#CANDYMAN HIVE

[pocfiction]

Candyman ain't a he; Candyman's the whole damn hive. CANDYMAN (2021) dir. Nia DaCosta

[jaimeshanice]

"The legend first appeared in 1890. Candyman was the son of a slave. His father had amassed a considerable fortune from designing a device for the mass producing of shoes after the Civil War. Candyman had been sent to all the best schools and had grown up in polite society. He had a prodigious talent as an artist and was much sought after when it came to the documenting of one's wealth and position in society in a portrait. Well, it was in this latter capacity, that he was commissioned by a wealthy landowner to capture his daughter's virginal beauty. Well, of course, they fell deeply in love and she became pregnant. Hmm... poor Candyman. Her father executed a terrible revenge. He paid a pack of brutal hooligans to do the deed. They chased Candyman through the town to Cabrini Green, where they proceeded to 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 then scattered his ashes over Cabrini Green."

Candyman (1992) dir. Bernard Rose

[dizzybevvie]

when ur hyperfixated and ur like consuming this isnt enough i need it to build a hive in my ribcage like the candyman

[brokehorrorfan]

Fright-Rags has released a Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh solitaire game. Priced at $15, it includes 60 bee cards, three mirror cards, and five Candyman cards.

This is an edge-matching solitaire game where you try to assemble a giant beehive before you say Candyman's name five times. If you can complete your hive before then, you live. But if you can't… you are Candyman's next victim!

[delightfulkingtyphoon]

"Candyman ain't a He. Candyman's the whole damn hive."

🫵🤨?

[black-is-beautiful18]

✨SPOILERS AHEAD✨

Watched Candyman (2021) for the first time and it’s honestly a good commentary on cycles and how they keep repeating themselves. Not just cycles though. Stories and legends. William, I’m pretty sure that’s his name, says that Candyman isn’t just Sherman. It’s a list of Black men, and even boys, who were wrongfully killed at the hands of oppressors. It’s a hive. Literally. This also shows in how Anthony names his art exhibit “Say My Name”. It’s not just for Sherman. It’s for every single person who makes up the hive. Who makes up Candyman. He even tells Brianna at the end to tell everybody. In so many different cultures all around the globe, this is how stories, legends, and even history continue to be spread. You have to tell them and speak their names. This is how we remember those who were wrongfully and unjustly taken from this world due to racism and prejudice as well. We have to keep talking about them to keep them alive, or else they may be forgotten. Yeah….it’s a 10/10 for me.

[evilcannibalrick]

Bruh I got attacked by an entire hive of bees ☠️☠️

I look like I got punched in the eye cause I got stung on my eyebrow.

Also might be cause I summoned Candyman earlier today ☠️

[polyamorouspunk]

Patch Lyrics: Farewell II Flesh

Everything’s bittersweet when you’re the Candyman

Left to die under the sun

The hive never spared anyone

How ‘bout a hand for the honeybees?

Hooked on the creed of their colony

Five times to hail a legacy

There’s nothing sweet about me

Hell in their hearts and fear on their faces

I come to life in the most desolate places

Summoned by self-righteous souls with blood on their hands

A legend has begun

Farewell II Flesh it’s your time to die

Die! Fly!

You’re stuck with me, honey, forever

It might sting but just surrender

[treesap-blogs]

GUYS YOUR MAN IS BACK! WITH A REVIEW OF “THE HONEYS” BY RYAN LA SALA!

Hello, Tumblrians! It’s been a while. I thought I’d post more consistently due to it being my Spring Break time, but alas, I was fatigued and to be honest just needed a break. Even if I post once a week, I put a lot into reviewing everything! Yeah.

BUT! I read some bangers recently. I will get those out of the way first and foremost.

The Honeys is a 2022 horror novel by Ryan La Sala, following a genderfluid teen named Mars. (I’ll be addressing them with they/he/she pronouns this whole review btw, as the MC uses all of those pronounse.) His sister recently died a grisly death after running away from the prestigious summer academy she was attending, and although the uncharacteristic behavior and aggression in her final moments can be attributed to a tumor in her brain by doctors, Mars suggests there was some foul play involved. So, he goes back to the summer academy/camp in question: Aspen, a cisnormative, kinda cultish nightmare, which Mars swore they wouldn’t return to after an incident that happened years prior, but has to in order to investigate their sister’s death. There, they end up somehow befriending the local trio of popular girls: The Honeys, called that because of their beekeeping, are alluringly and suspiciously perfect girls with a pretty exclusive friend group that Caroline was part of right before she died. But, The Honeys are definitely not as they seem, and undoubtedly have a connection to Mars’ sister’s death. On top of that, in the daytime, something within the camp starts messing with Mars’ memories, and they need to get to the bottom of what exactly that is before it’s too late.

