The Serpent and the Rainbow

Dir: Wes Craven

1987

****

The one thing I’ll never understand about Wes Craven is why he directed The Hills Have Eyes II but not A Nightmare On Elm Street II. Between the original Freddie film (1984) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), Craven made Chiller, The Hills Have Eyes II and Deadly Friend, as well as a couple of TV shows. He wrote and produced A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors just before directing The Serpent and the Rainbow but didn’t have anything to do with Freddie until he brilliantly re-booted the franchise in 1994 with Wes Craven's New Nightmare. I really admire that he was never tempted to return for more and continued to look for other projects. Not all of them turned out that well but The Serpent and the Rainbow remains one of his overlooked masterpieces. Based on the non-fiction novel by ethnobotanist Wade Davis, it recounts the author’s experiences in Haiti investigating the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was allegedly poisoned, buried alive, and revived with a herbal brew which produced what we now know as a ‘zombie’. Author Davis agreed to sell the book rights on the condition that Peter Weir direct and Mel Gibson star. This clearly didn’t happen but, as much as a Weir/Gibson film would have been interesting, Craven and actor Bill Pullman produced a great film. The story begins in 1978. A Haitian man named Christophe mysteriously dies in a French missionary clinic, while outside a voodoo parade marches past his window. The next morning, Christophe is buried in a traditional Catholic funeral. A mysterious man dressed in a suit who was outside Christophe's hospital window on the night he died is in attendance. As the coffin is lowered into the ground, Christophe's eyes open and tears roll down his cheeks. Seven years later, Harvard anthropologist Dennis Alan is in the Amazon rainforest studying rare herbs and medicines with a local shaman. He drinks a potion and experiences a hallucination of the same black man from Christophe's funeral, surrounded by corpses in a bottomless pit. Back in Boston, Alan is approached by a pharmaceutical company looking to investigate a drug used in Haitian Vodou to create zombies. The company wants Alan to acquire the drug for use as a "super anesthetic". The corporation provides Alan with funding and sends him to Haiti, which is in the middle of a revolution. Alan's exploration in Haiti, assisted by Doctor Marielle, locates Christophe who is alive after having been buried seven years earlier. Alan is taken into custody, and the commander of the Tonton Macoute, Captain Dargent Peytraud - the same man from Christophe's funeral and Alan's vision in the Amazon - warns Alan to leave Haiti. Continuing his investigation, Alan finds a local man, Mozart, who is reported to have knowledge of the procedure for creating the zombie drug. Alan pays Mozart for a sample, but Mozart sells him rat poison instead. After embarrassing Mozart in public, Alan convinces Mozart to show Alan how to produce the drug for a fee of $1,000. Alan is arrested again by the Tonton Macoutes, tortured, and dumped on a street with the message that he must leave Haiti or be killed. Alan still refuses to leave and meets with Mozart to create the drug. Alan has a nightmare of Peytraud, revealed to be a bokor who turns enemies into zombies and steals their souls. When Alan wakes up, he is lying next to Christophe's sister who has been decapitated. The Tonton Macoutes enter, take photos, and frame Alan for murder. Peytraud tells Alan to leave the country and never return, lest he be convicted of the murder, executed, and then his soul stolen by Peytraud. He puts Alan on a plane, but Mozart sneaks onboard and gives Alan the zombie drug. Mozart asks Alan to tell people about him, so that Mozart can achieve international fame. Alan agrees and returns to Boston with his mission apparently completed. At a celebration dinner, the wife of Alan's employer is possessed by Peytraud, who warns Alan of his own imminent death. Alan returns to Haiti, where his only ally, a houngan named Lucien Celine, is killed by Peytraud and Mozart is beheaded as a sacrifice for Peytraud's power. Alan is then sprayed with the zombie powder and dies; later, Peytraud steals Alan's body from a medical clinic before Alan's death can be reported to the US Embassy. Peytraud takes Alan to a graveyard where, helpless in his coffin, Alan sees that Peytraud has captured Marielle and will sacrifice her. Peytraud shows Alan Celine's soul in a canari. Alan is then buried alive with a tarantula to "keep him company". Waking up in his coffin a few hours later, Alan is rescued by Christophe who was also turned into a zombie by Peytraud. Having escaped Peytraud's trap, Alan returns to the Tonton Macoute headquarters looking for Marielle. There, Alan defeats Peytraud and sends his soul to hell. As the Haitian people celebrate the downfall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Marielle proclaims "The nightmare is over". During production in Haiti, the local government informed the cast and crew that they could not guarantee their safety for the remainder of the film's shoot because of the political strife and civil turmoil that was occurring during that time and as a result, production was relocated to the Dominican Republic for the remainder of the shoot. Amazingly, the original cut was three hours long but Craven felt that it was too long and talky so it was cut down to 98 minutes. It received a mixed reaction when it was first released and not all was positive. I think it is still overlooked to this day, probably due to the fact that people still see the director as the man being Freddie and the Scream franchise. It was also marketed terribly. The trailer for the film was completely misleading. The clip, which is styled like a hallucination, features a blue computer rendering of the screaming face of Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) engulfed in liquid, as serpents swarm through and around the top of his head. This isn’t in the final cut of the movie and has very little to do with it. The is horror within the film but it’s not the same as Craven’s previous films, indeed, it is a little more grown up. There is horror within the film but it contains far more mystery and implication, rather than gore and jump scenes. It isn’t perfect but on the whole it is largely original and has a unique dream-like quality about it that I really liked. It’s creepy and it leaves the viewer haunted. I used to be scared of going to sleep after watching A Nightmare on Elm Street for sure, but the implications explored in The Serpent and the Rainbow kept me awake as an adult.