- "Be my victim"
- ―Candyman's infamous line
Daniel Robitaille AKA "Candyman" is the main antagonist of the Candyman series.
Daniel Robitaille was the son of a slave; he was an artist and was employed by a wealthy landowner named Heyward Sullivan. His talent was painting in which he painted a portrait of the wealthy landowner’s daughter Caroline Sullivan, whom he had fallen in love with.
He is the lover to Caroline Sullivan and the biological father of Isabel Sullivan. After his death Daniel returns back the earth by the name of Candyman, killing whoever says his name in the mirror with a bloody hook that replaced his hand.
In the films, he was portrayed by the late Tony Todd.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Daniel Robitaille was the son of a slave on a plantation in New Orleans. Chosen by a wealthy landowner, Heyward Sullivan to paint a portrait of his daughter Caroline, the intimacy of the setting causes a torrid affair between Daniel and Caroline. The relationship results in Caroline becoming pregnant with Daniel's daughter, and Daniel being reviled.
After being tortured by the bigoted lynch mob, Daniel is chased out of the town and hunted across the fields by Caroline's father and an angry mob, and mutilated by having his right hand sawed off with a rusty arborist saw blade and being coated in fresh honey from a nearby beehive. A small boy tastes the honey, and proclaims "Candy Man!", whereupon the crowd seizes the name and shouts it with gusto. The bees then swarm over Daniel's body, mortally wounding him. Caroline enters the scene, and is restrained as her father taunts Daniel (over how he now looks) with her mirror to which Daniel gasps the words "Candy Man" before dying. Caroline seizes upon the mirror, and cradles it. It is this mirror that holds the tortured, hateful soul of the Candyman; the only remnant of her lover, Caroline hides the mirror in Daniel's birthplace. After this, she gives birth to Daniel's daughter named Isabel. Isabel is born Creole, but she is raised by her mother as being white.
The Death of Daniel Robitaille
The mirror grants Candyman his spiritual medium, and imbues his soul with the strength to kill when called upon. Summoned through the mirrors of his victims who only have to call his name 5 times, Candyman would murder them with a hook he now replaced his hand with and return to the mirror. A Legend was born through this and Candyman became somewhat of a Monster to those who knew the tale.
Candyman[]
One evening, Helen and her friend Bernadette jokingly call Candyman's name into the mirror in Helen's bathroom but nothing happens. Her mother tells her Candyman was the evil spirit and immortal ghost killer boogeyman, who's lived in the mirrors, and control the bees. She was helping the community of the spiritual mediumship with her best friend, Michael, Chris and other older kids, who all say that the real killer of the Cabrini-Green is true, not gangsters or criminals. Helen tells her that Candyman wasn't so real, just nightmares. She gets a horrible nightmare about Candyman, who reveals himself in person to her, watching him kill her parents in front of her in the kitchen floor on the pool of blood.
The next day, as Helen is walking through a parking lot, she hears a voice calling her name as she walks through a parking garage. Another a tall black man she encounters states he is the Candyman of the urban legend. She is horrified to see the real Candyman again, as she recognized him from his attic mancraft lair. Helen blacks out and wakes up in Anne-Marie's apartment, covered in blood. Anne-Marie, whose Rottweiler has been decapitated and whose baby is also missing, attacks Helen and she is forced to defend herself from Anne-Marie using a meat cleaver. The police then enter the apartment and arrest Helen.
Trevor, Helen's husband, bails her out of jail the following day. Candyman approaches Helen again in her apartment, while Bernadette arrives at the same time. Helen is unable to stop Candyman from murdering her and kidnaps the sickly Anthony with him. Trevor arrives home and after it appears that Helen has murdered Bernadette, she is sedated and is placed in a psychiatric hospital pending trial.
After a month's stay at the hospital, Helen is interviewed by a psychologist in preparation for her upcoming trial. While restrained, Helen attempts to deny culpability in the murders and convince the psychologist that the urban legend is indeed true. After she summons Candyman, the psychologist is violently killed by Candyman, and Helen is able to escape to her own apartment. There, she finds Trevor with another woman, Stacey, one of his college students. Helen then flees to Cabrini–Green to confront Candyman and to locate Anne-Marie's still-missing infant.
Candyman predicts that Helen will help carry on his tradition of inciting fear into a community, and promises to release the baby if Helen agrees to sacrifice herself. After Candyman vanishes with Anthony, Helen finds a mural of Candyman alongside a woman (presumably the lover he fathered a child with) who happens to bear a striking resemblance to her with the "It was always you Helen," implying that Helen's the reincarnation of Candyman's lover, Coraline Sullivan. Instead of holding his end of the bargain, Candyman takes both the baby and Helen into the middle of a massive junk pile which the residents have been planning to turn into a bonfire, but Anthony is spared, let her live. However, he intends to sacrifice both Helen and the baby in order to feed his own legend. However, the residents believe Candyman is hiding inside the bonfire pile and set it a flame. Helen manages to rescue the baby, but dies from burns in the process . Candyman also burns in the fire, leaving only his hook-hand behind.
After Helen's funeral, Trevor is at home, and stands before a mirror in the bathroom of their former apartment. He chants Helen's name in grief, summoning her vengeful spirit. Helen kills Trevor with Candyman's hook, leaving Trevor's new lover Stacey with his bloodied corpse as Helen becomes the embodiment of the urban legend.