The Honeys holds a Book Backstory that, similar to Mars’ memory/POV for most of the book, is a little hazy to me now and I have a vague recollection of the series of events that led to this being something of high priority on my TBR. Maybe I just learned it was a queer horror and was intrigued based on the premise alone! But, my school library had this in its horror shelves, and I checked this one out along with Belladonna in order to clear off some of my Digital TBR. (I hadn’t gotten around to reading Belladonna yet with the Trans Rights Readathon going on, sorry.)

Anyhow! As only my second horror novel, this took a bit of adapting to, but halfway through I was expecting it to be tamer than it turned out. See, for a chunk of the novel, Mars lives in a bit of a haze and doesn’t have much recollection of their original investigation plan due to supernatural events, and as a result a third or so of this novel is summer camp shenanigans that are typical until a creepy event happens and gets shrugged off about 20 pages later. In that sense, it’s close to a slow burn psychological horror. So, if you’re expecting a lot of dead bodies and fear from our protagonist, just…know you’ll have to wait until the last 100 pages for more of that haha. Originally though, this kinda frustrated me because I disliked knowing more than the protagonist did when we technically knew about the same things at different points, but I liked how that part of the plot was wrapped up, and although I was critical of it at the time it makes a lot of sense in hindsight (I was just impatient and wanted a bloodbath I guess).

This also gave me a new interest, or I guess a new…buzzword…to look for in books and the like (collective crowd booing): Bee horror!!! I loved it so much. Bee horror isn’t really something new, I know, just look at Candyman for instance(and the new Amazon Prime series Swarm), but I just loved what they did with the body horror here. I loved the bits of bee research put into writing the apiary segments, the absolutely gross body horror we got (spoilers: people get TURNED INTO HONEY. Like, they melt and stuff!!), how the main hive mind was connected to everything and used actual beehive imagery in both metaphor and social structure. So cool. We love to see it.

Also, that ending!! No spoiler section for this review, but I will say that it’s absolutely BATSHIT!

Actually nevermind, changed my mind, WE’RE ADDING A SPOILER SECTION!!

SPOILER SECTION!! Buzz away if that’s not what you feel like reading or you want to go into this book blind.🐝

Ok!!! So. The ending. I was predicting that Mars would end up siding with the Honeys after they accepted them into their friend group, but I was absolutely not predicting the kind of scale or power their group had. The aforementioned “Hive Mind” was connected to the Honeys; they harvested honey from body-horroring some of the counselors into it, and they’d eat the honey to gain connection to this weird plane of reality called The Lace, which connects everyone’s minds together as one entity and makes them like..omnipresent or whatever. It’s so weird, I loved it.

Mars is forced to take on the leading role of Queen Bee, since his sister’s biology and stuff didn’t work with the literal throne and the stuff that came with that, and his parents are insistent about one of their bloodline taking on the title. To have this be put onto a transfemme character, after Aspen’s higher-ups were insistent about them remaining a “boy”, was fascinating to me. I’d have to do more lengthy analysis to properly dissect this, but to have Mars turn against the adult higher-ups while she’s Queen Bee felt like a way of reclaiming that as a means of affirming her identity and gender. (I mean, she’s presented femme throughout the book but that’s one of the only times they’re addressed with she/her pronouns by their parents, and Mars, while they were terrified of the Honeys themselves for a chunk of the ending, doesn’t have any discomfort in how they’re addressed gender-wise once they take on this role and it’s abilities.) Maybe that scene could be enough to convince a few girlies that, by the end, this could probably be a “Good For Her” horror, although it gets a little sketchy once we look into dissecting that? Just looking into the morals and stuff of The Honeys and how they fucked around with memories, will a little bit, and all that. (Not that Mars sides with that or decides to replicate it, even with their new abilities.)

But, I really liked the ending. I’m glad Mars got to get their revenge. It did feel a little “Good For Her”-y.

I do really want to do some analysis on it at some point though because I was thinking about some of the subtext within it and was, again, fascinated. Perhaps I’ll do a reread at some point, see if I liked things more or less, see if there’s anything I missed.

