Screaming.

Necessary for a horror film, of course, and very good if you're sexually attracted to uvulas, but it is possible to go too far. Take this film for instance. The characters scream so often I found myself playing 'guess who lost their voice during the production of this film first'.

So anyway, here we are with Day of the Dead, not to be confused with Day of the Dead, the second sequel to George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead, this is the second sequel to Clive Barker's classic Candyman (Apparently it's not trendy to put numbers after sequel names anymore), about a ghost of a black slave who appears and kills people if you look into a mirror and say his name five times.

I've often wondered how that works. Could you conceivably say Candyman into a mirror four times, then go out with your mates, have a drink and a laugh, catch a movie, come home, THEN say Candyman one more time into the mirror? Would that still work? Or if you happened to have a conversation with someone wearing mirrored sunglasses about the Candyman in which his name happened to crop up on your part five times, would that still make you eligible for the chop? If so, I really think there should be some kind of appeals process.

CANDYMAN: Ha ha! You said my name five times! Now I get to kill you with this hook!
VICTIM: What? No, I was talking about Candy Manfield, this stripper I know, while looking at this highly reflective hacksaw blade.
CANDYMAN: Oh, sorry. Can I gut you anyway?
VICTIM: Well, I dunno -
CANDYMAN: Aw, pleeeease? I do so love the gutting.
VICTIM: Oh, alright, you can gut this goldfish.
CANDYMAN: Thanks, buddy.

Or whatever. Now, a word on the special effects make up in this film. The word is 'crap'. I'm not kidding, the Candyman's hook just looks so stupid. He looks like a man with his arm up his sleeve holding onto a prosthetic stump with a hook coming out (curiously enough). And when certain characters are supposed to be being stung to death by bees, they look more like someone's glued raisins all over their skin. Although kudos to the animal trainers for getting all those bees to do what they want.

The heroine of this film is the daughter of the heroine from the previous film, and she's a cute blonde. As was her mother. As was the chick from the first film. The most interesting features about this film's main chick number but two - and they're both on her chest. I'm not even kidding. I'm a sensitive kind of New Man guy who's not known to stare at girls' titties but I just couldn't ignore these ones! They're ridiculous, they're just so horribly big I kept getting poked in the eye when trying to watch this film. Enormous great melon-sized hooters with nipples like licorice allsorts is the point I'm trying to get across here.

Did I mention she's also blonde?

A-nyway, blonde girl with huge tits (they scared me more than anything else in this film, I tell you that for nowt) is making a living as an artist in the Hispanic quarter of Los Angeles, I know this because I read it off the back of the video box. She also shares an apartment with a sassy black chick. Didn't the heroine from the first film share an apartment with a sassy black chick? Yes, I believe she did, and both sassy black chicks receive hooks through the spine. Shame on you, Clive Barker.

Tony Todd, who obviously has nothing better to do with his time than appear in straight-to-video poo like this, reprises his role as the Candyman, Daniel Roba-something, who was a black slave artist bloke who was killed by a lynch mob after putting it about where he shouldn't. His hate and anger brought him back from the dead, as anger has been known to do (see pretty much every other film I've reviewed), and now he preys upon people who are stupid enough to summon him by the usual tried and tested method.

We aren't really told at any point how the method of summoning him was found out, nor by whom, and I'm not sure I want to know what he or she was trying to do at the time.

Anyway, Mr. Roba-whatsit's art is being shown in an exhibition by some hispanic friend of big-tits heroine, who pisses her off good and proper by showcasing it under the 'Candyman' name, when she thinks his art should be judged by its merits alone and not by whatever naughtiness he got up to after death. In vocalising this point hispanic bloke invites her to debunk the myth and say his name into a convenient mirror five times. See how seemlessly they worked all this in?

So she rises to the challenge and recites the name, whereupon another Hispanic bloke smashes the mirror in from behind with a big hook just to put the wind up everyone, and is dragged off yelling about how the Candyman will come and do what he does best. After the exhibition he reappears to receive his payment from original Hispanic bloke. 'Twas all a publicity stunt, y'see! And if that's not a good way to piss off a few restless spirits I don't know what is!

