Horror film enthusiasts didn't really want to think too much in 1988, and The Serpent and the Rainbow probably had too much reality in it to become a runaway hit. It's a superior show, but in very personal ways. It's the first movie about voodoo to get beyond the business of voodoo dolls with pins stuck in them, and the first to go beyond the remarkable Val Lewton film of the 40s, I Walked with a Zombie. Apparently Lewton's research was good, for words like houngan repeat, along with possessed dances and little scarlet badges pinned to one's clothing as a safeguard from magical danger.

The reality comes in the form of the real political terror in Haiti, which didn't need voodoo to be scary. The Ton Ton Macoute are terror police let loose on the population to guarantee that everyone's too busy trembling to form an opposition to the despotic government.

Also, Voodoo, or Vaudou is presented as a troubling but not necessarily evil religion, that modifies itself to be compatible with Christianity - the madonna is also an important Voodoo god. The sorcerer Lucien Celine, played by Paul Winfield, is a practitioner of good Voodoo who tries to help the white hero. English actress Cathy Tyson grew up in the religion, and is made to dance while possessed by a Voodoo spirit, without her consent or knowledge.

The Serpent and the Rainbow is a film by Wes Craven, and one of his best. It was filmed in Haiti and The Dominican Republic, and has a look of genuine authenticity about it. After his smash hit A Nightmare on Elm Street Craven was on a roll, and this serious look at zombiecraft was an ambitious move.

Bill Pullman's hero is sort of a lowercase Indiana Jones, stepping into dangerous situations to discover new drugs for use in the US. The pharmaceutical execs back in New York (represented well by genre fixture Michael Gough, in an understated performance) think the magic is in the powder and if Pullman can get it back, they'll instantly have a miracle anaesthetic. The film is uneasily based on a book about the procurement of a real zombie dust. Titles indicate that the powder is being studied, but since 16 years minimum have passed, it doesn't seem to have yielded any miracles that I've heard of.

Probably due to Craven's deft juggling of fantastic imagery and constant hallucination sequences, The Serpent and the Rainbow manages a good balance between the pragmatism of the U.S. and the spiritual chaos in Haiti. Pullman already seems to be blessed with a guardian angel in the form of a Brazilian leopard, but when the Hatians put the hex on him, his world becomes filled with rotting corpses in wedding gowns, creeping serpents and scary spiders.

Along the way, there are scenes worthy of a classic. A very impressive (to say the least) scene has Pullman tortured by the evil Peytraud via a ten-penny nail hammered through his scrotum. After that, most attempts to shock pale in effect, and we wonder why Pullman doesn't either make himself scarce from Haiti as the bad guys demand, or organize some better security.

The hallucination scenes are excellent, all using simple camera tricks and bizarre imagery to put us in the mood for scares. Craven mastered this technique in the Elm Street movies and here the effect is devastating. We worry about how much of Pullman's existence is being manipulated by his zombie master back in Haiti, when the hostess of a dinner 2,000 miles away suddenly becomes possessed and tries to kill him.

The key scene is Pullman's conversion into a zombie himself, and his burial alive, anaesthetized to an apparent point of death and witnessing all that happens to him. It's definite concept lift from Dreyer's Vampyr done with just enough originality to chill the bones.

From then on the story is downhill, moving through a convenient revolution to make the ending an inconsistent battle between zombie and zombie master/police chief that gets too cartoonish in an effort to be commercial. I really have to believe that box office concerns directed Craven to make a left turn away from the path of originality. One of the last really good things in the story is Pullman's rescue by another zombie, the fellow he came to investigate. When heroine Cathy Tyson is saved in the nick of time from an axeman's blade, the movie circles back into silent serial territory.

The young Bill Pullman makes an athletic hero gutsy enough to stand up to the Macoute's threats, and Cathy Tyson a beautiful heroine and love interest (a shame, as a certain tension leaves the story when they become lovers). Paul Winfield seems to be having fun being scary, and great support comes from Brent Jennings, the boastful Voodoo chemist, Conrad Roberts, the credibly scary zombie, and Zakes Mokae, a terrifying police chief.

Besides the compromised finish, the film may have had a voiceover imposed on it, to make the story events perfectly clear. It's possible that Wes Craven wanted the story to be more opaque, which might have been a good choice.

Universal's DVD of The Serpent and the Rainbow is a good transfer of an element which can be darkish and grainy in some scenes, and lucidly clear in other. After a murky opening, things generally stay better throughout, and the only degraded film is re-purposed newsfilm from Haiti of the revolution. The authentic-sounding Caribbean music is well reproduced on the soundtrack. There are Dolby surround tracks in English, French and Spanish, along with subtitles.

I give The Serpent and the Rainbow an A- among horror films. It's intelligent and ambitious, qualities in short supply in genre films of the 80s, and shows Wes Craven at his creative best.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Serpent and the Rainbow rates:
Movie: Very good
Video: Very good
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Trailer
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: November 12, 2003