END OF SPOILER SECTION! (There was a flimsy Baby’s First Analysis y’all were not missing out if you skipped)

TL;DR(or TS;DR)(Too Spoilery, Didn’t Read), the ending was delightfully trippy and I tried my hand at dissecting some of the gender subtext within it.

Overall, a solid read! I was a little frustrated at the slowness sometimes, but that paid off in the end and I liked how everything wrapped up. I will always LOVE queer horror, especially stuff with trans protagonists 💪 

Book rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars.

~Paz, signing off! ^^

(Book content/trigger warnings: Body horror, loss of autonomy(memory altercation), transphobic and homophobic bullying, frequent insects, blood and gore.)

[buzzingswarm]

Leaves out a bag of homemade cookies and some honey.

You listen well — have listened well. It is your penchant for pulling from the depths of people, a sweet gift some might have said, soothing wounded souls until words poured out. Words have been crowding your ear lately of a tragic urban legend.

Words spoken in reverence, whispered in righteous fear. Those stories are what lead you here.

You have walked the long, claustrophobic footpath through the local housing projects; been squeezed beneath the shadows of the buildings, the view along your route cluttered with color and shape from the works of the urban paintings. These landmarks provide a foreboding boost of confidence that you are heading in the right direction. You are drawn to apartment number 5, greeted by its ajar door blackened by a past fire. Upon its grisly frame was a sickly yellow paint that spans the length from top to bottom, it reads: SWEETS TO THE SWEET

The domain inside is slanted with sun through a broken window, various states of an apartment in disrepair barely visible in its dubious light. The far end of the room was easier on the eyes, a welcoming amber glow from unattended candles. Their wax tears cascade from a cloth covered table, dripping all the way to the floor in a frozen waterfall of colors. Globs on emptied spraypaint cans, dollar bills, and broken shards of glass that you must traverse to get closer.

An erection of wood, crudely stripped and assembled from burnt furniture to resemble a canvas, stands at the center of the candlelight. Ensorcelled by red hue, a chilling portrait is depicted upon it, struck through in dense lines by the word "candyman".

You leave your offering at the shrine, your heart deafening all else up until you see the painted white of his eyes confined through the slats of text. Then, you are stuck. Your own breath is quieted, so that you may hear the other presence in the room.

A hive of honeycombs trembles with life, buzzing gently but in eerie synchronization, and the sound is just underneath the table.

[finalsurvivorgrp]

Tiffany Lyle. Candyman. Open to all.

“There’s just bees everywhere lately,” Tiffany complained, carefully catching the bumblebee that had managed to slip into the restaurant during the off hours. She got a cup on top of it and slid one of the menus underneath, moving to the door and using her hip to keep it open so that she could release it. “With my luck I’ll find a hive where everyone goes out to smoke.”

[kaylahak]

Blog Post #6

Throughout the class I have enjoyed many works that we have encountered. One of my recent favorites we discussed a little while back was Candyman, the newer version. Watching this film I truly got chills up and down my spine at each instance throughout the film. It takes me back to when I was little and there were stories going about similar to the plot of this one. Such as the boogie man and if you say his name enough he will show up or like the popular film and musical Beetlejuice and saying his name three times he will appear. This film at the start confused me in the fact I did not understand why the main character was so drawn to Candyman as if he was being reincarnated into him at one point. The first sight of Candyman in the film did not seem like he could be a harmful man until that hand appeared and my viewpoint on him changed dramatically. Throughout this class it has helped me discover how to be able to deeper analyze films and understand the racial standpoint behind some of these films. Deeper understanding of the changes with the films and the older and newer versions were so incredibly eye opening to me. Seeing the way that there was little to no change or great change with the films and the meanings behind them. Being able to decipher and see what the messages and intents of the works are was something I could have never done before but after watching the films such as Candyman and understanding the intentions behind them was so fascinating. I would have never guessed that racial inequality was a part of this film and in some ways police issues with the film towards African American people before. Seeing as how Candyman was able to keep his legacy alive and be able to continue to live on through the job of killing was something thrill catching in the movie that I enjoyed and the name attached with him was something that I haven’t really seen put together with each other before. The interesting thing I observed with the film was the fact that he would  bring the spirits of people to the hive creating bees with their spirits. I found this film to be one of my favorites throughout the class. 

[strangelife122]

The candy man

A/N: The candy man is an urban legend that tells the scary story of a murdered slave who returns from the dead in search of revenge if you say his name 5 times. A horror movie was made about him in 1992 about the legend followed by two sequels starring tony todd as candy man. read down below if you wanna find out how to play the candy man challenge.

