As is always the case with many icons of horror, they didn’t start out making horror movies. Kane Hodder was a stuntman and some of his earliest roles were in action movies like Lone Wolf McQuade or comedies like Hardbodies. Robert Englund appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Stay Hungry and Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born. And Sid Haig was appearing in blaxploitation movies alongside Pam Grier.
Yet, they are all known and loved by horror fans for their contributions to the genre. Tony Todd was just barely in his 30s when he was cast as Sergeant Warren alongside a lot of unknown actors such as Charlie Sheen, Forrest Whittaker and Johnny Depp in the Oscar-winning ensemble Platoon. Todd would basically become a go-to actor for roles as military figures as he would appear in movies such as Colors and The Rock.
But as the 20th Century winded down, he would find himself appearing in multiple horror franchises. The first was as Ben in the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. The movie was mostly a play-by-play of the original George A. Romero classic with Romero writing the screenplay and John Russo producing. Tom Savini was the director and they upped the violence and tweaked some characters and scenes.
Reviews at the time with negative with Roger Ebert commenting they spend more time hammering doors and tables over the windows than anything else, which they do. I still don’t like it as much as the original even though the Barbara character isn’t the annoying hysterical woman she was in the original. There’s just too much yelling and screaming.
But in 1992, Todd would be cast as the titular character in a horror movie called Candyman. By this time, slashers had virtually just vanished from the mainstream. Yet, Candyman is much more than that. It’s loose adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden” as it focuses on the escalating socioeconomic differences of white and black people of the Reagan/Bush era. Todd doesn’t even appear until halfway through but he makes the role his.
Todd had a very deep baritone voice and there’s almost like a haunting echo to it. I remember an older student in the Communication Arts Department my first year in college who voice reminded me of Todd’s, Nowadays, it’s called ASMR but you could listen to it read a phone book and be interested. That student was going into radio and broadcasting and I hope he found his job of choice.
The story of Candyman is a sad reminder of the plight and the horror of America. English filmmaker Bernard Rose made it and it’s best that it’s an outsider looking in. Todd plays a freeman named Benjamin Robitaille who was murdered for his involvement in an interracial relationship. He impregnated a white woman and his right hand was sawed off. He was smeared with honey from a nearby apiary and stung to death by bees. His body was then burned in a pyre at the location of the infamous Cabrini-Green Housing Projects in Chicago.
Filming was done at the desolate (and now demolished) apartment buildings which add more to the creepy vibe as the movie is set during winter in the MidWest. The protagonist is grad student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) at University of Illinois-Chicago who has a run-in with a gang while taking pictures at Cabrini-Green. They attack her and knock her out with a hook. And she only sees the Candyman after she recovers.
I’ve argued that Helen’s head trauma combined with her fascination with the Candyman Urban Legend and realization of her husband’s adultery led her to snap. When Helen first sees Candyman, she envisions him as a 1970s pimp style character. For many young white people in the early 1990s, they’re still was a lot of prejudice (even more than today) about black people and their place in society.
Critics were mixed over the movie but it was a modest success considering its budget and spawned two sequels, which retconned Benjamin as an enslaved person instead of a freeman. Philip Glass also dismissed the musical score he made for the movie even though it’s very haunting and eerie as it’s used over aerial shots of the Windy City.
Todd would land his next role as Grange, the right-hand man to crime lord Top Dollar in The Crow. While the movie isn’t totally horror, it has supernatural elements to it as Brandon Lee plays a man who returns from the dead to avenge his and his fiance’s murders.
Other roles during the 1990s would include the low-budget cult horror Wishmaster, which had Wes Craven as an executive producer. Then, he proved to be one of the best parts of the 2000 horror flick Final Destination as William Bludworth, a owner of a funeral home who is an expect on Death. He would appear as Bludworth in the second and the firth Final Destinations while lending his voiced to the third movie. Reportedly he had reprised the role of Bludworth a final time in a new Final Destination movie set to be released in 2025.
Todd began the 21st Century a horror icon now, where ever his appearance was noteworthy as he would play Reverend Zombie in the Hatchet series Standing at an imposing 6-foot-5, he had a presence whenever on screen. He would also voice Darkseid in several DC Comics animated movies as well as lend a cameo to the 2021 Candyman legacy sequel.
According to imdb.com, he had over 250 acting credits in movies and on TV include the 24 and Star Trek series. That’s not too bad as he also found time to teach playwriting to high school students.
Todd died on Nov. 6 at the age of 69 reportedly from cancer. He will be missed by many.
What was your favorite role or movie of his? Please comment.
Zane Says 