& zombies?!
One of my favourites from the 80's--a sleek, subtle(r), underrated thriller courtesy of the gore-master himself--I can't even count how many times I've seen this movie:
Loosely based on ethnobotanist Wade Davis's non-fiction account of his investigations into Haitian zombification, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) stars Bill Pullman as the ethnobotanist/anthropologist Dr. Dennis Alan, and also features Cathy Tyson, Zakes Mokae, Paul Winfield & a pre-CSI Paul Guilfoyle (he's so young & cute!).
For those of you who enjoy this sort of thing, here is the American trailer:
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Well shot & decently acted, this movie practically screams das Unheimliche. Pullman is quite believable as the relentless doctor, however, south-afrikaner Zakes Mokae steals the show for me as creepy witch doctor/bokor Dargent Peytraud.
Just look at this face:
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I first saw The Serpent and the Rainbow around the time it was released & not surprisingly, it still resonates with me today, some 20 odd years later! This is one of those movies that sticks with you.
The dream sequences in this heavily atmospheric & somewhat disjointed--but never too disjointed--film are quite literally nightmarish. The effects are realistic. The setting is haunting & lush. And the subject matter—zombification—well, everyone who knows me knows how I feel about zombies!
Of all the movie monsters out there--and there are so so many--the zombie is perhaps the most frightening. Why? A loaded question, but I think it stems from the fact that zombies are most like us. In fact, they are us. Only an us that is 'un'conscious, dead to the world.
The dream sequences in this heavily atmospheric & somewhat disjointed--but never too disjointed--film are quite literally nightmarish. The effects are realistic. The setting is haunting & lush. And the subject matter—zombification—well, everyone who knows me knows how I feel about zombies!
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| Good enough to eat ... you. |
While the zombies of our imagination are typically (thanks mostly to Romero) portrayed as flesh-eaters, real zombies prove to be much less opportunistic & dangerous. The zombie originated in Haitian folklore (something Craven definitely kept in mind). There have been hundreds of (mostly unsubstantiated) accounts of men & women returning from the grave after allegedly being poisoned by some kind of drug that rendered them 'lifeless,' yet years of research has only turned up a few toxic fish-based powders that mimic the effects of anaesthesia. When the powder wears off, these 'zombies' usually return to their homes to 'haunt' their families, or as is suggested in the movie, are dug up by some evil houngan's henchmen & put to work. Like Christophe (played by Conrad Roberts, who coincidentally had a part in an episode of CSI).
*Spoiler alert*
In our film, the powder is blown onto our hero's face and he soon finds himself paralyzed but completely conscious of his surroundings. Here's where things get tricky. While under the influence of this drug, he has all sorts of hallucinations, including visions of being buried alive! And the viewer has the pleasure/pain of experiencing it right alongside him through a series of clever POV shots. In this case, the shots are quite effective. (Another director who successfully uses a similar type of POV shot is Aldo Lado in La Corta Notte Delle Bambole di Vetro aka Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971)).
Forgive me for the seemingly unrelated intrusion, but if you have seen both movies you will know what I mean. And besides, it gives me the opportunity to show you the killer cover:
Dig?
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But now, back to the zombies.
Although they aren't dangerous in the same way modern brain-slurping gut-munching talking running thinking zombies are, traditional zombies aren't any less sinister. The ramifications of zombification are obvious: good ol' fashioned mind control. What better way to force someone to bend to your will than to remove all traces of (self)consciousness from his/her mind!
Sidebar: Governments have long used prescription drugs & alcohol to 'legally' exert mind control over their public (but that is a subject for another kind of blog!).
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(It always comes back to mind control, doesn't it?)
If you like your zombie movies crunchy & bloody & not the least bit serious, don't bother with The Serpent and the Rainbow. Although there are plenty of scares, Craven is restrained here & so are his zombies. Which brings me to the point.
(Does there really have to be a point?)
No. But it's almost always where things start to get weird.
*Another Spoiler alert*
Dr. Alan enters a strange world when he arrives in Haiti. Everything about the place is contrary to what he knows/thinks he knows. He is arrested several times by the police, framed for murder, nearly castrated, beaten, sent home at gunpoint (but not without his prize) only to return to Haiti to be drugged & subsequently buried alive & unearthed/brought back from the dead (if only in his mind). And finally, after defeating the bad guy, our battered hero emerges from the battle triumphant. (Sounds like a story I once read ...)
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Usually what appears to be uncanny turns out to be less than mysterious, nothing more than our minds playing tricks on us. But there are those rare instances where it turns out to be something more.
We could travel to Haiti in search of zombies, completely confident in the versimiltude of our own realities.
Like Dr. Alan.
We could be researchers looking for a specific kind of drug that creates these zombies. A drug certain companies would be very interested in acquiring.
Like Dr. Alan
We could be tourists simply looking for a tax break.
Like Dr.Alan.
And we could find nothing but civil unrest, corrupt city officials, & some hallucinogenic fish powder & the occasional strange custom.
Like Dr. Alan.
Or, we could find ourselves, like Dr. Alan, unable to wake from some terrific nightmare.
We could find ourselves
zombified.
W.B. Yeats
Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?
