10 Things You Didn't Know About Candyman

9. Clive Barker’s His Daddy

As with masterpieces like Hellraiser and Nightbreed (also not-masterpieces like Rawhead Rex; seriously, read the story instead), the soul of Candyman comes from Clive Barker. “The Forbidden” was Candyman’s inspiration, a short story from Barker’s phenomenally produced collection Books of Blood. Seriously, Book of Blood (2007), Books of Blood (2020), Candyman, Dread, Hellraiser, Lord of Illusions, Midnight Meat Train, Quicksilver Highway and the execrable Rawhead Rex (we’re telling y’all, don’t do it to yourselves, just read the story) come from just that collection. Barker is good at this.

“The Forbidden” differs in several core respects from Candyman: the setting is a Liverpool council estate, not a Chicago housing project, and much of Candyman’s exploration of class and race is explicitly American. That said, the story lays out the bones of Candyman’s character, striking his core theme of a Bloody Mary-like urban legend as a metaphor for the artistic quest for immortality and the ugly, stupid side of society that so often cuts that quest short.