Keen readers will note that no-one in this film has actually died yet. Well, just to prove that he's not a sissy, the real Candyman makes his appearance at more or less this point to off Hispanic bloke #1 and his slut girlfriend, who dies by the raisins-glued-on-skin method while he gets a nice hook tearing through his chest. How rude of Candyman not to allow Hispanic bloke #1 (or HB1 as he will now be known) to get his end away before doing him in. She had gotten right down to her panties, too.

I'm not sure what Canadian comedian Ryan Stiles
has to do with this film, but who am I to argue with
Google image search?

Another recurring theme in this film is boobs. We see boobs of slut girlfriend in this scene, we see boobs a bit later belonging to the heroine's mother in the occasional flashback, in fact the only boobs we do not see, due to the machinations of some delicious irony, are those of the heroine herself. Yep, they went to all the trouble of casting a chick with boobs the size of dustbins and she never even gets 'em out. I don't know about you, but I feel betrayed.

Big-tits discovers bodies of slut and HB1, calls cops, she tells them what she knows, they tell her that some gang broke into the gallery and pinched the Candyman paintings. Now we get introduced to a pair of wanker crooked cops who are destined to become evil. This is made clear by them both being ugly bastards making occasional racist comments. And just in case that wasn't clear enough for you, they're laughing and joking about the stiffs. They both get killed in the end, as if you didn't know.

Big-tits hallucinates Candyman asking her to be his victim so she can be with him and the rest of her family (I think, it's not really clear) and she teams up with HB2 (remember, he of the breaky mirrors) to find the gang that pinched the paintings, 'cos they think they might have killed HB1 as well. Candyman gets pissed off, people get killed, blah de blah de blah. Y'know, I've written loads of reviews where I give away the entire plot, I don't think I'll bother today. I've already written enough about boobs and shite make-up, I don't need to run off at the mouth with the entire storyline from beginning to end. Let's go for the speed version.

(deep breath)

BigtitsandHB2govisitHB2'sgrandmotherwhoisabitofapsychicwhowarnsbigtitsthatshewill
havetodestroythegoodsideoftheCandymaninordertodestroythebadsideaswellthenthepolice
wankershassleHB2butHB2andbigtitsgohomeandshagbutyoudon'tevenseehertitsand
CandymankidnapsHB2andoffershislifeforhersbutshedoesn'twannaknowthenCandyman
killssassyblackchickandbigtitsgetsblamedforitandgetsarrestedthenoneofthepolicewankers
getskilledandthenbigtitsrunsawayandgetscapturedbygothwankerswhoareCandyman's
followersthenthegothssummonCandymanwhobutchersthelotofthemandreleasesbigtits
whothendestroysCandyman'soldpaintingsandCandymangetsdestroyedtoothenshe
rescuesHB2whocansomehowsurvivebeingsuspendedbyhooksburiedinhisshoulderbladesfor
severalhoursthentheyalllivehappilyeverafter.

(gasp)

Whoo! I feel quite spent after that. Ratings time, I think.

Fingers in ears rating - 7/10
My fingers found themselves in my shell-likes on several occasions, but then any moron can make a film scary.

Similarity to last film rating - 8/10
Descendant of the Candyman gets hassled by same, that's pretty much it.

Get nekkid and DIE! rating - 9/10
Hell yeah! Everyone who gets their tits out dies horrible gory bloody hook/bee-related deaths. Heroine doesn't get her tits out and survives. Oh, guess that makes sense, then. But she does get naked for a shower scene at one point, but you don't see anything. (curses)

Blood and guts rating - 8/10
It's a film about people being stabbed and shredded and mutilated with a big metal hook. We're up to our eyeballs in the stuff.

Hateful heroes rating - 7/10
Moving up to 10/10 if you really hate boobs.

Overall horror movie sequel rating - 8/10
It's a most archetypal horror movie sequel. It's also ninety minutes of unadulterated pooey pants.

Quality Rating: 49%

One-Word Summary: "Bosoms"

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