The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

It is interesting to think what could have been of this movie. What we get is almost worthless but with enough to actually imagine it in better hands.

The original story, reportedly based on facts, about a white man's encounter with a strange, exotic culture and how small and ill-prepared he discovers himself to be in the density of that jungle calls for a mystical gaze, an earnest way of accepting worlds beyond. The author of that story wanted Peter Weir for the project, for good reason. Instead he got Wes Craven, who probably qualified based on the nightmares he concocted for the Elms Street movie but who is completely out of his depth here.

The result is an overkill of garish voodoo ceremony and hysteric hallucinations inside coffins. Craven piles so much frenzy upon it that whatever serious intentions existed behind the material are completely lost in it.

There's a political commentary with some bite to it; about the chief of secret police who is also a voodoo priest, making sure that people remain prisoners of their bodies inside their own minds, frightened, subservient drones. Like the military regime he serves.

The rest? The rest is impossible to take serious. The finale is particularly stupid, with people flying out of walls and a fistfight.

The situation has promise. A way of shutting people off inside their own minds, removing them from reality so that they see without seeing. Which may be conditioned superstition or more, about communion with something beyond. And about the American disbeliever eventually succumbing to this. Interesting things to play around with.

Peter Weir could have made something great with this, the movie seems tailored to his world. Perhaps he did already with The Last Wave, about white man's encounter with a mystical Aboriginal culture which, shuttering his safe notions about reality, brings him to the yawning brink of apocalypse.

I love Weir but he has his limitations. Sometimes his visions of that otherness are too tawdry, or wistfully naive. Noble savages and magical gnomes abound. The other filmmaker I would love to see make this movie is Werner Herzog with his Wagnerian romance about tragic monomaniacs battling vast, inscrutable natures. A brief glimpse of the cosmic as a revelation of individual madness and folly.

Skip this and go straight for The Year of Living Dangerously or Cobra Verde, where the encounters with the other reveal things. Or if you're specifically interested in the voodoo zombie, go further back for I Walked with a Zombie.

Fmovies: ***SPOILERS*** At the start of the film "The Serpant and the Rainbow" we see Anthropologist Dennis Alan, Paul Pullman,drink a potion made up for him by an old tribal shaman,Evencio Mosquera Slaco. it's that potion that saves Alan's life by guiding him back 200 miles to civilization from the dense and dangerous Amazon jungles but at the same time causes him to have mind-bending hallucinations for the rest of he movie.

Back in Boston Alan is contacted by his old friend Prof. Shoonbacker, Michael Gough,about going to the island nation of Haiti to find out for the pharmaceutical company, Boston Bio Corps, that he represents. Prof. Shoonbacker wants Alan to find out if there's any truth to what is known as Zombies and if so to find out and bring back what kind of drug is used to create them. Alan was to find on that strife-torn island at lot more that he could have ever expected or imagined.

Arriving in Haiti Alan gets in touch with Dr.Maricelle Duchamp, Cathy Tyson, who runs a hospital in Port-Au-Prince and has evidence that Zombie's do exist. Finding Christophe ,Corad Roberts, legally dead yet wondering aimlessly around in a local graveyard convinces Alan that there's something to this myth of the walking dead.

Tracking down the person who can make the drug, that put's people in this suspended animation that's mistaken for death, Louis Mozert, Brent Jennings, Alan is further convinced when Mozert gives the drug to a goat who suddenly dies after eating it and then the next day finds the goat alive and well. Giving Mozart $500.00 for a sample of this "Zombie" drug Alan goes back to the US to have it tested by the laboratories of Boston Bio Corps.

What Alan doesn't know is that he's been put under a spell by the brutal Baby Doc Duvalier's, the Haitian president for life, chief of the dreaded Tonton Macoute Baby Doc's secret police Dargent Peytraud, Zakes Mokae, that cause his mind to go haywire. The only way to break it is for Alan to go back to the island and confront and battle Peytruad at is own game, voodoo, or end up going insane.

"The Sepernt and the Rainbow" is a lot like the movies "I Walked with a Zombie" and "Premature Burial" in that it's more realistic in it's subject matter and tries to keep the supernatural angle in check and not let it overwhelm it's story. There is a drug, like in the movie, that cause simulated death called Tedrodotoxin and at the conclusion of the film were told that no scientific study has been able to figure out just how it works on humans, and animals, in causing their heart to stop yet keep them alive.

Even though there are a number of gruesome scenes in the movie like decapitation's and immolation's as well as cannibalism nothing can compare, or condition you, to the horror of being unknowingly buried alive and not being able to scream in order to prevent that terrifying act from happening and In the film "The Serpent and the Rainbow" it happens twice not once. With all the mind-blowing special effects in "The Serpent and the Rainbow" The most eye-popping scene in the movie has to do with modern day Voodoo Priest Lucien Celine, Paul Winfield, going bananas and literally screwing his head off.

The final sequence in the movie has Alan having it out with the crazed yet cunning Peytraud as the people of Haiti finally revolt and throw Baby Doc out of power and out of the country. Peytraud who had the souls o

Bill Pullman is an anthropologist who on a previous visit to Haiti experienced the power of black voodoo,filling his mind with evil dreams and eventuating in the murder of his pilot. His Jaguar spirit leads him to safety. Upon returning to America he is asked by a drug company to return to Haiti and investigate the process of "Zombification" as proof of a man being brought back from the dead has been discovered and the Americans of course would love to know how it is done.

