The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988)

Tagline: Don’t bury me… I’m not dead!

Curiosity: Bill Pullman (Independence Day!!!) gets a nail driven through his wiener.

Plot: After totally meeting his spirit animal, anthropologist Dennis Alan (Pullman) is sent to Haiti by a pharmaceutical company to research a drug that turns people into zombies. Not so much Romero zombies as voodoo zombies. This drug, called tetrodotoxin, creates the appearance of death – recipients show an extremely low pulse and no reaction to stimuli. It also robs them of their free will, turning them into slaves. When Alan attracts attention from the local zombie drug kingpin (Zakes Mokae), he’ll have to use his wits AND his spirit animal to get out alive.

ALSO HE GETS NAILED IN THE PENIS.

Thoughts: PENIS.

Sorry, sorry. The Serpent and The Rainbow features one of the most uncomfortable scenes I’ve ever witnessed, but it’s surprisingly low on gore. If anything, it’s more of a drama than it is a horror movie, which perhaps makes it more effective. There are some fantasy elements thrown in, as Mokae summons up black magic and what-not, but it’s mostly about one man’s war against a drug dealer. There just happens to be some voodoo involved along the way.

In that sense, Serpent is one of Craven’s more modest films. It’s not aggressively frightening. But it has these flashes of disturbing images that really pack a punch. The most intense of which is, of course, Pullman’s wang getting crucified. We don’t actually see anything (As of opposed to Hostel 2, where we see everything), but man does Pullman scream like it’s real. The following scene, in which he gets dumped on the street in his bloody underwear, sells the rest of it. Scary movies prey on our deepest fears; one of mine involves getting nailed in the junk.

As for the rest of the flick, it’s solid. It’s a little slow and not quite as compelling as some of Craven’s other films, but it’s got a strong script and a decent cast. Not my favorite zombie movie, but I dug it.

Reflection: PENIS.