Helen Lyle is the main protagonist of the 1992 horror film Candyman. She is portrayed by Virginia Madsen.
History[]
Helen was a grad student from Chicago, who had taken up researching urban legends and came across the legend of the Candyman. She had interviewed numerous freshmen about sthe legend, with one of the students telling her a story about a babysitter who called to him. Eventually she found out that the apartment block where she lived was of similar architecture as the ones on Cabrini-Green, where the original Candyman murders had occurred. With this in mind, she doubted the myth to be true.
Nevertheless, Helen's curiosity got the better of her, and alongside her friend and colleague Bernadette Walsh, the two women said Candyman's name five times into a nearby mirror, although nothing happened. Helen and Bernadette would later visit the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green where Helen took pictures of a dilapidated apartment that appeared to have been made up into a temple dedicated to the Candyman. During this visit, she and Bernadette also met resident Anne-Marie and her infant son Anthony. Helen asked about the murders that had previously occurred and Anne-Marie was adament that the Candyman was responsible.
On her next visit to Cabrini-Green, Helen met a young boy called Jake, who also believed in the Candyman. Jake told Helen a story about a boy who had been mutilated by the Candyman in a public restroom across from the apartment building and Helen went to investigate. Inside the restroom, she was confronted by a gang led by a man who carried a hook in his hand, pretending to be the Candyman. The gangster beat Helen before leaving, giving her a black eye.
Helen later reported the incident to the police who arrested the man who had assaulted her. After giving her statement, she left only to encounter Jake again, who was upset with her. Jake thought that the Candyman would come for him because he had helped her, but Helen assured the boy that the Candyman wasn't real.
Later on, Helen was walking through a parking lot to her car when she was approached by a tall black man wearing a long coat. The stranger revealed that he had no right hand, only a metal hook embedded in the bloody stump where his hand used to be. This was the Candyman. The figure drew closer to Helen, asking her to be his victim. As he got closer to her, Helen became dizzy and blacked out.
Helen woke up to find herself in the bathroom of Anne-Marie's apartment, waking to hear Anne-Marie screaming in abject horror and finding herself covered in blood. As she opened the bathroom door, she saw the decapitated head of Anne-Marie's pet Rottweiler on the floor and saw Anne-Marie bent over her baby's cot. Anthony was gone without a trace. When Helen asked what had happened, Anne-Marie turned and lunged at her, believing Helen to have murdered her child. The two women struggled and Helen grabbed a meat cleaver from the counter, using it to cut Anne-Marie's arm. At that moment, the police arrived and Helen was arrested. The police had insufficient evidence to hold Helen and she was allowed to return home. However, Helen's husband Trevor harboured doubts about Helen's innocence, though he did not voice them to her.
The next day, while alone in her apartment, Helen was once again visited by the Candyman. The spectral killer informed her that he had abducted Anne-Marie's son and that Helen was responsible since she had broken the Cabrini-Green residents' belief in him, forcing him to manifest and shed innocent blood. The Candyman went on to say that in order for Anthony's life to be spared, Helen had to give up her own life to him. It was then that Bernadette arrived at Helen's apartment and let herself in, only to find the Candyman standing over her friend.
Helen later found herself waking up on the floor and the police inside her apartment. She found detectives kneeling over the brutalized body of Bernadette, who had been slaughtered by the Candyman. The police believed that Helen was responsible for Bernadette's murder and arrested her. This time, she was taken to a psychiatric ward as she was thought to be mentally unstable.
Helen was hospitalized for a month following Bernadette's murder. She was taken to meet with Dr. Burke who was to evaluate her and determine whether she was mentally fit to stand trial. Helen assured the doctor that she wasn't responsible and offered to prove it. Spotting a mirror in Burke's office, she turned to it and said "Candyman" five times. The Candyman then appeared behind Burke and killed him before cutting the restraints binding Helen to her wheelchair. He then disappeared, leaving Helen to find a way out of the hospital on her own.
After disguising herself as an orderly, Helen escaped from the hospital and headed home. When she arrived, she found that her husband had found a new lover and was in the process of redecorating the apartment. As angry as Helen was, she made no move against Trevor or Stacey and instead left the apartment. Seemingly out of options, she decided to return to Cabrini-Green and face the Candyman.
Death[]
At Cabrini-Green, Helen entered the dilapidated apartment where she saw the Candyman once more. The spectre embraced her and she briefly lost consciousness. When she awoke, she heard the sound of a baby crying. Running outside into the empty parking lot, she saw a pile of old furniture that had been set up for bonfire by the residents. The crying was coming from somewhere in the pile. Brandishing a hook that she had taken from the Candyman's temple, Helen crawled into the pile where she found the missing Anthony. However, the young Jake had seen Helen's hook as she crawled inside and told the other residents that the Candyman was there.
Inside the pile, Helen found Anthony, but the Candyman appeared once more, wanting to take them both. Helen stabbed the Candyman in the side with the hook before attempting to escape, but the residents had poured gasoline over the pile and started a fire. As the pile was engulfed in flames, Helen beat back the Candyman and left him to burn while she crawled out with Anthony. Although she saved Anthony and returned him to his mother, Helen suffered terrible burns, most notably to her scalp, losing all her hair.
Helen did not survive her injuries and died soon after. Later, Trevor and Stacey attended her funeral as well as all the residents of Cabrini-Green who had witnessed Helen save Anne-Marie's son. Jake was holding the hook that Helen had been wielding that night and dropped it into her grave.
After Death[]
At the end of the film, it is revealed that Helen had become a vengeful spectre just like the Candyman. After Helen's funeral, Trevor is at home lamenting over his wife's loss and how he should have remained faithful to her. Weeping in the bathroom, he looks in the mirror and utters Helen's name five times. There in the darkness, Helen suddenly appears before Trevor and guts him with a hook.