Author jasonmorrison

e-Books!

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That title alone is probably polarizing to people. There are those who’ve embraced e-books, and those who prefer holding a physical book when they read. I used to be one of the later. The living room of my first apartment had four bookcases filed top to bottom, some shelves two books deep and when I moved into my house, I had room for more bookcases.

Then, one day, I bought some books at a book fair that was set up in Marché de l’Ouest and one of those books was The Honor of the Queen by David Weber. It’s the second book in his Honor Harrington series, and I loved it. I hadn’t realized when I made the purchase that it was a sequel and I hadn’t read the first in the series, but that didn’t turn out to be a problem because at the back of the book was a CD that contained On Basilisk Station, the first in the series.

Not just that, it also contained the third book in the series, and the fourth, the fifth, books from several of David Weber’s other series, books from other authors, the CD was filled with books that the publisher had just given away. Their philosophy being that giving away older books in a series would entice people to buy the newer ones. I can’t speak for anyone else, but in my case it worked. Big time. I bought all the books in the Honorverse, as well as David Weber’s War God series, his Belisarius series, Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire novels, John Ringo’s Legacy of the Aldenata, books by Mercedes Lackey, David Drake, Dave Freer (a lot of Dave’s seem to publish with Baen) so many books and it all started with just that one purchase that included a CD with free e-books.

There are a lot of advantages that e-books have over paper novels, but listing them would make this article longer than it really needs to be and I’m not here to convert people, my main goal was to share where you can get

Free and cheap e-Books!

I’ll begin with the one that started it for me. The Baen Free Library. Not all of the books I received on that first CD are still there, but new ones have been added since and there are about twelve pages of free books available, and a quick Google search (or Duck Duck Go if you are more privacy minded) will show you places where people have hosted the original CDs.

They aren’t the only publisher that has deals. Not quite as good as free, Simon and Shuster has a mailing list you can subscribe to that will regularly update you on deals to be had. The one I got this week has Stephen King’s Fairy Tale for $4.99 and two Kathy Reichs novels, Bare Bones and Break no Bones for $1.99 each. If you have a favorite author, I’d suggest checking to see if their publisher has a newsletter or mailing list you can sub to. I know that both Tor and Penguin do.

Another mailing list that is publisher agnostic is BookBub. They regularly send out deals on discounted, and sometimes free, e-books. I don’t think they sell the books themselves, it’s more that they monitor the e-book vendors and compile the deals together in a huge list. Regardless, it saves me money, so I don’t care that they get a referral fee, they deserve it.

I mentioned Humble Bundle in my article about Murderbot. They are a charity driven organization. The way it works is, they have bundles (it’s right in the name) of books, games and software that they organize with publishers for a limited time. You pay what you want for them and the cost is split between the author, a charity that changes every month and the humble organization. If you pay MORE than a specific amount, you get MORE books, games, software or whatever is in the bundle. The price is usually worth it. I paid $32.09 Canadian for the Martha Wells bundle and got 14 books. I checked the “jungle” website just now and the Kindle editions of JUST the Murderbot Diaries collection is $84.99. That’s a pretty good savings and I can be happy knowing the author got a portion of the fee, which brings me to a warning

Beware of Facebook scams

Facebook probably isn’t the only place this happens, but it’s where I’ve seen it. First time was one day I was scrolling on my phone and a post came by with an offer for a Robin Hobb bundle. I’ve read her Farseer trilogy and really enjoyed it, so thinking I could get more of her novels for a good price, I clicked the link. The website was very professional and authentic looking, but something about it triggered my Spidey-sense. I think it was the fact that there was no link to information about the company itself anywhere. No links to present or past deals for other authors, no biographic information about the author herself, the entire site was all just one self contained page who’s only purpose was to sell this single bundle. I did a web search on the domain name and quickly found out it was a scam. It wasn’t me they were trying to scam though, it was the author. If I had followed through, I would have gotten the books, but Robin Hobb wouldn’t have seen any of the profits. These people were selling pirated copies of the books, so instead of buying, I went back to Facebook, made a comment on the post to warn others and then reported it. I don’t know if it did any good, but at least I tried. How can you tell in the future if a deal is too good to be true?

