head but instead of completing the motion in that position, we cut to a completion of the motion behind the other character’s head. Meanwhile, a jarring editing pattern continues throughout, as past and present, memory, dream and reality cut between each other. This style keeps the viewer off balance, as confused by what could be happening as Tara. This lack of clarity, combined with the visceral and indeed emotional violence, ensures that The Inhabitant is eerie, gripping and shocking, with an ambiguity between the psychological and supernatural as sharp as an axe blade.

The Breach, directed by Rodrigo Gudiño (“The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh”) and written by Ian Weir and Craig Davidson (based on the Audible Original by Nick Cutter) is a Canadian curio that relies on understatement amongst its performers as well as some gorgeous scenery. We open on this scenery as a solitary canoe drifts down a river, surrounded by trees and a stunning sky. As the canoe floats past a family picnicking by the river, we gather from their reactions that there is something unpleasant in that canoe, before the title of the film fills the frame and we launch into a title sequence that takes us through mysterious clouds and lights. These credits are reminiscent of the opening of “Event Horizon” as well as the end of “Wounds,” and that will not be the last recall that Gudiño’s film provides.

Once the object in the canoe is inspected by police chief John Hawkins (Allan Hawco, “Midnight at the Paradise”), the mystery deepens and John sets off to investigate further with his ex-girlfriend Meg Fullbright (Emily Alatalo, “Spare Parts”), who knows the river and forest and hires out boats, and her ex-boyfriend Jacob Redgrave (Wesley French, “Trouble in the Garden”), who is also the local coroner. Thus, the tensions between our central three characters are established, and the film mechanically reminds us of these tensions periodically. This is but the first of a number of unnecessary details in the film that demonstrate overwriting, detracting from the central premise that is itself overly complicated.

Our heroes find a grand old mansion in the woods, which initially seems to be isolated yet also remarkably well-equipped. They understandably ask, “Who builds a place like this in the woods?” and no answer is provided by the film other than “We want to make a scary house movie and cabin in the woods was too clichéd.” Clichés are fine when used well, as both “The Cabin in the Woods” and 2013’s “Evil Dead” demonstrate. However, when the attempts to avoid clichés mean recourse to others, it leads to a deeply unsatisfying experience. The mansion is described as older than it should be, but we do not learn why. The power systems of the house have been repurposed, but we do not understand how. A further family dynamic featuring Linda Parsons (Natalie Brown, “Blood Honey”) is introduced that includes undefined drama and such pet names as Tinkerbell. This family seem to have wandered in from another film, suggesting a lack of faith in the central three. Granted, they are quite dull, the performances perfunctory at best.

Also perfunctory is the over-plotting to explain a rogue scientific experiment — aren’t they all? — which recalls “From Beyond” as well as “The Mist” and even “REC,” but brings none of the atmosphere, menace or drama of any of these. There are some very gory moments with some admittedly creative designs, but the inclusion of gore seems more like compensation for a lack of commitment to the other aspects of the film. Gudiño’s direction is often flat and clumsy, such as fast cuts when John, Meg and Jake discover things that we know are weird because they repeatedly say, “No fucking way.” Worse are the rather feeble action sequences that feature little visual flair and indeed contradict earlier instances. Further contradictions emerge when the isolated aspect of the mansion is removed for reasons best described as plot; suggestions are made of a global conspiracy that is supported by discussion of peanut butter (seriously); the juxtaposition of both scientific and occult tropes adds to the irritating hodgepodge that the film increasingly collapses into.

The Breach is a victim of an affliction found in many horror films, as well as action and, perhaps to a lesser extent, science fiction. When you look at some of the most effective horror films, from “Shivers” to “The Shining” to “Hellraiser” to “Ringu,” as well as modern efforts like “It Follows” and “The Babadook,” they are simple stories creatively told. The Breach, however, is a convoluted assemblage of stories, tropes and clichés, jumbled together with little focus or clarity. We do not get drawn into the character dynamics nor indeed the (admittedly dangerous) situation, because the film expends too much effort on introducing new weird or gruesome things to maintain attention. The end result is an unengaging mess that recalls enough better films that you may well wish you are watching those instead. The unwieldy collection of different elements overwhelm each other, but the viewer is left thoroughly underwhelmed.

This opening sequence of Matt Reeves’ The Batman creates a creeping sense of dread and disquiet. This steady pace continues throughout the film, deliberate but always appropriate, even down to the multiple sequences of slo-mo action where boots tread ominously across floors, figures emerge from shadow and Greig Fraser’s sublime cinematography catches the passage of shafts of light breaking through cloud, windows and grilles, while Michael Giacchino’s score delivers portent without being ponderous. It would be easy to criticize the length and pace of The Batman, but it is deeply satisfying to see a mainstream blockbuster taking its time to bring the viewer into its world. This envelopment is one of the strongest things any film can do, and with superhero films the envelopment is often a matter of allowing the viewer to share in the experience of superpowers. Famously of course, Batman has no powers, so what do we experience?