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh[]
The father of New Orleans schoolteacher Annie Tarrant was murdered in a Candyman-like fashion some years prior. When Professor Philip Purcell is murdered in a bathroom by Candyman after presenting the legend to his class and calling him forth, Annie's brother is accused of the murder (since his furious public confrontation of Purcell over the subject) and one of her students starts to see the Candyman. In order to disprove to herself that the Candyman exists, she says his name five times in front of a mirror, summoning him to New Orleans on the eve of Mardi Gras, where the killing begins in earnest. Her husband Paul McKeever becoming one of Candyman's new victims as well as her mother.
Annie is revealed to be the great-great-granddaughter of Caroline Sullivan. It also means she is Daniel Robitaille's descendant. Candyman stalks Annie so that he may kill her and destroy himself at 12 Midnight on Ash Wednesday. This is possibly to secure their resurrection into the afterlife, a running theme throughout the Candyman series.
Octavia is Annie's guilt-ridden mother who drowns her worries, the deaths of Helen and Trevor Lyle from three years ago, and the existence of the Candyman in booze and in lies. She later admits that Coleman tried to link the family name with "that monster" and denies that Candyman exists and he is related to her bloodline, only to meet her end at his bloody hook, incensed over her offensive blatant disbelief of him.
Annie runs to her old house and runs into Matthews. They go to the slaves quarters, a huge flood occurs and the building is starting to be washed away. Annie finds the mirror, but the Candyman show her his past as the same way that he's showed Helen Lyle. She is sympathetic but destroys the mirror anyway, destroying Candyman. Annie, Mathew and the other kids (who came to rescue Annie) leave happily ever after.
Candyman 3: Day of the Dead[]
Candyman somehow returns once again from beyond the grave; this time, during the eve of Day of the Dead, to haunt a Los Angeles art gallery owner named Caroline McKeever, the daughter of Annie Tarrant. Then, he goes about killing all those associated with Caroline (starting with artist named Miguel Velasco, her lover, and following with her roommate Tamara) in his usual gory ways with his hook and making it appear to the authorities that Caroline is the one responsible for the killings.
He also kidnaps her friend David de la Paz and makes it appear to the authorities that Caroline is the one responsible for the killings. Particularly when seasoned police detective (and closet prejudice of most minorities) L.V. Sacco dies, which not only brings the whole local police department down on her head; but puts her in the firing line of Sacco's equally bigoted partner Lt. Detective Samuel "Sam" Deacon Kraft who has no intention of bringing her in alive.
When Caroline visits Abuela after the Candyman abducts both David and Michael, Abuela informs her that evil cannot exist without good, and she must destroy the Candyman’s “good” – his paintings – if he is to perish which is the one of Helen made the painting portrait of him from seven years ago since she was a child in Chicago in her childhood.
Caroline is kidnapped by a gang who take her to an abandoned building. She recognize Chris and his friends from her past and call Candyman in hope of sacrificing Caroline to Candyman to end the murders, but Candyman kills the whole gang. He reveals to Caroline that after her mother Annie Tarrant told the story of him, she called him to give herself to him to protect her daughter like Helen did. Candyman killed her by slitting her throat with his hook and made it look like a suicide. He also reveals that he killed her father Paul, uncle Ethan, and grandparents Coleman and Octavia. Candyman killed her parents by manipulating her into his slave and took the paintings. Caroline, enraged, threatens to kill him for killing her family, but Candyman disappears. Caroline explores the building and finds David alive but injured. Candyman suddenly appears and convinces her to give her life to him. However Caroline, changes her mind and destroys the painting of him that Helen made and was the cause of his resurrection with a hook, causing the Candyman to burst into flames, killing him for good.
Caroline frees David but is attacked by Detective Kraft, who tries to kill her with a hook but is shot in the back of the head by Detective Jamal Matthews, who was following Kraft. Before he dies, Kraft gasps in shock "Candyman!" Caroline then remembers her mother's advice to destroy the myth and tells Matthews that Kraft was the Candyman killer. After the news that Kraft was the psychopath killer with the Candyman’s murders.
Victims[]
Candyman[]
- Clara - Killed by Candyman offscreen
- Bernadette - Killed by Candyman offscreen
- Dr. Burke - Ripped to pieces w/ hook to the back
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh[]
- Professor Philip Purcell - Hooked in back by Candyman
- Paul McKeever - Hooked in back, split from groin to gullet
- Coleman Tarrant - Found killed by Candyman in flashback
- Honoré Thibideaux - Bee'd all to hell, thrown through wall
- Detective Ray Levesque - Hooked through the back, thrown through a window
- Octavia Tarrant - Stabbed in back w/ hook by Candyman
Candyman 3: Day of the Dead[]
- Miguel - Hook through the back, out the front
- Lena - Killed by beeeeeeeeees!!!!!
- Annie Tarrant - Found in tub with neck slashed
- Tamara - Hook to the stomach
- Detective Sacco - Hook through the mouth hell yeah!
- Gang Member #1 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #2 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #3 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #4 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #5 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #6 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #7 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #8 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook
- Gang Member #9 - Slaughtered offscreen by Candyman w/ hook