Ask the author

Authors freaking LOVE social media. I think it’s because it distracts them when they need a break from work and also… well, they just like to talk, it’s why they became writers in the first place. Follow them on the social media platform of your choice (they’re probably on most of them) and ask. If someone is offering a deal on their work and it is not legit, I guarantee they, or one of the other people following, will let you know. Also, when there’s a real deal to be had, the author will often announce it themselves. Diane Duane, one of my all time favorite writers, sells her books directly to the public DRM free. Not the franchise books like her Star Trek or Spider-Man novels, she doesn’t own the copyright, but at least once a year she will announce a sale of her Young Wizards series that you can purchase on her website Ebooks Direct.

There’s always the library

I don’t mean this facetiously, I’m being quite literal. Not everyone is aware that many public libraries lend out e-books in addition to physical ones, and not just books, graphic novels, music, movies, TV shows, all available to borrow for the low, low price of having a library card. The public library in my area uses a service called Hoopla and it works the same way as borrowing anything. There is a limited quantity of each item and they get checked out by the borrower. If something you want is currently in the “possession” of another library member, you put yourself on the wait list for it. The biggest advantage this has over paper books is that you don’t need to wait for the person to remember to return the book, the system automatically pulls it back when their rental period has expired. I found out about the service when the TV show Outcast got cancelled. The story was unresolved, but I knew it was based on a comic book series. While looking to see how much a trade paperback was, I stumbled upon a Reddit thread that talked about borrowing comics from the library and someone then mentioned the digital e-book platforms that libraries use. I suggest you check if yours offers this service. In addition to Hoopla, there are others like Libby, OverDrive, Kanopy and PressReader.

If you don’t like sharing, but still want free, there is Project Gutenberg a donation driven site that hosts over 75,000 public domain works available in DRM free epub and Kindle formats. Yes the works are older, they have to be for the copyright to have expired, but Mary Shelley, Lewis Carol, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Dickens, Dostoyevsky… these authors will never go out of style. Loved seeing Wicked recently and always wondered what the original OZ books are like? It’s there. Can’t wait for Wake up Deadman to come out and want a mystery NOW? How about Sherlock Holmes?

This is all just the ones I use most often, I’m sure there are plenty of others, you can share your favorites in the comments, I just ask that people keep them legal. I may be incredibly cheap, but I also believe that writers should be compensated for their work. It’s selfish, but I want them to be able to afford to live, so they can keep writing stories for me to read.

Murderbot (the show) & All Systems Red (the book)

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Murderbot (2025)

I don’t think Apple did a great job of marketing this show. I don’t mean they didn’t do enough to promote it, I certainly saw enough ads for it when it first came out, I mean the campaign itself didn’t entice me to watch. I certainly saw ads for it, but despite the fact that I really like Alexander Skarsgård, it didn’t look interesting to me, I thought it was about… well, a murdering robot, like Dexter set in the future I guess. I heard a lot of positive buzz, but still nothing that really made me think this was for me.

In August I got an e-mail from Humble Bundle that they had a Martha Wells e-book package they were selling called “Murderbot & more” and the only thing I love more than cheap books, is free books (I once called the number on an LDS tv commercial because they said they’d send me a free book). I also love the fact that Humble Bundle lets you choose what percentages of the price you donate goes to the author, the charity and the HB organization. So of course I bought it.

I didn’t read any of the books right away though, because I had other media I was in the process of consuming, then I found myself at the garage a couple weeks ago waiting for them to put my snow tires on and do the required maintenance, so to kill the time, I opened All Systems Red on my phone and started reading. It was sooooo good and not at all what I was expecting. The novel is told from the point of view of a security robot (he only calls himself a Murderbot), who is contracted to protect a group of scientists on a remote planet, but would rather be spending his time watching cheesy soap operas. The story is told via his almost constant internal monologue that has this dry, almost sarcastic tone to it. He reminds me of Commander Data, if you added the personality of Marvin The Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and put them in the body of a T-800. I absolutely loved the book and am about a quarter of the way through the second one now.

