October Horror 2013: 10 - The Serpent and the Rainbow

The Serpent and the Rainbow is a 1988 Wes Craven movie based on a book of the same name by ethnobotanist Wade Davis regarding the case of Clairvius Narcisse, a Haitian man who was declared dead, then stumbled into his home village 18 years later with stories of a Bokor (dark voodoo shaman) who drugged him with Tetrodotoxin (puffer fish) to make him appear dead, then dug him up and forced him to work on a sugar cane plantation.  The Bokor kept Clairvius subservient and confused using constant doses of Datura.  He is presented as the first real-life Zombie.

The movie concerns anthropoligist Dennis Allen, played by Bill Pullman, who is employed by a pharmaceutical corporation to got to Haiti and procure a sample of this supposed "Zombie" powder.  His contact in Haiti is a local psychologist who's been treating a few former Zombies who've managed to escape and make it back to town.  From there he winds up being pulled into a power struggle not only for Haiti's government but the souls of its population.

Between Craven and dealing with Voodoo we're pretty much guaranteed some cheese, but it's actually surprisingly well integrated.  Especially towards the end there are little bits of humor which are nice.  There are some attempts earlier, but I feel like they fell flat and seemed weird or forced.  However, the exploration of Voodoo is done in a much more interesting way than in other movies I've seen where it comes off as "and this is a voodoo thing THAT IS SPOOOOOOOOooOooOKY!", while here it's given a certain real-world weight while still having the quality of myth.  This works especially because of the rational behavior of Dennis, who is clearly a scientist the whole time just a bit over his head in a world of legends and magic.

The pacing is good and I like the ramp up as Dennis initially ignores then believes his hallucinations and comes to terms with a world with voodoo magic.  There's some minor faltering here and there but nothing egregious, and there are several nice bits with very good creepy imagery like the scene with the flaming boat they drew on for the cover.  The last half of the movie is the one with most of the good stuff but I don't think it would stand up without a passing familiarity with the first half.

It wasn't really scary in any major ways, but hit a lot of good notes.

We're traveling this weekend so updates will be hard to come by, so the next few movies may be rolled up into a multi-movie update with short paragraphs just so I can catch up more easily.  Not sure yet.  Stay tuned.

--PXA