In Haiti Dr Allen meets a beautiful female psychiatrist and together they become embroiled in a world of good vs evil voodoo style in search of this miracle which is in the form of a powder.

However, their is evil at work in the form of a very nasty voodoo witchdoctor, who unfortunately also happens to be Chief of Police in the very much oppressed Haiti.

This was a great film. I only just purchased and watched it for the first time on DVD for $6.95 AU, at that price I wasn't expecting much - Reviews I have read regarding this film dubbed it dissapointing, but I found it to be highly entertaining.

The film is eerie, the acting is excellent. I have found in most reviews that people have complained that the film is far-fetched and doesn't make sense. Well, in my opinion - that is the nature of voodoo -it is un-explainable and to a skeptical mind is silly, but there have been many accounts in real life of voodoo magic and it's power and this film was based on some such accounts.

The film starts of a little slow and can be described as a bit messy. However, as the plot unfolds, not only are we watching an eerie film about the supernatural, we are also watching an action packed political thriller. This is a very unusual film. There is just enough blood and gore to entertain the slasher fans, but not too much discourage the general film appreciating public.

As opposed to common belief, I found the story-line of this film to be tight, different and utterly engaging.

The Serpent and the Rainbow fmovies. Much to my surprise, this film was actually an excellent horror flick, one that I plan to watch again some day. I am glad a friend of mine recommended the movie to me, I am just hoping others will find the time to look into it.

Even more, if the story actually is based on a "true story", I will shudder at the thought of it...

In 1985, after a successful research in Amazonas, Dr. Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) from Harvard is invited by the president of a Boston pharmaceutics industry, Andrew Cassedy (Paul Guilfoyle), to travel to Haiti to investigate the case of a man named Christophe (Conrad Roberts) that died in 1978 and has apparently returned to life. Andrew wants samples of the voodoo drug that was used in Christophe to be tested with the intention of producing a powerful anesthetic. Dr. Alan travels to meet Dr. Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson) that is treating Christophe and arrives in Haiti in a period of revolution. Soon Alan is threatened by the chief of the feared Tonton Macuse Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae), who is a torturer and powerful witch. Alan learns that death is not the end in the beginning of his journey to hell.

"The Serpent and the Rainbow" is one of the creepiest and most originals zombie movie ever produced. Directed by Wes Craven, the story uses the background of political environment of Haiti and entwines horror and politics. Bill Pullman has good performance and Cathy "Mona Lisa" Tyson completes the romantic pair of the story. But Zakes Mokae "steals" the movie with a scary performance in the role of the wicked Peytraud. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição dos Mortos-Vivos" ("The Curse of the Living Dead")

I remember watching "The Serpent and the Rainbow" in a cinema when it opened 12 years ago, and although it did not strike me as a masterpiece, I never forgot it. I had always had a memory of it as a good horror film, but tonight I saw it again on television and I was impressed about how good it is. One may associate Wes Craven with "Scream" or "A Nightmare on Elm Street", but this one is certainly one of his best films. I still see it as an adventure film with horror elements, but this time I found it full of style -a touch of documentary approach, clever use of colorful locations, good handling of massive scenes with many unprofessional extras, attractive ethnic art direction, a bit of grand guignol in some performances (mainly Zakes Mokae), humor and a sensitive and sympathetic approach to a different culture. Many times one sees American films dealing with others' cultural aspects -such as political affairs and religion-, without any respect or concern. It is true that "The Serpent and the Rainbow" is not a serious drama about people's revolt, or a tract on synchretic religions (such as Cuban santería, Haitian voodoo or Brazilian candomblé), but both aspects are not just décors, but elements well integrated to the story in its own terms -that is, in a low budget feature, whose main objective is to entertain and scare the audience. The so-called "South" is such an exotic locale for most First World filmgoers, that cultural "details" often pass unnoticed, because these persons seem to be too obsessed with their own "cinematic hedonism". Craven knows it, and that is why he makes foreign tourists applaud when they have seen a real possession, thinking it is just part of Paul Winfield's show. One of the reasons that this film is good is the script. Someone mentions in another comment how cleverly it introduces more than one level in a single scene: for example, when Dennis and Marielle are looking for Christophe in a cemetery, they not only meet grave robbers for scaring effect, but they also discuss about the possibility that Marielle is using Dennis to obtain funds for her hospital, and the scene fulfills its expectation: they find Christophe, who tells them about the mysterious 'powder'. What turns off some viewers -and myself, in a way- is the cinematic forms that take all the things dealing with energy and human capacity for evil. They are sometimes too gross, others just plain funny or ridiculous; but this is a Craven film, and they did not detract me from the main objective I mentioned earlier. Besides, there are other things I enjoyed watching the film again. First, to see once again the Bill Pullman whom I used to enjoy so much (remember the dumb blond in "Ruthless People"?) when he was beautiful and had not turned into the dull American president of "Independence Day." I also recognized elements I've witnessed. A lot of the things that you see and hear in this film are not just fiction (after all it is based on a "true" story): they are all part of many Caribbean cultures -from the sensuality of the islanders, to the rite in the river, or the powder itself. And believe me: the powders work! Not only for making zombies, but also for many other things. Don't ask me how, I do not know how they do it, but I have seen them work (in Cuba -no joke intended)! So beware.