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| From http://projectdeadpost.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2013/05/TheSerpentandtheRainbow.jpg |
Dir. Wes Craven
Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Easters (1979) - [review here] - brought zombies back to their Voodoo roots, but this film tackles the
origins of the folklore, not of "destroying the brain" or gut
munching, but Haiti and people being brought back from the grave as slaves to
sorcerers. The Serpent and the Rainbow
is an adaptation of a non-fiction book of the same name by ethnobotanist Wade Davis, but especially from midway
through, its best to see this adaptation as a Wes Craven horror film first. Ethnobotanist Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) is assigned to Haiti by
the pharmaceutical company he is working with to investigate an incident of
zombism with the help of a local doctor in the region Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson of Mona Lisa (1986)), specifically in the hope he brings them back a
biological explanation for the phenomenon that, in chemical form, they can sell
as an anaesthetic for medical purposes. As he and Marielle become more closer
romantically, and he comes across a witchdoctor, Louis Mozart (Brent Jennings), who may help him
acquire a zombie creating powder, he also unfortunately encounters the secret
police of the country. The film is set during the last year or so of Jean-Claude Duvalier, son of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier,
both notorious for being dictators, the main antagonists for this film being a
fictionalised version of the Tontons Macoutes, a paramilitary force active
between both reigns, personified in the film as Captain Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Morae), leader of the group who
are willing to kidnap and torture people, but with an added force in that Peytraud
is a black magic sorcerer of immense power who heads a group of loyal
worshippers in the dark arts, who may in fact have captured souls of some of
their victims and turned them into zombies amongst his various crimes.  |
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The obvious issue between a non-fiction
novel becoming a horror film which is effectively about scary black magic
versus good heroes is that it does sound like typical mainstream cinema where
the heroic white male comes in to rescue the minority victims of another
country and have the local female character, tough but sexy, fall in love with
him. The film thankfully avoids this by having a sense of scale and detail,
because of the subject matter, which prevents this from happening. The flaw
with the film is that it's a conventional horror film at its core, not
necessarily an issue in terms of the results but that aspects of the film
aren't as creative or engaging as they should be. What makes it interesting is
the subject material itself and when the film becomes more of a horror story at
the end. The subject matter lifts the film up immensely. When films invoking
zombies usually means the brain eating dead, a rare film which takes them back
to their origins is something of interest, especially as they are merely a part
of a bigger, real mythology from Haiti and Voodoo culture, which the film takes
pains to describe and explain for a curious viewer. The zombies themselves, the
few included, are people who seem to have had their minds taken from them, able
to commute still to others but in a state adrift from everyone, petrified
statues that can still walk. They merely are a piece of a film that is more
about the supernatural and occult magic. Of souls being taken by evil
witchdoctors and ritual combined with motifs common more to Hollywood cinema -
nightmares about living corpses, jump scares - that nonetheless do work. It's a
film working with an entire brand of religious practice and mythology rarely
seen in the genre, and while it may be slightly dodgy in terms of making it
more cinematic rather than the accurate reality, the fact remains that the
entirely different set of symbology being used is helpful to the film, reliving
it from the dust of more frequently used symbology of other supernatural and
religious beliefs that have become dulled from overuse. This is as interesting
seeing Pullman's character getting
involved with Mozart, and the play between them before the later finally gives
in and lets Dennis Alan in on how real zombie powder is made, as it is in him
being repeatedly threatened by the Tontons Macoutes. Admittedly the fictionalisation
of real life events for more dramatic purposes always has an air of
tastelessness in not careful, as the revolution that took place in Haiti in
real life ends the film, though in this case it's never trivialised baring a
teaspoon of syrup, and the decision to make Pullman
unable to stand up to the group by himself, capable of being harmed by them in
a sequence with a eye-watering use of a nail that you rarely see male heroes in
films endure, adds a nice dramatic tension, both in that the white foreigner is
not going to be able to merely get by because he should as the white hero in an
Hollywood film, and that it's as much the magic that is of importance for the
ending.
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The other virtue is that, as the
supernatural and black magic content increases, the film develops the same tone
as A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) where
a creative dismissal of tangible reality is used in favour of the scares and
how the symbology is used in the film. Wes
Craven is an odd director in terms of someone who has become a "Master
of Horror" cinema, from the same era as George A. Romero or a Tobe
Hooper. While with a Hooper a
trademark is obvious, and someone like Romero or John
Carpenter has a consistent interest in particular themes, Craven has been all over the place in
the type of films he's made - from the repulsive shock of The Last House On The Left (1972) to the meta-slasher Scream (1996) - and does feel more like
a working director who follows trends then particular obsessions. I've seen a
few films, but there's no sense of a clear through line yet, and it's strange,
unless I start giving his career and full overview one day, that he could go
from The Last House On The Left, to
this, from The Hills Have Eyes (1977),
to a musical drama Music of the Heart
(1999) aside from the fact that he merely works in films as just a career,
a dangerous word to use as it sounds dismissive, but for me in this case means
that Craven would probably not care
about auteur theory as long as he made films he thought were good. There is one
thing, though, that does feel like a consistent trait of his, and it's the
creative dismissal of tangible reality that I've already mentioned, the film
effectively transforming into A
Nightmare On Elm Street as the hallucinations being used against Dennis
Adam as a weapon increase when torture isn't enough. Whether the film works as
a successful adaptation of a book that was a document of a real case of
zombification is really up to debate, that and as a serious dramatic film, but
as an entertaining horror film, it does kick up into high gear and a better
quality when the hallucinatory and supernatural aspects build up. It's more
enjoyable then rather as a popcorn flick, but far from dismissive, Wes Craven has always had a talent for
unsettling and creeping out the audience. My inability to find a consistent through
line is more because I've yet to see all his work, someone who has dabbled in
many types of film, and that doesn't detract from him being a good creator of
tension and scariness.
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| From http://movieboozer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/ 10/the-serpent-and-the-rainbow-zakes-mokae1.jpg |
Abstract Rating
(High/Medium/Low/None): None
There was no chance for this to
be added. It's more nightmarish sequences certainly have a flair for them, but
not enough for the list, and the rest of the movie is a conventional horror
film.
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A Cinema of the Abstract movie?
By itself, The Serpent and The Rainbow is an underrated little horror film,
not the best but with a lot to like. The really interesting thing for me, with
the above question, is this film's place in terms of building up a director, Wes Craven, by what his work is in
quality and content. Whether his career has been consistently good is up to me
watching everything and seeing what I enjoy, include films that others would be
aghast at. Whether any of it has any interest for the blog's theme depends on
the films I've yet to see, but as my interest in Wes Craven has become significant, to be able to see how a director
can shift over multiple decades in their work is always something of interest.
In this case, it's nice to see a topic rarely done being made into a film, and
while not perfect, it's still considerably good.
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