The best Batman films utilize the dark aspect of the Dark Knight effectively, bringing the viewer into a close relationship with a protagonist who is, let’s face it, seriously messed up. There is an argument that Batman is often the least interesting character in the films he appears in: from the charismatic Jokers of Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger to the slinky Catwomen of Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway, from Cillian Murphy’s creepy Scarecrow to Danny DeVito’s grotesque Penguin, Batman sometimes comes across as, ironically, exactly what he sets out to be — a symbol rather than a man. Reeves creates and develops an intimacy between viewer and cowled figure, perhaps more effectively than any other. Reeves and his collaborators do this through the deliberate pace and ominous tone, at times almost oppressing the viewer as much as the eponymous hero with the weight of the cowl. Obvious comparisons can be made with Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Trilogy,” which did a fine job of psychologizing Batman within a context that was fantastical yet grounded. Reeves and his co-writer Peter Craig lean further into this conceit, creating an even more grounded version of Batman. Fancy gadgets are minimized; the Batsuit and Batmobile are roughly made; combat is an ugly, brutal affair rather than a dance of martial arts choreography and editing; villains are drawn from the street rather than secret societies.

In fact, “street” may be the best way to summarize The Batman. The film is influenced by many genres, including film noir, action, detective, serial killer, horror, superhero and disaster movie, but the strongest impression the film leaves is that of a street level film like “Taxi Driver,” “Thief” or “Drive.” Alleyways and subterranean nightclubs, underpasses and sewers, all of them steeped in shadow and drenched in rain, create a sense of street level crime, gutter politics and filth fighting with filth. If “The Dark Knight” was like “Heat” with costumes, this is more akin to “Seven” or “Blade Runner,” not least due to the rain. Barely a scene occurs without torrential downpour, and the sun only appears at dawn and dusk. The few scenes that take place during the day are always overcast, making the similarly rare appearances of Bruce Wayne, identified as a recluse rather than a playboy, seem like an aberration from his more common appearance in his bulky carapace as “Vengeance.”

While this Batman is not as physically imposing as that of Christian Bale or Ben Affleck, his presentation is always looming, once again drawing the viewer into the brooding face that is the mask. Robert Pattinson (“The Lighthouse”) keeps his character guarded, but the tight clench of his jaw, hooded eyes and largely soft voice leave us in no doubt that this is a deeply wounded soul, while his eruptions of violence are genuinely frightening. The voiceover is possibly overstated, but its connections to Bruce writing in a journal with a neat yet ornate hand (echoing Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One”) serve to present Bruce’s memoir as a connection to a world that he has left behind.

A connection to that world is understandable, as the world of Gotham is one where vengeance seems the only appropriate response to corruption and violence. Paul Dano (“Okja”) is easily the most frightening cinematic version of the Riddler, a character who is often presented as camp and silly. Like Pattinson, Dano largely underplays the role, his soft quavering voice (at one point used for some truly freaky singing) and babyface indicating something brittle that, if smashed, will damage everyone in the vicinity. His riddles and traps are deadly yet improvised, recalling “Saw” more than “Batman Forever,” and this makes the Riddler’s crimes and perhaps more importantly his ideology chillingly plausible. Just as Ra’s Al Ghul and the Joker expressed noughties’ anxiety of terrorism, so does this Riddler resonate with the specter of incel culture and toxic masculinity.

A more flamboyant performance comes from an unrecognizable Colin Farrell (“The Killing of a Sacred Deer”) as the Penguin, grunting and flapping and at one point waddling to great effect. Zoë Kravitz (“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”) is strong as Selina Kyle, bringing perhaps the most sympathetic and soulful character into the mix. The cast is rounded out with the somewhat underused Andy Serkis (“Long Shot”) as Alfred Pennyworth, John Turturro (“The Jesus Rolls”) as crime boss Carmine Falcone, and the wonderful Jeffrey Wright (“Only Lovers Left Alive”) as Lieutenant James Gordon. The interplay between Batman and Gordon gives the film a further dimension as a mismatched buddy movie, Gordon constantly frustrated by Batman’s recalcitrance but supporting him even when the rest of the Gotham Police Department resent the vigilante. Batman’s interactions with Gordon as a detective, as well as Bruce’s home relationship with Alfred, keep him human, albeit an insular and troubled human.

All this grim brooding, plus the length and slow pace, could suggest that The Batman is something of a dirge. This is far from the case, as the stylistic intimacy is precise, while the mystery plot as well as some exhilarating action sequences (including a stellar car chase), are handled with verve and panache. With its deft handling of generic tropes, close-quarters engagement with characters and careful attention to building an inhabited world of crime, corruption, vengeance and yet touches of hope, The Batman is an intense thriller that combines its various elements to gripping, visceral and enthralling effect.

