Candyman Quotes

[Clara asks Billy if he's ever heard of Candyman]

Clara: Have you ever heard of Candyman?

Billy: No.

Clara: Well, his right hand is sawn off, and he has a hook jammed in the bloody stump. And if you look in the mirror... and you say his name five times... he'll appear behind you, breathing down your neck. You want to try it?

[first lines]

Candyman: [Candyman narrating over the swarm of bees] They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What's blood for if not for shedding? With my hook for a hand, I'll split you from your groin to your gullet. I came for you.

[Candyman walks up to Helen as she remains hypnotized by him]

Candyman: You were not content with the stories, so I was obliged to come.

[the bathroom light flickers as the dead Helen appears behind Trevor]

Helen Lyle: What's the matter, Trevor? Scared of something?

[as Helen begins cutting Trevor's body open with Candyman's right hook]

[Candyman speaks to Helen as she has tears roll down her face]

Candyman: I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom. Without these things, I am nothing. So now, I must shed innocent blood. Come with me.

[Helen sees the drawing of herself on the wall]

Candyman: [Candyman narrating] It was always you, Helen. It was always you.

[Helen confronts the Gang Leader in the bathroom]

Gang Leader: I hear you're looking for Candyman, bitch.

Gang Leader: [the Gang Leader holds Helen by her neck] Well, you found him!

[as the Gang Leader swings the back of his hook across her face]

[Candyman talks to Helen as he shows her the hook on his bloody stump]

Candyman: Be my victim. Be my victim.

[Helen tells Bernadette that they have a real shot at writing an original thesis about Candyman]

Helen Lyle: Okay, let's just turn around then. Let's just go back, and we can write a nice little, boring thesis regurgitating all the usual crap about urban legend. We've got a real shot here, Bernadette. An entire community starts attributing the daily horrors of their lives to a mythical figure.

[Candyman dances with Helen and asks her to be immortal with him]

Candyman: The pain, I can assure you, will be exquisite. As for our deaths, there is nothing to fear. Our names will be written on a thousand walls. Our crimes told and retold by our faithful believers. We shall die together in front of their very eyes and give them something to be haunted by. Come with me and be immortal.

[when Candyman holds Helen back to kiss her, revealing his hollow chest and mouth full of bees]

[Candyman asks Helen why does she want to live]

Candyman: [Candyman narrating in Helen's head] Why do you want to live? If you had learned just a little from me, you would not beg to live. I am rumor. It is a blessed condition, believe me. To be whispered about at street corners. To live in other people's dreams, but not to have to be. Do you understand?

[Candyman tells Helen that her death will be a tale to frighten children]

Candyman: Your death will be a tale to frighten children, to make lovers cling closer in their rapture. Come with me, and be immortal.

[as Candyman holds his hook in the back of Helen's neck]

[the student Monica tells Helen the Clara & Billy story about Candyman]

Monica: [Monica narrating] This is the scariest story I ever heard and it's totally true. It happened a few years ago near Moses Lake in Indiana. Clara was babysitting for the Johnsons, and, uh... Billy pulls up on his motorcycle. She wasn't even going out with Billy, she was actually going out with Michael for about six months. But, um... she always kind of had the hots for Billy, 'cause he was like a bad boy. And Michael was... he was just so nice. So anyway, she decides that tonight's the night, that she's going to give Billy what she never gave to Michael.

[Clara and Billy stare in the mirror as Billy touches her body from behind]

Billy: Candyman... Candyman... Candyman... Candyman...

Clara: [Clara breathes, turning around to face Billy] No one ever got past four.

[Monica finishes the Clara and Billy story about Candyman]

Monica: [Monica narrating] She looked in the mirror, and I don't know why, but she said his name the last time.

Clara: Candyman.

Monica: [narrating] She turned out the lights...

Monica: [as we hear the sound of Clara's scream] And what he saw turned his hair white from shock. Killed her. Split her open with his hook, and then killed the baby, too. And Billy got away but soon after, he went crazy.

