L'emprise des ténèbres

Nice trip to Voodoo wonderland: Wes Craven did a good job with The Serpent and the Rainbow, capturing the exotic magic and world of Haiti. Production, acting, story solid, with that special exotic extra flavor. The only thing I gotta complain, I would have spiced up the level of horror a tiny bit. Well, sometimes we can't have everything, sadly, I should add ;)

Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow" is one of the more original and ambitious horror movies to come out of the '80s. Not only does it seek to reconnect cinematic zombies with their voodoo roots, ala classics like "White Zombie", but it also uses the creation of zombies as a political allegory. The film is set in Haiti during the last days of the dictatorship of "Baby Doc" Duvalier.

Based - very loosely one surmises - on a true story, the plot follows Dr. Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) as he investigates a powder that is said to turn people into zombies. He is aided in his quest by Dr. Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson), who he quickly falls for, and Louie Mozart (Brent Jennings) an expert in voodoo. Dargent Peytraud (the chilling Zakes Mokae) is the snarling villain of the piece, a man with sinister powers both government-sanctioned and supernatural.

The film abounds with creatively gruesome imagery - a man is buried alive, screaming, in a coffin as it fills with blood, a fiendish hand reaches out from a bowl of soup - this is one of those rare films that genuinely makes your skin crawl. Horror fans should not miss it. It's a shame that the film runs just a little longer than it should and becomes disappointingly routine in its final moments.

There is a sense that this movie was aiming a bit higher than it ending up reaching. I can't quite hold that against it.

The best thing about "The Serpent and the Rainbow" is probably the topic it covers: Not known to the general public (including me, until I watched the film and researched the subject a little more afterwards), the so-called zombies, which legend has it that they are people who were condemned by sorcerers to become living deads, are in fact nothing more than the victims of a special powder thrown to them, whose active ingredient is a substance which is now well-known by scientists worldwide. This substance has the effect of rendering the person in a dead-like state (no ostensible breathing, moving, etc.), while his brain is still lively (which means that the horrified person is even able to understand what surrounds him, without being able to do anything about it); in such cases, an inexperienced doctor claims the person deceased, and he is then put into a grave. When the effect of this substance starts to diminish after 12-24 hours, the sorcerer is usually there to undig the completely shocked and shattered person, convincing him that he is now his zombie-slave.

The movie is based on a true story by a scientist (Pullman) who went to Haiti, a country were such practices were rife, in order to get his hands on this substance and provide it to his employer, a pharmaceutical company, in order to analyze it and use it as an anaesthetic. In his quest he was assisted by a female local psychiatrist (Tyson), who treated several "zombified" people. However, he soon realized that things were much more complicated than that, as the police chief (Mokae), who used this zombie-trick as one of his suppression tools, was quite unhappy with this intrusion.

Although based on a very interesting story, the movie goes a bit far and becomes a typical horror film, full of black magic, terrifying visions, etc. In my opinion, it would be much better if the plot sticked to the basics, as from some point onwards everything (and especially the ending) becomes too unconvincing.

The cast does a fair job, despite the fact that it includes actors not widely known. The make-up and scenery produce and impressive atmosphere, traveling the viewer to the mystifying secrets of Haiti.

Grade: 7/10.

First I have to mention that while the book (The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis) is infinitely better and deeper than the movie that shares its name, comparing the two is unfair. The audience is informed that the movie was "inspired" by the content of the book, for whatever interpretation you give inspired. What makes the book more interesting, aside from it being a true documentary, is how it balances light and shadow in much the way the Vodoun religion balances both. This film may leave you thinking that Haiti is a horrible place filled with monsters and boogeymen, and I don't think that's a fair estimation.

The film confuses many things and ideas which I feel should have been explained. Not everyone is an ethnoreligionist, after all. Totems, houngans, hounfours, mambos, bokors, le Bon Dieu, and the Amazon shaman are just mentioned in passing as if this is everyday vocabulary to the audience. The character of Marielle is presented as a dedicant of the goddess (loa) Erzulie. Well, this is a nice touch, but what of Damballah and his consort Aida-Wedo--the original serpent and the rainbow? And what about the man dressed as a skeleton in an obvious tribute to Baron Samedi--yet the Baron is never mentioned. What really made me chuckle is how Alan's totem saves the end, a totem we had only seen in glimpses without the concept of a power animal ever being explained.

Through in the confusion of the collapse of the Duvalier government and we have the perfect recipe for movie mayhem. Oh, come on...you just knew the overthrow of Duvalier had to work itself in here somewhere, right? We must have the obligatory "I am an American citizen--you cannot touch me" scene when dealing with the so-called Third World.

Bill Pullman was entirely wrong as the protagonist. I just found it unbelievable that this man could find his way out of a Happy Meal box let alone 200 miles of Amazon rainforest. He is abrasive and unpolite, two things which are professional suicide for anybody dealing in international cultures. All right, one can allow for a certain degree of cynicism on his part, but I find it difficult to believe that a man of his caliber and academic background would be fool enough to shoot his mouth off as he does.

Watch this film with an acrostic eye. It isn't a bad film, in spite of the faults I personally found with it. Just watch it cautiously. If it whets your interest, definitely go check out the Davis book.

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...