Ten-Year Itch

Editor’s Note: Ten-Year Itch is a weekly column focusing on a film or album at least 10 years old and deserving of a second look.

America is so far behind the times.

The recent obsession with zombies pales in comparison with the voodoo culture in Haiti, or so Wes Craven would have viewers believe.

His 1988 frightener, “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” follows an American anthropologist (played by the always-reliable Bill Pullman) who is sent to Haiti. A pharmaceutical company leads Pullman to investigate the voodoo culture in Haiti and a drug that supposedly leads to “zombification.” The company is interested using the drug as an anesthetic.

His guide, played by Cathy Tyson, runs a clinic where some of those who have been affected by the zombifying drug are staying and introduces him to the culture. The drug slows the heart rate to a near stop, and the participant is then buried alive only to be dug up later, still living. Once up and out of the grave, the person is not really a fully functioning human anymore, but more of a blank slate.

Slowly, Pullman gets deeper and deeper into the culture, with twists and scares along the way. The film is genuinely scary, but not so much in regular horror film tradition.

There is a great deal of blood and nightmare inducing surprises, but Craven’s hints at and surprises are what keep viewers at the edge of their seats.

Most of the popcorn-tossing moments are psychological in nature, whether only happening in Pullman’s head or giving the viewer the feeling they are reality. The film could easily have turned into one big trip, but it is grounded in reality. The screenplay was adapted from a nonfiction book by author and ethnobotanist Wade Davis. Davis’ book was about his travel to Haiti and investigation into a man allegedly buried alive and revived upon by a special concoction.

The whole film is filled with dread, as everyone in it may be alive, possessed or a zombie. In Craven’s Haitian voodoo culture, no one is to be trusted, not even what is in the characters’ thoughts.

“The Serpent and the Rainbow” does not get thrown around with Craven’s other big films from the 70s and 80s, but it is just as scary.

The film is brutal, suspenseful and a head scratcher at times — just further proof of Craven being a true horror master when given the appropriate material.

Luke McCormick can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 275