Given that I had heard the show was well received, I took a chance and convinced my wife to watch it with me. She too likes the wry, dark comedy style of humour in the vein of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, so if the show captured the feeling of the book, I thought we would both enjoy it. Spoiler warning, we did.

Now, the book is fairly short, it’s only about 170 pages, so to convert it to a ten episode tv season, even at only about thirty minutes per episode, they had to stretch things out a bit. We still have the great narration, this time provided by mister Skarsgård, in a wonderfully flat, almost bored tone that perfectly matches how I imagined SecUnit to sound when I was reading the book. It doesn’t stick to just the robot’s POV though, the other characters in the story are given a lot more to do and fleshed out considerably. It doesn’t slow anything down though, and it doesn’t change the story. All the main beats are still there, nothing was really changed, they just add a lot more colour and flesh to everything.

When I look at some of my recent favorite shows, a lot of them come from Apple. Silo, Foundation, Shrinking, Severence, Mythic Quest all are absolutely fantastic and some of the best TV I’ve seen in a long time, but I think their marketing needs to do a better job of explaining the tone of them to potential viewers, or they might overlook something they might enjoy, like I almost did with Murderbot.

Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

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The Fantastic 4 First Steps (2025)

I had planned to see this in the theater, and my regular movie watching partner was on board, but life got in the way, films don’t stick around the the theater as long as they used and the second run cinemas are almost all gone, which is a shame because as gorgeous as the 4K HDR copy I watched was, some movies just benefit from seeing it on a huge screen with immersive sound. It makes the experience more Amazing, more Incredible, more… well you get the point.

I loved the movie. There have been many attempts at bringing Marvel’s first family to the big screen with varying degrees of success and I think a lot of the failures were due to the people behind the projects not understanding the characters and turning it into a generic action movie. This time, they got it. I don’t know if it’s all down to Kevin Feige, the director Matt Shakman, the writers or having the right combination of all of them, but everyone was making all the right decisions when it came to this project.

Let’s start with the overall look and feel. The retro-futuristic styling isn’t just something I personally love, but it fits these characters and their early years perfectly. Toning down the dumb blonde hothead Johnny Storm other filmmakers gravitated to and making him a real member of a scientific team was great and makes the character more interesting and useful. Setting Sue as the team leader is… the way it is the comics. It’s only misogyny and a failure to learn about the characters that put Reed at the center of previous versions. As in the comics the Mister Fantastic here is a genius, but too easily distracted by scientific puzzles.

Confession time, after watching Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness I was really looking forward to John Krasinski as Reed Richards, he seemed perfect and I could not see Pedro Pascal in the role when the official casting decisions were announced, but I was wrong. There’s a reason he keeps getting roles as a father, and he’s shown us why again here. He was great and they even managed to make his powers not look goofy. Stretchy powers are hard to translate into a live action setting without looking cartoony, and I’m sure that was the reason the people on Ms, Marvel changed her power set, but the Netflix live action version of One Piece showed it could be done and the folks at Marvel appear to have learned from that.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach was an interesting choice for Ben Grimm. I only knew him as the bombastic Richie on The Bear, but he does the quiet solid strength needed for The Thing equally as well. I have only two quibbles about the movie though and the first involves him. It’s not a complaint, really, I thought his performance was excellent, but it’s his voice, it was just… his voice and I felt it should have been deeper, stronger somehow, more gravelly, no pun intended (okay maybe a little intended). I have to compare it to the performances of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel in Guardians. I cannot imagine ANYONE topping Bradley’s Rocket, who, in my opinion, stole the show in all three films, but if his name hadn’t been in the credits, I wouldn’t have known it was him. There’s no mistaking Ebon’s voice for anyone but him though. Maybe he tried different versions that just didn’t work, or maybe the director just always envisioned him sounding like that from the start, I don’t know, I just feel like it didn’t project the strength of a man made of solid stone to me.

