Candyman is a 1992 American gothic supernatural black horror film, written and directed by Bernard Rose and starring Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons, and Vanessa E. Williams. Based on Clive Barker's short story The Forbidden, the film follows a Chicago graduate student completing a thesis on urban legends and folklore, which leads her to the legend of the Candyman, the ghost of an African-American artist and son of a slave who was murdered in the late 19th Century for consummating a relationship with the daughter of a wealthy white man.