The Serpent And The Rainbow (1988)

Craven's best film....

This is my favorite Wes Craven film, a very scary and intelligent film based on a factual account. Many of Craven's films (especially his early ones) have had either bad acting, poor production values, but have all had a creepy, scary quality to them that is impossible to shake. This film has very good acting, incredible atmosphere (it's shot on location in Haiti), and incredible tension. Craven doesn't go for cheap laughs here. He takes his subject very seriously, and doesn't make light of it. There's no self consciousness or the self referentialness of his latter Scream movies. Craven has said that strange phenomena happened during the shooting of this film to those in the crew who mocked the idea of the native religion, but Craven respected it deeply and nothing unique happened to him. I've always had mixed feelings about Craven, liking this film, liking some others (Last House on the Left, the original The Hills Have Eyes), and hating others (I was never a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street, and I hate self referential films like Scream in general, but Craven didn't write the script). This is one of his best films, and the one I like the most.

October 27, 2008

An underrated shocker from Wes Craven!

Dennis Allan (Bill Pullman) is a Harvard anthropologist who just came back from the jungles of South America has been given an assignment to go to Haiti to find a formula which is rumored to bring the dead back to life and can be useful. On his trip, he falls for a female doctor (Cathy Tyson) who's father is a voodoo priest named Hougan (Paul Winfield) as he finds out that the secret of reanimating the dead which can bring deadly results when it comes to Alan.

Loosely based on a true story and a book by Wade Davis, this is a very fascinating and strange film from Wes Craven that is one of his most underrated movies yet. He makes a non-traditional zombie movie in the "E.C. Comics" mode and explores the secrets of vooodoo with the myth behind bringing the dead back to life. It also has the tradition of a classic Hammer film including masterpieces like "White Zombie" to it, Bill Pullman was ahead of his time making a good performance as the anthropologist. The movie has some intense and memorable moments such as the "I want to hear you scream" sequence which will make male viewers cringe, the make-up effects are alright and the storyline is quite solid. This is a more different zombie movie then your typical George Romero or "Return of the Living Dead" movie, i recommend it for fans of zombie movies and supernatural flicks.

This DVD has great picture with good sound and picture with the only extras being a Craven Bio and Theatrical Trailer.

Also recommended: "Cemetery Man", "Pet Sematary", "An American Werewolf in London", "The Return of the living Dead 1 2 and 3", "Dawn of the Dead (1978 and 2004)", "Tales from the Hood", "Re-Animator", "Day of the Dead (1985)", "White Zombie", "Bride of Re-Animator", "Candyman", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Versus", "Zombie (a.k.a. Zombi 2)", "City of The Living Dead", "Beyond Re-Animator", "Hell of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Night of the Zombies, Zombie Creeping Flesh)", "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (a.k.a. Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue)", "The Belivers", "The Skeleton Key", "Dead Heat (1988)", "Dead and Buried", "House By the cemetery", "The Beyond", "Prince of Darkness", "Night of the Living Dead (1968 and 1990)", "Diary of the Dead", "Land of the Dead", "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things", "Shaun of the Dead", and " I Walked with a Zombie". October 2, 2008

The Serpent and the Rainbow

Although slightly distorted by Hollywood, this video tells the amazing and true story about an Anthropologist named Wade Davis who was solicited by pharmaceutical companies in the United States to find the Haitian Zombie powder for use in American operating rooms as anesthesia. February 16, 2008

Don't bother

Very bad. I stopped watching it about half way through. The story is not very believable. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it. There seemed to be a lot of yelling, very drawn out yelling. The story is very slow and it lost my interest. July 9, 2007

[2.5]--How can I not forget this movie, it so desperately needs a makeover..

..and being that this movie is close to twenty years old makes it possible. The book passed through several hands as a film property and eventually ended up in those of Wes Craven. His name was most certainly at the forefront of horror directors. The result: ugly stereotypes, anorexic socio-political allegory, scant scares, and Bill Pullman - that's "The Serpent and the Rainbow" in a nutshell. Based on Wade Davis' novel, Wes Craven's lame documentary-flavored horror story follows anthropologist Dennis Alan (Pullman) as he searches revolutionary Haiti for a mystery drug that reportedly raises the dead. With the help of a local psychiatric institution doctor (Mona Lisa's Cathy Tyson), Alan undergoes a crash coarse in the island's history, discovering a culture where 110 percent of the population practices voodoo, including an evil political leader (Zakes Mokae) who's using zombifying white powder as a means of silencing opponents. Imagery of people being buried alive is the film's calling card, and Craven handles his suffocating coffin-encased dream sequences with sufficient skill. Yet in every other respect, the film is either offensive or incompetent, from the sight of blacks behaving like superstitious witch doctors or the dance floor-gyrating possessed, to Pullman's unbearably overwrought performance as the altruistic Alan, to the persistently aggravating narration, which wants to function as helpful connective tissue between scenes but instead only provides a wealth of superfluous information that neither complements nor amplifies the already dull, pointless action.

I have seen this movie twice in my life and if its one thing "Serpent And The Rainbow" is, it's stylish. Filmed in my homeland, the movie is loaded with colorful scenery. There's tons of unforgettable religious imagery (due in no small part to the colorful nature of voodoo) as well as lots of great scenes in Haitian graveyards that stick in the brain. There's also tons of Craven-style shots (the nightmare sequences reminded me immensely of Cravens previous works) as well as some bits that came out rather nicely (the shot of a man inside the coffin being lowered into the ground). Performances are decent, especially Zakes Mokae, who plays Peytraud with subtly psychotic menace. Pullman is as wooden as ever (how does this guy keep his job?) delivering lines right from that invisible teleprompter hanging about six inches from his nose.

I also question the "based on a true story" factor: people tearing their own head off and tossing them isn't true to life. Hollywood, at times, loves to pick on voodoo given its "minority" status among the faiths and treat it a bit backwards. In reality Voodoo is not based on evil premises as is often portrayed, but instead has it's foundation in Catholicism. The Spirits that are such cornerstones of Voodoo are, in effect, angels with God and Jesus reigning supreme over all. And, there is a dark side. It is the dark side where the elements of control over others and evil show themselves, and this dark world of evil Voodoo is indeed scary. The trouble is, when making a movie with Voodoo elements it takes time and effort to explain the reality of the practice...and it is much easier to just rely on the frightening stereotypes instead. But in this film Craven explores voodoo on a rather scientific level. Although many of the events depicted are still mystic, they are always rational, and if they actually venture into the realms of the supernatural, Craven makes sure the viewer understands that voodoo has also very much to do with mental states and hallucinations inseparably embedded in the Haitian culture. This movie could have been so much better if Craven would have learned that the scariest things often have nothing to do with special effects but the root of all. Recommending this film probably wouldn't be very wise in my part but reading the book is highly beneficial.

April 20, 2007

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