[Editorial] In Her Eyes: Helen Lyle in Candyman (1992)

Helen Lyle is a triple threat. She is smart, charismatic and tenacious. An innovative researcher who wants to push the envelope. Her drive is understandable, she wants to make something of her own in the face of a misogynist, patriarchal academic world that views her as less than her male colleagues who regurgitate tired stories and urban legends. But despite her brilliance, Helen has fallen into the same old trap, married to a man who is intimidated by her, who’s slowly replacing her with an infantile version of herself, one who is still impressed by his mediocrity. She is facing that same mediocrity herself, seeing her career as yet another dead-end road of academia. That is until she hears about the Candyman.

Helen is initially dismissive of the story, when told to her by a student, of a gruesome teenage murder committed by a vengeful ghost with a hook for a hand. But when this story is corroborated by a member of the custodial team, who lives in Cabrini-Green, Helen’s interest is piqued, especially when the woman in question seems afraid to discuss it further. With the seed planted, Helen starts to dig into the myth of Candyman. It is impossible to separate Helen’s status as a white, upper-class woman from this search, as it directly stems from her false sense of security. She has never had to fear the dark, which is why she is so desperate to look into it. To Helen, the stories she hears are stupid superstition, ghost stories designed to titillate but not to warn us of impending disaster. She is removed from this haunting, safe in her condo that, whilst mirroring the damp and crumbling tower blocks of Cabrini-Green, is a world away from the terror stalking it’s residents. She uncovers the flaw in the design of Cabrini-Green’s imposing blocks that led to a murder the residents are attributing to Candyman. To Helen, it’s an item of curiosity, something to show her colleague, to confirm that people are letting their imagination take hold over the rational truth. She has caught the scent and applies an analytical researcher's mind to Candyman. She takes it as a joke, and completes the ritual without a thought for the possible consequences. But Helen will soon learn that she should fear the adage ‘be careful what you wish for’, when she does just that. Chanting Candyman’s name, she conjures up a force that she cannot comprehend, one that will lay waste to the life she was so dissatisfied with.

Helen returns to Cabrini-Green, desperate for more material for her thesis. At this point, she exists in liminal space, her days spent listening to the horrors of reality in the projects, of calling 911 and no one coming, of a community in fear and her evenings having dinner with academic oafs who laugh in her face and patronise her, telling her how beautiful she is but that she’ll never quite match them. Hearing the origin story of Candyman, she is horrified at its brutality. In this moment she has a chance to return to the safety of her ordinary life, but she refuses to. Whilst at Cabrini-Green she is attacked and brutally beaten by ‘the Candyman’. Following her recuperation, she’s a returning warrior to campus, with the promise of a book deal. She’s shaken but thinks the mystery is solved, that the Candyman is nothing more than a thug, out to scare people, but the real nightmare is about to begin. Helen is visited by the Candyman, who is furious at her dismissal of him, and wakes up covered in blood, accused of killing a dog and kidnapping a baby. 

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Following this bloody, shocking scene, it is interesting to note how she falls so easily into the trap so many non-conforming women do, to drop from a respected PhD candidate, an assured, put together woman, to being incompetent, unhinged and without any rationality. When, under questioning, she utters the death sentence for her credibility “I just blacked out”, she joins the ranks of the mad women. She has defied the expected role, with her violence and her madness. Hers is a spectacular fall from grace, when she was a sassy rule breaker she was exciting, now she defies understanding, a child abductor, possible child killer, and a murderer. She is then faced with every woman’s nightmare, being declared insane with no one to believe her, drugged and locked away. Eventually, abandoned by her husband Trevor, she starts to doubt her own sanity, for what do you believe when you can’t believe your own eyes? This is her punishment, for doubting Candyman, for spreading dissent among his congregation. Her torment is unrelenting, and there is only one way out, to join him in his quest for immortality, to live forever in the minds and mouths of storytellers, to spread through generations of terrified believers.

Helen is a woman punished by zealots, first Trevor, whose idol is himself and who is angry that she no longer wants to worship at his altar. Then Candyman who requires a faithful, fearful congregation to survive. As much as she is a pawn in Candyman’s game, he gives her a gift, however terrible, of freedom and the truth. The truth about her spineless, cruel husband and the truth about herself. With that knowledge, she is powerful, when she terrifies the snivelling wretch who has taken over her marriage, her apartment, when she takes back her destiny by facing Candyman, she reclaims her sanity. In the end, she also gets the true satisfaction of revenge. Revenge on Candyman, whose plan she destroys and also on the pathetic Trevor. First, the revenge of his misery and guilt in his Pepto-Bismol pink apartment with his Pepto-abysmal girlfriend, a poor imitation of Helen. Then, the sweet revenge of his bloody end, as he comes face to face with his wife in the bathroom mirror.

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