My second quibble is Natasha Lyonne, when her character of Rachel was introduced, I did a double take, because I didn’t realize it was her at first, but I loved her, it was a very different character compared to what she’s been playing recently and I was looking forward seeing what would happen between her and Ben, but nothing did happen, it felt like that part of the movie might have gotten cut. Hopefully we see more of her in the next one.

They did such a good job with this movie, they even made Galactus work, and the visuals are beautiful. Franklin had that slightly unnatural look that CGI humans often have, and I think that’s why they had him being held by The Thing so often, but aside from that, the effects people deserve a lot of praise.

I don’t want to leave out Juila Garner’s Silver Surfer. Even through the CGI, you can see the emotional changes she goes through in the film and that’s all down to the actor and the animators, and I truly hope this isn’t the last we see of her.

This is one I want to add to my collection, I think it works for comic books fans, Marvel fans and even casual sci-fi fans.

Excelsior!

Superman (2025)

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Superman (2025)

Halloween is done for the year, and this is what this blog’s content will look like most of the time. Me talking about movies, TV shows, books and things that have been out for a while and people have mostly discussed to death already. I mean, it’s called Late to the Party for a reason.

I’m a fan of what James Gunn can do with material from comic books. I loved the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, I thought his version of Suicide Squad a massive improvement over the first movie and Peacemaker is fantastic, but I didn’t love his Superman.

This is a “me” problem though. The movie is very well made, it’s well acted, it’s fun, it sets up the larger DC cinematic universe, introduces cool new characters and it has that great mixture of action, comedy and character drama that Gunn does so well. My only criticisms are that Lex’s plot feels unoriginal and as much as I liked Mister Terrific and want to see more of Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, the “Justice Gang” weren’t instrumental in the plot. Those aren’t the reasons why I’ll probably not add this movie to my bluray collection though, it’s Superman himself.

Back in the early ‘80s, when we got our first VCR, home videos were too expensive for most people to buy themselves, almost everyone rented them, but, my dad managed to get us a bootleg VHS cassette that had two movies on it. Star Wars: A New Hope and the Christopher Reeves Superman, and my brother and I watched those two movies over, and over and over. We never got tired of them. That portrayal of The Man of Steel made a strong impression on us, and not just us, but everyone who played the character for the next few decades. Until David Corenswet.

Christopher Reeve, Dean Cain, Brandon Routh, Henry Cavil all had their own takes on the character, but they still played the Last Son of Krypton with certain consistent traits. Even Tom Welling on Smallville and the animators of Superman: The Animated series and Justice League portrayed him in a serious, upright, almost formal manner, so this latest incarnation’s casual, laid back, Everyman portrayal isn’t what I’m used to.

To be clear, it’s not bad, it isn’t wrong and I’m not going to start saying “He’s not the way Superman’s supposed to be.” I’ve been reading comic books long enough to know that whenever a character is handed over to a new creative team, things can change, but sometimes a change just doesn’t click with me. I stopped reading Spider-Man after just the first issue when Zeb Wells took over. Not because it was bad, but because I just didn’t like what he was doing with the character.

I think this is a Superman for a new generation (my grandson absolutely loved it). I’m probably just too used to seeing the character portrayed a certain way and can’t adapt my mind to seeing it done differently. I’m still looking forward to the next film of the James Gunn era. What I’m seeing from Supergirl looks great and Krypto was absolutely fantastic. I’ll probably watch the next Superman too. I didn’t hate this one, not by a long shot, but I won’t be rewatching it over and over like it’s 1981 again, or even like I’ve done with many of the MCU movies.

31 Nights of Horror: The Aftermath

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Four nights after my last post and I finally feel like writing again. I will say, overall, I found it easier to write the reviews this time compared to back in 2019 and I thought it would be good to do a wrap-up. Why did I do it, what was my goal, did I learn anything?

