the plot: Grad student Helen Lyle (Madsen) and her friend, Bernadette (Lemmons), are working on a thesis about urban legends. During a series of interviews, Helen hears a local tale about Candyman (Todd), a mysterious, unstoppable killer who many believe was responsible for a string of slayings at the nearby Cabrini Green housing project. According to the legend, standing in front of a mirror and saying “Candyman” five times will cause the killer to appear—and murder the summoner with his hook-hand. Helen researches the killings and the legend of Candyman, much to the annoyance of her husband (Berkley), a professor at the University of Illinois whose research intersects with Helen’s own. After a trip to Cabrini Green, Helen is plagued with strange visions and thinks she hears the voice of Candyman. Without warning, Helen is sucked into Candyman’s world when she blacks out and wakes up inside Cabrini Green, covered in blood and accused of kidnapping an infant. Soon, death follows Helen wherever she goes, but it’s impossible for her to convince the authorities, and her husband, that Candyman is the real killer. As the body count climbs, however, Helen finds it increasingly difficult to determine whether Candyman is real—or if she’s actually the killer.

why it’s good: A hybrid of slasher flicks of the 1980s and urban horror of the early ’90s, “Candyman” is pretty solid. It features awesome performances by Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd, and a surreal, suspenseful atmosphere created by director Bernard Rose. Based on a Clive Barker story set in England, Rose moved the film’s action to Chicago and filmed on location at the real Cabrini Green projects, giving the film an air of urban decay that makes the scares more visceral. As a straight-up horror film, “Candyman” excels. Todd is one of the most charismatic, frightening (and well-dressed) horror villains, and he and Madsen share an excellent chemistry. Rose keeps all the horror and grotesquery found in Barker’s original work and maintains a fine balance between the spurting blood and Helen Lyle’s slow descent into madness. The actual supernatural bits—why and how Candyman shows up and so on—are dodgy, but don’t really detract from the movie. There’s some political and racial subtext in there, too, but that’s also a bit murky. Candyman, the son of a former slave killed by an angry white mob, selects his victims from the denizens of Chicago’s projects. However, later in the film, the murders are pinned on Helen, an upper-class white woman. Is Candyman the villain? Or is Helen actually the bad guy? It doesn’t totally gel, but it doesn’t matter—those bees crawling out of Tony Todd’s mouth are pretty cool.

why you should own it: “Candyman” is worth picking up on DVD, whether you’re a Clive Barker fan or not. A special edition released in 2004 has a wealth of extras, including a making-of featurette that includes interviews with Rose, Madsen, Todd and Barker. Notable revelations include details on how they wrangled all those bees that show up throughout the movie and the fact that Rose insisted on having Madsen under hypnosis during her character’s scenes with Candyman.