10 Horror Movie Characters Who Died Painful Deaths
7. Daniel Robitaille - Candyman
Behind every slasher villain is a horrifying trauma. Jason Voorhees was drowned and saw his mother die; Victor Crowley was smashed in the face with a hatchet; Freddy Krueger was burned alive. Few, however, suffered a fate as injust and agonising as Candyman's Daniel Robitaille (Tony Todd). Doctor Phillip Purcell tells the story best, in 1992's Candyman:
"They saw off his right hand with a rusty blade. And no one came to his aid, for this was just the beginning of his ordeal. Nearby there was an apiary. Dozens of hives, filled with hungry bees. They smashed the hive and stole the honeycomb and smeared it over his prone, naked body. Candyman was stung to death by the bees. They burned his body on a giant pyre and scattered his ashes over Cabrini Green.”
After this terrible death, Robitaille is reborn as the Candyman - urban legend and immortal spirit. The legend lives on in Nia DaCosta's 2021 Candyman reboot, where his horrifying story lives to breed a new variety of Candyman.