First, I wanted to challenge myself. With NaNoWriMo being NoMo, I still wanted a set of goals to force myself to write more and this seemed like a good idea. It didn’t require me to create stories whole cloth from my own brain, just give my half baked opinions on other peoples work, which is way, way easier. Also, I just like talking about things that interest me (compulsion is probably a better description) and hoped some of the articles would spark conversations. It also gave me an excuse to watch old movies, although, I didn’t really need one, as I do it all the time anyway.

Did I learn anything from this challenge? Yeah, a lot I think. First, my grammar is still atrocious, I use commas in places I’m probably not supposed to and I love using parentheses (which probably annoys some people).

I also found it was sometimes harder to get myself to watch a movie than it was to write about it after. Not because I knew a movies was going to be bad before I put it on, I’m not getting paid to do this, so I only ever chose to watch things I genuinely thought I might like. It was more the time it took up and the fact that sometimes I was more in the mood to do something else, like mining spice in the Deep Desert or trying to get caught up on One Piece (only 920 episodes to go!) I set up what I feel was a pretty good routine. Start watching a movie around 9pm, begin writing the article afterwards. Finish the article and edit it while eating breakfast before work the next morning. It went well most of the time, but some nights I got a late start or I just didn’t feel like watching a horror movie and my mood may have caused me to be overly harsh.

Would I do this again? Yes, absolutely. I enjoyed the process overall and don’t want to stop, I just won’t do it as frequently as every night. I’m tempted to do the same thing for Christmas , but maybe only every 2nd night, calling it the 12 days of Christmas Movies or something. I’m not sure how useful that would be though. I have a bunch of movies I already watch every Christmas season, and feel it would just be me gushing about why I love Scrooged, An American Christmas Carol and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation… but… as I’m writing this, I’m thinking it doesn’t have to be feel good Christmas movies I watch. Maybe I watch Christmas themed horror movies, like Black Christmas, Krampas, does Chopping Mall take place at Christmas? How about that Billy Bob Thornton movie, Bad Santa, not a horror, but not a traditional Christmas movie, right? I’ve got all of November to think about it.

Would I do 31 Nights of Horror again specifically? Yes, I think so. Maybe not thirty-one consecutive nights though. Maybe get a list of movies I want to watch and watch them throughout the year, but place the reviews in a folder to be released once a night next October. It would be less stressful, and I can devote more time to making the reviews better… but it isn’t as much of a challenge if I do that. Maybe a hybrid, write and watch most of them in “real-time” as it were, but have some I had watched earlier in the year as backups for the nights I need a break. The night before I wrote the article about Halloween board games, I was playing some of those games with friends up until about 11:30pm and still needed to watch a movie after they went home. That was a long night.

So, I’m going to try and keep writing these. Maybe only once a week, hopefully more often, but I make no promises. It may only be a recipe, those might be better as videos, though that’s something I haven’t tried before. We’ll see. I’m also going to talk to my doctor about increasing the dosage on my medication. I think it helped, but was inconsistent.

I also want to thank everyone who read this and the other articles, and those who would click “like” here and on the social media platforms I posted the links on. It means a lot to me knowing I’m not just talking to myself.

Three layer dip

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My friend made this at a party one year. He got the recipe from his sister, I have no idea if it is her creation or if she got it from somewhere else but thank you Jane regardless.

It’s very simple and uses ingredients most of us probably have.

  • Cream cheese
  • Salsa
  • Shredded cheddar

In a microwave safe dish, spread a layer of cream cheese, followed by a layer of salsa and top with the shredded cheddar

Microwave on high for approximately 90 seconds.

Eat.

That’s the original recipe, I make one small alteration. I find when the cream cheese is a solid layer, it can be difficult to scoop, so instead I cut it into small cubes and spread them around the bottom of the dish

Pour salsa to just cover the cheese cubes, then scatter more cream cheese cubes on that, and cover with more salsa then top the whole thing with the cheddar. I find if the cream cheese is distributed inside the salsa layer like that, it’s easy to scoop.