DISCLAIMER: THIS  STORY IS NOT MINE AND I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING IN THE  STORY

According to the legend if you say his name 5 times in front of a mirror and he will appear behind you and kill you with his hook. For you see, the candy man is a vicious killer with a bloody hook for a hand. He appears in the mirror covered with blood and bees with only one thing on his mind ...... Murder

They say that many years ago the candy man was a real man. Back in the days of slavery, candy man was a black slave named  Daniel  Robitaille, who worked on a plantation in New Orleans. He was a talented painter and was chosen by the plantation owner to paint a portrait of his daughter

But daniel fell in love with the white plantation owner's daughter. When the racist plantation owner found out that daniel and his daughter were in love, he raised an angry mob and chased Daniel out of town.

Armed with pitchforks and dogs they chased the poor slave across fields and streams. Finally, they caught up with the exhausted slave near an old barn. The evil men seized Daniel and cut off his right hand with a rusty saw. Then they covered him in honey and threw him in a bee hive.

The unfortunate candyman died from his injuries, but not before he cursed the men who killed him and vowed to return and exact his revenge.They say his spirit would never sleep, and now his ghost walks the earth and appears only when his name is called 5 times

So remember you can say his name 1 time 2 times 3 times and 4 times but never 5 times

A/N  so that was a little bit of a short post i hope you enjoyed it.

[notmuchtoconceal]

The legend first appeared in 1890. Candyman was the son of a slave.

His father had amassed a considerable fortune from designing a device ... for the mass-production of shoes after the civil war. Candyman had been sent to all the best schools and had grown up in polite society. He had a prodigious talent as an artist and was much sought after for the documenting of one's wealth and position in society in a portrait. Why, it was in this latter capacity that he was commissioned by a wealthy landowner to capture his daughter's Virginal Beauty.

Well, of course, they ... fell deeply in love and she became pregnant.

Poor Candyman.

Father executed a terrible revenge. He paid a pack of brutal hooligans to do the deed. They chased Candyman through the town to Cabrini Green, where they proceeded to ... saw off his hand with a rusty blade.

None came to his aid.

But this was just the beginning of his ordeal. Nearby there was an apiary. Dozens of hives. Filled with hangry bees. They smashed the hives and stole the honeycomb. And smeared it over his Prone Naked Body.

Candyman was stung to death by the bees. They burnt his body on a giant pyre and then scattered the ashes over Cabrini Green.

[blackhorrorthoughts]

Blog Post #5: Candyman

Candyman was a movie I was familiar with more as a cult classic horror film, and nothing more. The thing that lasted from the movie was the summoning of Candyman, where if you were to say his name five times in front of a mirror he will come and kill you. This terrified me just as much as the “bloody Mary” legend that kids would do in the school bathrooms to scare you. I didn’t even have a conceptualization of Candyman, only knowing that he was some kind of horror figure, and was too scared to do it from that.

Watching the initial Candyman for this class made me understand and somewhat appreciate the complexities of Candyman as a character, even if it has a tumultuous relationship with the representation of a black horror figure. Candyman himself was a victim of racial violence, and despite the handling of prejudice (amongst other racial topics) throughout the rest of the movie to weaponize white fear of Blackness, the idea of a vengeful spirit stemming from this kind of action was an intriguing premise. The places where the original film falls short is from the fact that whiteness is the focus, with Candyman pursuing a white woman and killing his own people, goading white fear instead of conveying a meaningful story of Black pain and trauma from racial violence.

The 2021 sequel instead imagines Candyman through the lens of a Black director, where a reimagining of the Candyman legend properly tells a story of gentrification, police brutality, and black trauma. The most notable act to reclaim the story was to not tie Candyman to chasing after a white woman, but instead that Candyman acted as an entity, or a hive, for victims of racial violence. In this sense, Candyman becomes a representation of the injustices that have occurred against Black people, and will continue to grow in vengeance as more violence is inflicted. The shift towards telling Candyman’s story as one that has more of a connection to the racial injustices that Black people endure makes Candyman even more of a horror icon, as he now represents a call for change instead of a centering on white obsession and exploitation of the fear of Blackness. I hope to see more mainstream stories that center people of color and racial violence being the root for vengeance, as I believe too much of mainstream horror rehashes the same premises based on European tales and gimmicky serial killers.