A children’s ghost story comes to terrifying life in this gut-wrenching thriller about a graduate student whose research into modern folklore summons the spirit of the dead. Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) laughs when she interviews college freshmen about their superstitions. But when she hears about "Candyman," a slave spirit with a hook hand who is said to haunt Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing project, she thinks she has a new twist for this thesis. Braving the gang-ridden territory to visit the site of a brutal murder, Helen arrogantly assumes "Candyman" can’t really exist... until he appears, igniting a string of terrifying, tragic slayings. But the police don’t believe in monsters, and they charge Helen with the grisly crimes. Only one person can set her free: "Candyman."