Bet careful about how long you microwave it for. You want to heat it all the way through, but too long and the cream cheese will melt completely into the salsa and turn the whole thing into a weird rosé sauce.

The Thing (1982)

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Night 31 of 31 Nights of Horror

John Carpenter's The thing (1982)

Every Halloween, I do the same thing. Once I’m certain no more trick-or-treaters are coming, I take down the decorations, make a three layer nacho dip, turn off the lights and watch John Carpenter’s The Thing.

There is nothing I don’t love about this movie. From the opening scene it has the viewer asking questions, and every answer leads to new questions. This movie combines terrifying monster horror and psychological thriller in the best way. Even when the killer is revealed, it may not be the only one, and you are kept guessing even after the credits roll.

The special effects are gorgeous, in the most disturbing way, and look fantastic on my new 4K HDR copy. The panoramic helicopter shots of Alaska and British Columbia (doubling for Antarctica) are stunningly beautiful, but also isolating. They establish early on how far from civilization these men are and that, when people start dying, there is no escape, nowhere to flee to.

It’s unfortunate that the last article of the series is going to be so short, my whole thing is usually nitpicking films, but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched this film and I have no notes. None. The acting is great, the editing, pacing, music, foley work, everything about the production enhances the story. It’s why I never get tired of watching it.

If you’ve never watched The Thing, I highly encourage you to. Turn off the lights and grab yourself some tortilla chips. I’ve got a dip recipe I can share with you.

Oh and if you’re not ready for bed when the movie finishes, put on The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Happy Halloween!

20 songs on my Halloween playlist

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Halloween Playlist

I like to prop a speaker in the window and play music for the kids and parents out walking on Halloween night. Here is what my current playlist contains.

  1. “Kill Of The Night” – Gin Wigmore
  2. “Superstition” – Stevie Wonder
  3. “Werewolves of London” – Warren Zevon
  4. “Bad Things” – Jace Everett
  5. “Dragula” – Rob Zombie
  6. “Bad Moon Rising” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
  7. “Spooky” – Dusty Springfield
  8. “Thriller” – Michael Jackson
  9. “I Put a Spell On You” – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
  10. “Somebody’s Watching Me” – Rockwell
  11. “Ghostbusters” – Ray Parker Jr.
  12. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” – Blue Oyster Cult
  13. “Time Warp” – Little Nell
  14. “Feed My Frankenstein” – Alice Cooper
  15. “You’re Dead” – Norma Tanega
  16. “Season Of The Witch” – Lana Del Rey
  17. “Tubular Bells” – Mike Oldfield
  18. “Goo Goo Muck” – The Cramps
  19. “Welcome to My Nightmare” – Alice Cooper
  20. “Bury a Friend” — Billie Eilish

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

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Night 30 of 31 Nights of Horror

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

We are on the second to last night of the marathon, and it occurred to me that I had not yet watched a zombie movie. So I’ll correct that oversight with what will turn out to be the oldest, lowest budget, yet highest rated movie so far. It has an average rating of 95% on 82 reviews and an audience score of 87 on Rotten Tomatoes and I agree with them.

In the intro I wrote 30 days ago, I said I wanted to see if older movies still held up. Some did, some didn’t, but this one, the oldest of them all, sure does. Okay, it’s in black and white, but so was Clerks, the film stock is cheaper than colour and when you’re on a tight budget, you save money where you can. The look also helps hide the weakness in the makeup, it’s nowhere near as detailed or polished as a modern B movie, especially the eyes. Without the cloudy contact lenses that are affordable and common today, the zombie’s eyes are too intelligent looking and don’t make them look dead. That’s about it for the negatives though, the rest of the film is great.