Pronouncements telling us that fair is foul, good is bad, and dark is light are what you might expect to hear from the propaganda machine of an ambitious politician or a news organization seeking to sow confusion. In the opening of Joel Coen’s dreamlike and highly-stylized film, The Tragedy of Macbeth, however, the words “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: / Hover through the fog and filthy air” are proclaimed by three non-political witches (voiced by Kathryn Hunter, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”), establishing a mood of brooding tension that evokes the thin line between consensus reality and “the undiscovere’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns” (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)

Based on William Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth,” the witches open the film to a symphony of thunder and lightning. Shot solely on a sound stage by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (“Inside Llewyn Davis”) in a boxy 1.33:1 ratio, the film, Coen’s first without his brother Ethan, is stripped down to its essentials without extraneous cinematic embellishments. Stating that “from the very beginning, we weren’t interested in doing a realistic version of the play . . . a rent-a-castle version,” Coen succeeds in conveying the stunning poetry of William Shakespeare but in a conversational rather than a highly dramatic tone.

Towering performances by Denzel Washington (“The Equalizer 2”) as the ambitious Macbeth and Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) as the scheming Lady Macbeth are enhanced by a powerful cast that includes Corey Hawkins (“BlacKkKlansman”) as Macduff, Bertie Carvel (“Les Misérables”) as Banquo, Stephen Root (“Three Christs”) in a farcical scene as a porter, Alex Hassell (“The Isle”) as the “neutral” messenger Ross, and Lucas Barker (“Nightmare Cinema”) as Banquo’s son Fleance, presumably an heir to the throne. Using stark images to create the feeling of a 1940s horror movie, we see leaves bursting through a window, ravens that overtake the screen, the viewer embedded in white fog, cawing black birds, a moon morphing into a spotlight, and Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane as Malcolm’s soldiers hold tree-branches over their heads.

The “Wyrd Sisters” appear after the Scottish general Macbeth and his associate Banquo have put down a rebellion against King Duncan (Brendan Gleeson, “In the Heart of the Sea”) led by the Thane of Cawdor allied with the king of Norway. After hearing the witches’ claim that the childless Macbeth will become king, and that his friend Banquo will sire a new line of monarchs, Macbeth writes to Lady Macbeth informing her of the prophecies and telling her that he plans to fulfill their predictions even if he must influence the outcome himself. When Duncan decides to spend a night at Macbeth’s castle, a cold and calculating Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to commit murder.

She drugs the King’s servants as Macbeth proclaims to the night sky, “Stars, hide your fires: / Let not light see my black and deep desires.” Fearing that he cannot go too far without losing his humanity (“I dare to all that may become a man: / Who dares do more is none”), Macbeth hesitantly carries out the killing, setting off “dire combustion and confused events / New hatched to th’woeful time.” Early next morning, Macduff, the Thane of Fife discovers the body, while Macbeth murders the servants to tie up loose ends. Fearing for his own life, Duncan’s heir Malcolm (Harry Melling, “The Lost City of Z”) flees to England and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King.

Eventually, an increasingly paranoid Macbeth becomes a tyrant and a guilt-ridden Lady Macbeth, realizing that “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” begins sleepwalking and gradually descends into madness. Casting older actors such as Washington and McDormand as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth allows Coen to suggest that, rather than being motivated solely by unrestrained ambition, they are a middle-aged couple grasping for relevance in their waning years. As Macbeth asserts that life “is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing,” he and his Lady are almost sympathetic figures, “strutting and fretting their final hours on the stage.”

Though the darkest of plays attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, it is also one of his most popular. While the plays are filled with references to the supernatural and include ghosts, witches, floating daggers, and prophetic apparitions throughout, there are no known connections to Shakespeare’s personal or literary life. In the plays, magic draws upon the supernatural elements of the mythic and fairy world, but it is also a simpler, more natural force — the magical effects of poetry and art. Contemporaneous in its depiction of social and political unrest, “Macbeth” has not lost its relevance after four hundred years and Coen’s vision is an important one. Simon Godwin, the director of the Shakespeare Theater Company said, “It is something we’re so deeply familiar with, it is hard to bring new context to, and to make it live again.” With The Tragedy of Macbeth, however, Coen has done just that.

Inversion and mirroring permeate Candyman, as reflections prove untrustworthy and become the source of fear, and the film as a whole reflects an array of social and political tensions. Director and co-writer Nia DaCosta, along with fellow writers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, perform a remarkable reclaiming of discourse and the cinematic space, with an unveiled marrying of social and supernatural horrors. In doing so, this film more than equals the challenge of following on from Bernard Rose’s “Candyman,” a deserved classic of 90s horror.

