Don’t say his name. 

Co-written and directed by Nia DaCosta and produced and co-written by Oscar winner Jordan Peele with co-writer Win Rosenfeld, the movie will bring back childhood memories of a fresh take on a blood-chilling urban legend. Your friend’s older sibling probably told you about at a sleepover, known as the Candyman, is a 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, quickly summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. 

You come to the present day, after a decade of the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down. Enter visual artist Anthony McCoy, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, played by Teyonah Parris, 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, played by Colman Domingo, 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. He sees it as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening the door to a complicated past that unravels his sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.