The cinematography is well done, the editing, the music, even the acting is surprisingly good for a cast comprised almost entirely of first timers. The pacing and tight script keeps you interested and engaged the whole time. Like most good zombie films, a lot of the drama comes from the humans. I loved that you are made to dislike Harry right from the beginning, but that he turns out to have been right in the end. Speaking of endings, that was a surprising, but sadly all too realistic way to close out the story.

It’s interesting to me to go back and watch the grandfather of modern zombie movies and see how it differs to the lore of today. First, they never call them zombies, the news people refer to them as ghouls, but technically a ghoul is a creature that is still living. Second, these zombies use tools, so they aren’t completely mindless. They’re also afraid of fire, which we don’t really see these days.

I liked it, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would and I encourage any budding filmmaker to watch it themselves and see that you don’t need a huge budget or well known actors to tell a good story. You just need talent.

Candyman (1992)

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Night 29 of 31 Nights of Horror

Candyman (1992)

Clive Barker neither wrote, nor directed this film, but it is based on one of his short stories from the Books of Blood collection (Volume 5, “The Forbidden” if you want to read it yourself). Bernard Rose is both writer and director, and the movie stars Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen.

So the story starts out amazing. It is moody, atmospheric, lots of benign jump scares to get your heart going. They set up the characters and their relationships, It’s a cool premise, with two PhD candidates working on their theses about urban legends, when they hear the tale of “Candyman” and begin investigating it. Not believing it to be real, they naturally perform the ritual to summon him. Well, Virgina Madsen’s Helen does. Her colleague Bernadette (played by Kasi Lemmons) only says his name four of the required five times, while standing in front of the mirror and of course, nothing happens… or does it.

*SPOILER ZONE*

So this for me is where the movie takes a turn and wastes potential for a really amazing story. Helen is later walking through a parking garage and hears a voice calling her name. She turns around and sees the silhouette of someone who looks like Candyman, then she passes out. When she wakes up, she’s in a bathroom that’s not hers, she’s covered in blood and there’s a woman screaming on the other side of the door. So of course, Helen gets arrested for murdering a dog and child abduction (because the baby from the apartment is missing). This sets up a fantastic premise, they could have made this a much better horror mystery. Was Helen framed by the gang member she identified to the police earlier? Did the spirit of Candyman do it? Was it really Helen, who did it while she had blacked out? Was she possessed? That’s a great story, but it doesn’t last long.

Bernadette is killed in Helen’s apartment and Helen is taken to a psychiatric hospital. So at this point, the criminal framing her theory is out the window, but it might still be Helen who’s the real killer. Nope, we are quickly disabused of that notion when her psychiatrist is killed, while she’s strapped to a chair in front of him. It’s impossible for her to have done the deed. So they took what could have been a fantastically told mystery and turned it into a standard supernatural killer movie.

Now, I will say, Tony Todd is amazing. The man has a presence and charisma that carry this movie. I firmly believe it would not have been as successful a franchise without him, because the “lore” of Candyman makes no sense.

First, why is he called Candyman? The legend is about a black artist who is murdered for falling in love with and getting pregnant a wealthy white woman, and is then mutilated and murdered by hired thugs. Where’s the candy? And why would the murderers cut off his hand and attach a hook to it, only to then kill him with bees (random) and burn the body? The whole thing SOUNDS made up, like a tale that is exaggerated and built upon by different tellers over generations, which many urban legends are, and that’s an idea worth exploring. It could have been about how legends are exploited by people to control others (like the gang leader) or how the stories can inspire people consciously or unconsciously to mimic them (Helen is the killer all along), instead we have a ghost who can do almost anything, has a hook for a hand and is covered in bees because it looks cool.

I may be overly harsh with this, but I think it’s because they took what could have been a psychological horror masterpiece and turned it into a standard supernatural slasher flick that is saved from obscurity only by Virginia Madsen and the aura of Tony Todd. I don’t know anything about the films production, but the feeling I get, and it is just a feeling, is that the studio saw the first half of the film and said, “Naw, we need more blood and more Candyman. Oh, and add in a lot of bees. Bees are scary.”