[a male student asks Helen if she's doing a page on serial killers]

Student: So, uh, what's the deal? You guys doing a page on serial killers or something?

Helen Lyle: [Helen lights a cigarette] Something like that.

[Helen's husband Trevor gives a lecture to his students about folklore]

Trevor Lyle: Now, why would Danny and Diane both be suffering from the same delusion in two cities over 1,000 miles apart? Let's face it, folks. There are no alligators in the sewers. No, it's... It's around the campfire. It's bedtime stories. See, these stories are modern oral folklore. They are the unselfconscious reflection of the fears of urban society.

[the janitors Kitty Culver and Henrietta Mosely tell Helen their Candyman story]

Kitty Culver: Well, all I know is there was some lady in a tub, and she heard a noise.

Helen Lyle: Do you remember her name?

Kitty Culver: I think her name was Ruthie Jean. And she heard this banging and smashing like somebody was trying to make a hole in the wall. So Ruthie called 911, and she said, 'There's somebody coming through the walls.' And they didn't believe her.

Henrietta Mosely: They thought the lady was crazy, right?

Kitty Culver: Hm-mmm. So then she called 911 again and they still didn't believe her. But when they finally got there, she was dead.

Helen Lyle: Was she shot?

Kitty Culver: No. Um... she was killed with a hook.

Henrietta Mosely: [Kitty makes a slice sound] It's true. Yeah it is. I read it in the papers. Candyman killed her.

Kitty Culver: Yeah, but, uh... I don't know nothing about that.

[as Kitty sits up from the chair to leave]

[Helen shows Bernadette a newspaper of one of the Candyman murders]

Bernadette 'Bernie' Walsh: Helen, this is sick. This isn't one of your fairy tales. The woman got killed here.

Helen Lyle: That's not the half of it.

[Helen and Bernadette drive into the projects to investigate the Candyman murders]

Helen Lyle: [as Helen sees a Taser in Bernadette's purse] What's with the arsenal, Bernadette? We're only going eight blocks.

Bernadette 'Bernie' Walsh: You're the one who got us dressed up like cops.

Helen Lyle: I said just dress up conservatively.

Bernadette 'Bernie' Walsh: Yeah, well we look like cops.

[Anne-Marie McCoy tells Helen her Ruthie Jean Candyman story]

Anne-Marie McCoy: You want to know about Ruthie Jean? They all been here, you know? Newspapers, cops, case workers... they all want to know. I heard her screaming. I heard right through the walls. I dialed 911. Nobody came. Nobody came. Everybody scared. He could come right through these walls, you know? I'm scared. Scared for my child. They ain't never gon' catch him.

Helen Lyle: Who?

Anne-Marie McCoy: Candyman.

[Professor Purcell tells Helen the legend of Candyman]

Professor Philip Purcell: 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.

[Helen talks to the young kid Jake about Candyman]

Helen Lyle: You know, it's okay to talk to me, Jake... because I'm not a cop so nobody's going to get in trouble.

Jake: I can't say nothing or Candyman will get me.

Helen Lyle: Candyman, huh? You scared of him?

Jake: I ain't scared of nobody but you're crazy walking in here on your own. It ain't safe around here.

Helen Lyle: Yeah, I know. But I don't scare too easy either, Jake.

[Helen tries to tell Jake that Candyman isn't real]

Jake: [Jake whispers] Candyman will get me.

Helen Lyle: Candyman isn't real. He's just a story. You know, like Dracula. Or... Or Frankenstein. A bad man took his name so that he could scare us. But now that's he's locked up everything's going to be okay.

[Helen sees Candyman for the first time]

Candyman: [Candyman in a resonating voice] Helen.

Helen Lyle: Yes?

Candyman: Helen...

Helen Lyle: [Helen sees Candyman in the distance] Who is that? Who is that?

Candyman: Helen... I came for you.

[Candyman tells Helen what he wants from her]

Candyman: Do you believe in me?

