Behold the Buzz-Worthy Trailer for Jordan Peele’s Candyman

Now this is how you generate buzz.

Apologies for the pun (not really), but the official trailer for Candyman, co-written and produced by Jordan Peele, is here, and bees play a fairly significant part. Peele’s “spiritual sequel” to the 1992 original, directed by rising star Nia DaCosta (Little Woods), looks straight-up fantastic.

We now know that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, Watchmen) will be the driving force behind the resurrection of the dreaded Candyman (Tony Todd, the original Candyman, returns!). Abdul-Mateen plays Anthony McCoy, an artist who, along with his girlfriend Brianna (If Beale Street Could Talk‘s Teyonah Parris), moves into a luxury condo in Chicago where the Cabrini towers once stood. It was there, decades ago, where Candyman had terrorized people in the original. Now, Anthony and Brianna are part of a wave of millennials moving into the rapidly gentrifying, once-notorious neighborhood.

It’s there that Anthony meets William Burke (Colman Domingo), a neighborhood old-timer who knows a thing or two about the legend of Candyman. This gives Anthony a great (read; terrible) idea; desperate to rescue his struggling art career, he sees a potential goldmine in the gory details behind the Candyman’s reign of terror. What better way to become an art star than by turning a nasty legend into the stuff of modern art?

Only Candyman isn’t just a legend. Once folks start tempting fate and saying his name five times in the mirror, bad things start happening. And Anthony himself will play a central role in the resurrection of Chicago’s most lethal, legendary supernatural force.

Peele is, of course, one of the brightest minds working in horror today. The first trailer reveals a legitimately spooky glimpse at what he, DaCosta, co-writer Win Rosenfeld (executive producer of Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman) and the cast have cooked up.  

Check out the trailer here. Candyman slashes its way into theaters on June 12, 2020.

Here’s the official, fulsome synopsis from Universal Pictures:

This summer, Oscar® winner Jordan Peele unleashes a fresh take on the blood-chilling urban legend that your friend’s older sibling probably told you about at a sleepover: Candyman. Rising filmmaker Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) directs this contemporary incarnation of the cult classic.

For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; HBO’s Watchmen, Us) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris; If Beale Street Could Talk, The Photograph), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Colman Domingo; HBO’s Euphoria, Assassination Nation) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

Featured image: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in ‘Candyman.’ Courtesy Universal Pictures/MGM