Wes Craven was one of the crucial prolific administrators to ever grace the canon of horror cinema. His early movie The Final Home on the Left helped to outline the slasher style, whereas his seminal work A Nightmare on Elm Road reinvented it. Later hits like Scream and its sequels would take the style in daring new instructions, and plenty of of his different movies have remained related, corresponding to The Hills Have Eyes, which continues to affect filmmakers at present. A real grasp of horror, Craven’s work is well-known and celebrated by horror followers in every single place. That stated, there are a number of lesser identified films in his filmography which have slipped by way of the cracks. One such film is his 1988 anthropological nightmare The Serpent and the Rainbow.
Regardless of releasing to usually favorable critiques and performing reasonably effectively on the field workplace, The Serpent and the Rainbow didn’t develop into an prompt cult favourite. Maybe it was misplaced within the deluge of ‘80s horror flicks, then overshadowed by Craven’s personal essential hits Scream and New Nightmare. Whereas it has now made it onto lists of the director’s best films, The Serpent and the Rainbow stays an underseen gem of ‘80s horror that’s ripe for rediscovery. Right here’s why this 1988 voodoo zombie jam wants extra love.
A Terrifying True Story
The Serpent and the Rainbow is about Physician Dennis Alan, who travels to Haiti in quest of a mysterious drug rumored to be able to bringing the useless again to life. Although the movie takes many inventive liberties, it’s based mostly on a real story (a minimum of, a considerably true story). Wade Davis’ 1985 guide, The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic, serves as the primary inspiration for the movie’s plot. This guide presents Davis’ personal firsthand account of his journey in Haiti, throughout which he investigated the case of Clairvius Narcisse, a person who Davis claimed had been a zombie for 2 years.
The guide describes the laborious course of and the plethora of substances concerned in crafting “Haitian Zombie Powder,” a poison which is alleged to kill and subsequently re-animate the sufferer. Though Davis’ claims had been met with widespread criticism from the scientific neighborhood, his story was fascinating sufficient to encourage screenwriters Richard Maxwell and Alex Rodman to adapt it to movie. The movie modifications the names of the folks within the guide and expands upon the zombification course of, tying it in with a well timed story about revolution and political management in Haiti. The result’s an Indiana Jones-esque journey infused with nightmarish visuals and a palpable environment of impending doom that could be a true spotlight of Craven’s oeuvre.
A Hallucinatory Descent into Horror
The Serpent and the Rainbow introduces its hero, Dr. Alan, in a shaman’s hut within the Amazon jungle. The shaman implores Alan to eat a particular medicinal herb, and when he obliges, a wild hallucination ensues wherein he each fights and cuddles with an impressive jaguar, and falls down a bottomless pit stuffed with writhing corpses. This scene units the hallucinatory, nightmare-like tone of the film, and it solely will get crazier from there. Encounters with the residing useless, visions of family members’ future demises, and a chase by way of a jail hall lined with the outstretched arms of the just lately deceased observe.
The movie is loaded with scene after scene of creative and genuinely horrifying horror, together with the scene the place Alan is buried alive, which is one of the scariest in Craven’s prolific profession. The looming political strife and secret police-filled alleyways create an air of inescapable paranoia that serves because the cherry on high of all of the black magic terror. Along with including to the general sense of unease, the real-life political turmoil supplies a historic context that grounds the horror in actuality, making it all of the extra convincing and unnerving.
The Finest Voodoo Zombie Film
Not solely is The Serpent and the Rainbow one of many best zombie movies ever made, it simply could be the very best film ever made about Haitian voodoo zombies. There have been loads of others, together with the Bela Lugosi-starring traditional White Zombie and the Val Lewton-penned I Walked with a Zombie, however neither can compete with the attentively detailed and fantastically realized terror of Craven’s movie. A part of what makes the movie nice is the way in which that it treats voodoo extra significantly than different movies of its ilk. Esteemed critic Roger Ebert agrees, stating that the movie presents voodoo “as a faith, a lifestyle, and an occult circle that does possess secrets and techniques unexplored by fashionable drugs.” As a personality within the movie states, “Haiti is 85% Catholic, however 110% voodoo,” and that is plainly evidenced by the way in which that each Haitian character, even the level-headed medical doctors, verify voodoo’s pervasive nature in society.
The movie holds voodoo customs within the highest of reverence, as one thing highly effective and worthy of respect, relatively than a easy (learn: racist) outsider’s perspective on the “unique” practices of Haitian society. Including to the authenticity of the movie, the scenes depicting possessed dancers had been captured, according to Puzzle Box Horror, by “truly filming voodoo practitioners who had been in a trance state.” The eye to element stays unmatched by another voodoo zombie film so far.
The Horror Grasp Perfects His Model
Ask any horror fan and they’ll let you know: Wes Craven is one of the greatest horror movie directors of all time. Regardless of this, not all of his work is as extremely thought to be A Nightmare on Elm Road and Scream. The mid-80s discovered Craven in a little bit of a essential downturn, with 1985’s The Hills Have Eyes Half II being an entire catastrophe, and 1986’s Lethal Pal not doing a lot to make up for it. Luckily, The Serpent and the Rainbow happened in 1988 to revive his reign because the grasp of horror. The movie is a real return to kind following the earlier years’ misfires, and even options his signature motif of trapping his characters in an area someplace between dream and actuality. The script is tight, the fashion is creative, and the particular results are phenomenal. The Serpent and the Rainbow is an underseen tour de drive for Craven that deserves extra recognition.
