Interview (Written): Jordan Peele

A conversation with the writer-director-producer on the cultural relevance of horror movies.

With movies like Get Out, Us, and now Candyman, Jordan Peele has leaned heavily into horror-thriller storytelling. Here are excerpts from an io9 interview Peele did in 2019.

io9: Us feels much more ambitious in terms of the scope. With Get Out, you were touching on something fundamental — yet unspoken and uncomfortable — about dynamics that black people experience in this country. For this film, it seems like you scaled it up. It’s not just the vectors of race; it’s about the haves and have-nots and there’s an undertone of commentary on consumerism. Can you talk about the notional space you were in conceptualizing another piece of social horror?

Jordan Peele: Well, a big part of this for me was feeling like some of my favorite offerings in the horror genre work allegorically. Which, Get Out was not, really. It wasn’t an allegory. Get Out was about what it was about. It was about race. But horror that pops tends to do so because there’s a bigger picture behind the images. So I wanted to make something in that vein and pay homage to [George] Romero, in that way. The way Hitchcock has done, in that way. So I knew there was going to be a different approach to this. Lead with the imagery, lead with the character, build the levels…and trust that my audience is ready to grapple with it.

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io9: I wrote about Candyman a while back and I hadn’t watched it since college. You watch that movie and feel they’re trying to be progressive, but the way they lean on stereotypes…there’s a lot of it that feels fumbly. Do you feel that dissonance is essential to the franchise?

Peele: Very good question. I mean, first of all…it is. It’s a tricky film.

io9: Like the title character himself. He’s erudite, but he’s still a boogeyman.

Peele: Mhmm. And as a horror fan, I grapple with it. First of all, I want to say that Bernard Rose, the director of Candyman, made something that, for me, personally, a seminal film. And his vision, I think, is nothing short of beautiful, albeit complicated. It’s one that I can look at in hindsight with more experience and education and go, “Wow, that is…it’s definitely a mirror.” All I’ll say — because I don’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole — is we’re doing it differently.

io9: Sequel or reboot?

Peele: Spiritual sequel. That’s what we’re saying, that’s what we’re sticking to.

A “spiritual sequel” to the original Candyman. Check out the trailer:

Compare to a trailer for the original 1992 movie:

For the entire interview with Jordan Peele (who co-wrote the screenplay for the new version of Candyman along with Win Rosenfeld and Nia DaCosta), go here.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers, go here.