Helen Lyle: Keep away from me!

Candyman: I have the child. Allow me to take you or he will die in your place. Your disbelief destroyed the faith of my congregation. Without them, I am nothing, so I was obliged to come. And now I must kill you.

[Helen screams out while strapped in her hospital bed]

Helen Lyle: Where are you going? No, you can't leave me here. I can't defend myself!

[Candyman hovers over Helen as she lays strapped down in her hospital bed]

Candyman: What do the good know except what the bad teach them by their excesses?

Helen Lyle: [Helen mumbles] Murderer.

Candyman: Allow me at least a kiss. Just one exquisite kiss.

Helen Lyle: [Helen screams] Murderer! Help! Listen, he's under the bed! Listen, he's here. He's under the bed!

[the Orderly unstraps Helen from her hospital bed]

Helen Lyle: I'd like to speak to my husband.

1st Orderly: [the Orderly chuckles] So would I.

Helen Lyle: What time is it? Where are we going?

1st Orderly: We're going to Disneyland.

[Trevor says Helen's name five times in the mirror]

Trevor Lyle: [Trevor presses his forehead onto the mirror, in tears] Helen... Oh, Helen. Helen. Helen.

Trevor Lyle: [Trevor turns the light off] Helen.

[as Helen appears behind Trevor]

[last lines]

Stacey: [Stacey hears Trevor's murder and begins shouting for him] Trevor? My God, Trevor? Trevor? Trevor!

[when Stacey finds the mutilated corpse of Trevor in the bathroom as she screams]

Anne-Marie McCoy: White people never come 'round here except to cause us a problem.

Helen Lyle: Believe me, that's not what we want to do.

Bernadette 'Bernie' Walsh: I'm sure we're going to have something for you in a week or so, but we only went to Cabrini today and...

Professor Philip Purcell: [unnecessarily loud] AH! CABRINI GREEN! Candyman country...

Detective: [disgusted] Where's the baby?

Helen Lyle: ...I don't know.

Detective: You're sick.

Henrietta Mosely: Can I clean your room?

Helen Lyle: Oh, yeah, sure. Don't mind me.

Helen Lyle: *Helen continues her work, typing on her computer the words from her cassette tape interview about the legend of Candyman*

Henrietta Mosely: Candyman, huh? You doing a study on him?

Helen Lyle: Yes. What do you know about him?

Henrietta Mosely: Everybody scared of him once it get dark. He over in Cabrini.

Helen Lyle: Cabrini Green?

Henrietta Mosely: Yeah, over in the projects. My friend lives over in Cabrini.

Helen Lyle: Can I speak to your friend?

Henrietta Mosely: Sure. *Peaks into the hallway* Kitty?

Kitty Culver: Yeah, what do you want?

Helen Lyle: The lady in here wanna talk to you.

Kitty Culver: *Puts her mop down and heads on over*

Henrietta Mosely: She coming.

Helen Lyle: I'm Helen Lyle.

Henrietta Mosely: Oh, pleased to meet you. I'm Henrietta Mosely and this is Kitty Culver. Go on, tell her what you told me about Candyman.

Kitty Culver: Well, all I know is there was some lady in a tub and she heard a noise.

Helen Lyle: Do you remember her name?

Kitty Culver: I think her name was Ruthie Jean and she heard this banging and smashing, like somebody was trying to make a hole in the wall. So, Ruthie called 911 and said that there's somebody coming through the walls, and they didn't believe her.

Henrietta Mosely: They thought the lady was crazy, right?

Kitty Culver: Mm-hmm. So, she called 911 again and they still didn't believe her. But when they finally got there, she was dead.

Helen Lyle: Was she shot?

Kitty Culver: No, um... she was killed with a hook. *Imitates slashing noise*

Henrietta Mosely: It's true. Yeah, it is, I read it in the papers. Candyman killed her.

Kitty Culver: Yeah, but uh... I don't know nothing about that. *She shoots Henrietta look as she gets up out of the chair*