Customer Reviews
Interlectual viewing - By: A. I. Missen, 28 Dec 2007 
After viewing People Under The Stairs etc..I was somewhat hesitant in purchasing S&T.Rb (Serpent & The Rainbow) especiallly as it was made a lot earlier. I very much enjoy watching horror films, but personallly, they need to have a good strong story, good acting, good camera work & music score when needed.
I purchased S&T.Rb a couple of weeks ago, & what my wife & I watched, was an excellent interlectual horror film. Haitians are very strong believers in Voodo & continues to this day.
What you watch is a very strong cast of actors & actresses, especiallly Bill Pulman & the wonderful & non-ageing Kathy Tyson !! sorry readers a little senstive when it comes to our Kathy Tyson !!
The story is NOT far-fetched & when the word Zombie is mentioned you can understand the meaning of the word. Not, like our wonderful George A. Romero of the walking dead back to life, but an interesting in-sight into Zombiefication & how it occurs & the onset of long term mental health issues.
The powder that is mentioned, & seen, in S&T.Rb is today still secretly under wraps & even to this day medical professionals are still trying to work out the affects & how it is made.
There are a couple of scenes that seem to take the viewer away from the main story, but are soon put back on track.
The scene where poor old Bill Pullman is trussed to a chair, naked, is enough to make any Man's Man go straight for their crutch !!!! only if he could REALLY scream, may be his would of been spared !!
Well made film. Personallly, one of Wes Craven's better films. I do hope that Hollywood are not going to rouine the remake of Last House on the Left.
AN UNDERRATED WES CRAVEN GEM - By: stuart, 03 Nov 2007 In late 70s Haiti, a personal revolution sweeps the island. The voodoo priests on the island assume control & begin to practice their dangerous spells on the population. Dennis Alan, (Bill Pullman) a botanist working in the Amazon basin, is exploring the uses of a psychotic drug used there & has to crawl his way through the jungle to get back home. Once there, he is sent to investigate the discovery of a zombie in Haiti. Skeptical at first, David goes with the best of intentions to now how to reanimate the dead. When he arrives at the hospital that houses the rumored zombie, he is introduced to a powerful voodoo priest's ceremony. There he meets Lucien Celine, (Paul Winfield) a personal friend of Marielle Duchamp, (Cathy Tyson) one of the nurses. As he continues his relentless pursuit of the zombie drug, Dennis is immersed into the world of voodoo & ancient spells that goes way over his head. Tortured by what he knows & what he feels is going to happen to Marielle, David has to fight for his very soul amidst the powerful voodoo priests.
The Good News: This is one of the very few horror films ever made that treats it's subject matter as accurately as possible. It's true that alll the depiction's & discussions about voodoo & its power are real. Those are real practitioners of voodoo performing on film, & how it happens in the film are real representations of how voodoo works. That adds to the realism to the film, because real-life horror is far scarier than anything else a human mind can come up with. To me, the world of voodoo is something that is beyond merely tampering with, & this film is a wonderful guiding principal for those who might be interested in it. Whatever the people in the film are doing to the regular characters to turn them into zombies are very powerful people, & the spells & potions used to control & create them are just as powerful. This gets so much better when he has been overwhelmed with the voodoo world, & everything comes crashing down on his world. The practice of making a zombie is fully explored, & the process is an incredibly creepy one. We get to know it in intricate detail, & the realness of it makes it that much more compelling. Once he knows the process of creating the drug, the movie kicks into hyper-drive as he is just relentlessly tortured by what he knows, & that it happens in a quick manner of time is staggering. What reallly gets to you is the dream sequences he keeps having. My favorite is the first one, early on in the film. He dreams he's inside this candlelit room & witnesses a wedding being performed. The bride wanders over to him with the veil down, & as she gets close to him, he lifts the veil to reveal the bride is a charred corpse. She pulls her mouth down, & out shoots it's tongue & latches onto his chin. One of my favorite scenes in the film, & one of the biggest scares in a movie as well. Another big one is the part where he's dissolved into a walll of blood, that was a creepy scene. It was also nice since the torture inflicted on him was more mental than physical. And what needs to be said for the heart-stopping climax? It is justifiably famous, & it is a true twist ending that hardly anyone will be able to spot coming, yet is completely in tone with the rest of the movie. It reallly is one of the best endings to a film ever.
The Bad News: Because of the supernatural & religious themes portrayed in the film are very accurate, it may upset the very religious persons out there. This is something that some may be put off against because it may clash with their faith.
The Final Verdict: I don't know why this one isn't more well known among horror fans, but this is one of Craven's best friends. It's very accurate about its subject matter, & that is so rare in today's movies. See this one at once, alll Craven fans, supernatural & horror fans, but the overtly religious should exercise caution.
Scary or What?? - By: ianrmillard, 30 Nov 2006 
This is one of the few films which got me sweating (especiallly as the hero is interrogated by the Ton Ton Macoute chief & voodoo villain). Set in the time immediately prior to the deposition of Baby Doc Duvalier's inherited rule on Haiti, it does bring out some of the hopelessness of that first black-ruled "state" (only Liberia beating it as a place not to live...). The film is a cinematographicallly stunning & riveting mixture of adventure thriller, political thriller & horror movie. The three parts interact seamlessly, which is a huge achievement. Well worth buying. I saw it on British TV 15 years ago but forgot the title & only tracked it down via the international movie data base. Get it.
Not My Favourite Wes Craven Film - By: Mark Wayman, 09 Jul 2004 
This is based on true story. And I once saw a documentary about the 'voodoo' drug that this film is about. So the base material is true.
This is not your typical Wes Craven horror movie. I don't reallly class this as a horror movie. I do believe in voodoo but I find some of the things that happen in this film hard to swalllow.
The film may work as a 'Romancing The Stone' action-adventure type film but I don't think this is a very good horror movie, it's not the least bit scary & it's not one of Wes Craven's best films.
About the closest Hollywood ever got to real Voodoo - By: Wildfire, 14 Mar 2004 A remarkable film set (mostly) in Haiti, adapted from Wade Davies' semi-autobiographical novel. Hollywood does not usuallly come up with stories about real Voodoo - strange, then, that this film deals with its darker side, the making of zombies. Perhaps that makes it sensational enough for Hollywood! Believe me, zombies are not the shuffling, shambling creatures of Lenzi & Fulci films - they are real enough, drugged close to death & buried for between 24 & 72 hours (depending on various things). Subsisting on very little oxygen, victims' brains are damaged & they spend the rest of their lives robbed of will & purpose, the slaves of those who commissioned their creation. The ceremony is serious & dark Voodoo (Vodou to the congnescenti), embracing the Voodoo world-view of death & power to the priests who appear to "bring the dead back to life." Let is be said that this is a "last resort" punishment in Voodoo, akin to the death sentence elsewhere.)
This film captures the essence alll right. It is brilliantly photographed, atmospheric & well acted.
Bill Pullman is charged with obtaining the zombification formula for a pharmaceutical corporation. Revealing it violates Voodoo secrets & the miscreant is punished. The entire cast is convincing but Zakes Mokae plays a brilliant Chief of Police with a degree of irony & ruthlessness so very in character with Papa Doc's ton-ton macoute (secret police) - not the people you want dealings with after a night on the town!
Aside from being a first class horror/thriller, it is laden with Voodoo symbology & sentiment. It probably goes near the knuckle violating Voodoo secrets but thankfully stops short! Bear in mind the film is fiction but based on life.
I rarely rate a film full marks but this one deserves it.