Unique in its tale of an urban legend bogeyman of sheepskin coat, hook hand and covered in bees, Rose’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s tale “The Forbidden” spawned two sequels and made an iconic figure out of Tony Todd. Despite this, the original has some problematic elements, most especially the appropriation of Cabrini Green, an African American district of Chicago, by a white filmmaker. DaCosta embeds her film in the black community, incorporating class, stratification and even artistry into an insightful treatise that also engages with myth, voices and the power of stories.

Beginning in 1977, we are introduced to Cabrini Green and its people, including a grinning yet sinister man who steps out of the walls, and the far more menacing police who utilize excessive force at the possibility of a possibly dangerous black man. Sounds familiar. From there we jump forwards to the present day and our main characters, Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, “The Trial of the Chicago 7”) and Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris, “If Beale Street Could Talk”), a couple who have very much benefited from gentrification. Living in an opulent apartment where they entertain Brianna’s brother Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, “The Argument”) and his partner Grady Greenberg (Kyle Kaminsky, “DriverX”), Anthony paints bold and provocative art while Brianna manages a gallery that exhibits his work alongside other socially active artists. Troy’s story of Helen Lyle’s (Virginia Madsen) investigation into the urban legend of Candyman inspires Anthony to research Cabrini Green. Further information from locals, especially William Burke (Colman Domingo, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), sparks Anthony’s creativity as well as eerie images in the mirror, before violent death comes a-calling.

DaCosta deftly handles the escalating horror. Wide-angled shots allow for uncanny figures to enter domestic space, from Anthony and Brianna’s home to that of art critic Finley Stephens (Rebecca Spence, “Saint Frances”). Space is further disrupted as the murders begin — a sequence in an art gallery begins with glimpses in the various mirrors before bodily harm takes place. A murder is observed through a long shot of an apartment window, the camera steadily moving back to capture the indifferent expanse of plate glass as a life is brutally snuffed out. A sequence in a high school bathroom is largely expressed audibly, the audience’s perspective is restricted to that of a girl in a cubicle, privy only to screams, pleas and the sound of ripping flesh, and a brief glimpse in a compact mirror.

Despite being largely restricted to glimpses such as this, the iconography of Candyman is unmistakable. The figure, complete with coat and hook are all present, as are the bees, that bump against both sides of the glass as well as provoking the mutilation of flesh. An early sting develops into an infected wound and an entire body becomes corrupted along with a mind. DaCosta maintains an element of ambiguity — how much of what we see is Anthony becoming delusional, and how much is supernatural?

While this ambiguity is ultimately resolved, it allows for an interesting consideration on artistic creation. Artists are often presented on screen as tortured geniuses, isolated from the world because of the worlds that struggle to escape their own heads. Anthony is a committed artist, but his art is placed within a social context which makes him more engaging. The sequences where he paints are dynamic but not romanticized — painting is important to him and the work is shown to be impactful, but the viewer is not expected to suspend other concerns, a point we are reminded of by Brianna’s critique of Anthony’s paintings as well as his response to news reports that mention his name. Later, as his work becomes darker and his mind distracted, we may well side with Brianna as she becomes quite reasonably afraid of Anthony’s increasing obsession. Anthony’s journey through the film is certainly compelling, but it is not one we necessarily approve of. Brianna serves as the viewer’s surrogate to the increasingly horrific acts, while also displaying the common sense so often lacking in horror films. In one very witty moment, she looks down a flight of steps into a dark basement and quickly decides “Nope,” as we all would. A minor flaw in the film is that her backstory is underdeveloped, hinted at with a couple of flashbacks that could have been expanded.

This treatment of gender also extends to the visuals. Anthony is repeatedly shown shirtless, his physique presented as a visual spectacle in another nice inversion of the standard male gaze of cinema. Combined with the narrative shift in the final act, Candyman is as much Brianna’s story as Anthony’s, exploring the conceit of bearing witness and spreading the word. On a related note, DaCosta also brings in the unique element of shadow puppetry, a visual storytelling technique that beautifully expresses hideous racial violence, from the various incarnations of Candyman to actual events such as Emmett Till and George Stinney.

The inclusion of such history, as well as the various characters referring to racial segregation and oppression as well as gentrification, raises the specter of the politics overwhelming the story. Black lives certainly matter in this story, but there is a clear indication that to polite American society they do not, as the true face of fear is all too human (and white). But this is what makes Candyman an important black film. For a community who are eternally reminded of being lower tier, it makes perfect sense that their story is interweaved with bloody supernatural horror. Within the film, Candyman serves as a reminder that racial violence is ongoing. As a film, Candyman insists that the viewer take note, remember and spread the word. Say his name indeed.