Rating: 3.5/5
Hooptober 4.0 | 23/31 | Wes Craven
In the legends of voodoo, the Serpent is the symbol of Earth. The Rainbow is a symbol of Heaven. Between the two, all creatures must live and die. But because he has a soul, man can be trapped in a terrible place where death is only the beginning.
Haiti, 1978 At night, a voodoo parade marches through town. A man, wearing a black hat and painted as a skeleton, leads men carrying a coffin. They drop the coffin in front of a French missionary clinic and light it on fire. Peytraud watches. At the clinic, a man named Christophe suddenly dies. The following day, they hold a funeral for him. Peytraud attends. As they place the cover on the coffin and lower it into the earth, Christophe’s eyes open and tears run down his cheeks.
Amazon Basin, 1985 Dr. Dennis Alan is an anthropologist from Harvard, on a botanical expedition. He meets with a shaman called An Hango — “the most powerful spiritual man in the Amazon.” The shaman brews an elixir for Dr. Alan to drink — they won’t let him leave until he does. Dr. Alan drinks the potion and has a vivid hallucination of a leopard. A strong wind blows and he sees Peytraud. Hands emerge from the ground, pulling the screaming doctor down. Through the hole he goes — faces and hands guide him down until the sides disappear and Alan falls into bottomless darkness.
Boston Dr. Alan gets a call from Earl Schoonbacher, a friend and former professor, now a consultant for a pharmaceutical company called Boston Biocorp. They have a meeting to discuss zombification. A recent photo proves Christophe is still alive in Haiti. Something brought him back to life. Boston Biocorp wants Dr. Alan to determine how.
Haiti Dr. Alan meets up with Dr. Marielle Duchamp to locate Christophe. Before they do, Captain Peytraud of the Tonton Macoute warns Alan to leave before it’s too late.
Don't let them bury me — I'm not dead!
The film unfurls into a horny nightmare — symbolic images flood Dr. Alan’s dreams before he encounters them awake. Some of them are pretty horrifying (compliment). The idea of drowning in a coffin filled with blood is solid nightmare fuel. I like the idea that once the zombie powder has affected you, it leaks into your waking life.
Bill Pullman is hot, Cathy Tyson is hot. We get some Pullman pubes.
Brent Jennings, who plays Louis Mozart, is charismatic and brings energy to the movie. Is he always a minor character? I would love to see a film with him in a more prominent role.
The original cut for this movie was 3 hours. It’s clear from the narration and montage. As a result, the film feels a tad shallow. We lost some characterization, but I can’t tell if it would add to the experience. Perhaps what we’re losing is a more explicit or well-defined argument about the director’s feelings about voodoo and how white people appropriate it. Or maybe that was never on the filmmaker’s mind.
My score is mostly for the bonkers effects