The Serpent and the Rainbow Page #2

Synopsis: In 1985, after a successful research in Amazonas, Dr. Dennis Alan from Harvard is invited by the president of a Boston pharmaceutics industry, Andrew Cassedy, to travel to Haiti to investigate the case of a man named Christophe that died in 1978 and has apparently returned to life. Andrew wants samples of the voodoo drug that was used in Christophe to be tested with the intention of producing a powerful anesthetic. Dr. Alan travels to meet Dr. Marielle Duchamp that is treating Christophe and arrives in Haiti in a period of revolution. Soon Alan is threatened by the chief of the feared Tonton Macuse Dargent Peytraud, who is a torturer and powerful witch. Alan learns that death is not the end in the beginning of his journey to hell.
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Director(s): Wes Craven
  1 nomination.
 
IMDB:
6.5
Metacritic:
64
R
Year:
1988
98 min
755 Views


What should I know about the dead?

The whereabouts of Christophe remained

a mystery, until his sister found us.

Le cimetire.

Let's go.

What his sister said makes sense.

Christophe is obsessed with death.

We will find him.

That's what you said

about the last three graveyards.

Christophe?

Christophe!

Christophe!

Christophe!

Well, this is ridiculous.

Let's get outta here. A goat...

Oh, sh*t.

Are you OK?

- They were just graverobbers.

- Graverobbers, huh?

- That makes me feel a lot better.

- You should have seen your face.

You think this is funny?

Hey, let's stop jacking around, huh?

We won't find Christophe tonight -

if he's even alive.

What do you mean "if"?

You saw the photographs.

For all I know,

they were taken before he died.

What are you trying to say?

OK, you're my only contact

here in Haiti, right?

First you let the evidence go, then

we spend a lotta time getting nowhere.

Do you think I'm doin' this

for my health? I think this is a scam.

I'm not blaming you. I've seen

the clinic. I know you need funds.

But do you think Cassedy's corporation

will shell out money for nothing?

- You think this is about money?

- Yeah.

The way Schoonbacher spoke of you, it

was as though you could walk on water.

Now I know why. Sh*t floats.

Yeah, well, why the hell

are you getting involved?

- Will you talk to me?

- Christophe!

Christophe, it's me. Dr Duchamp.

You remember me, don't you?

I remember.

This is Dr Alan.

He's here to ask you some questions.

Christophe.

I need you to remember

what happened before... you died.

You spoke about it once to me.

I remember... it all.

The coffin, the... the burial.

I... I saw it all.

Were you sick?

What was it that you felt?

The symptoms.

I heard the dirt falling, falling over me.

The darkness pressed me down.

He says the bokor, the one that made

him like this, beats him with a whip.

The bokor took his soul

and sealed it away.

He makes me do evil things.

I'm no longer free.

He sends me into people's dreams.

I'll need to... run a blood test

and I'd like to get a thumb print.

- No, I cannot take him to the clinic.

- This is my place. Not with the living.

He will find me.

No, Christophe, you're not dead.

Whatever they did to you, they did it

to trick you into thinking that.

You have a good memory.

Tell us what you remember...

...so we can stop the bokors

from doing this to anybody else.

Help us, Christophe.

It's a powder.

A poison.

It run through the skin...

...to the soul.

Christophe...

Through the skin.

A powder.

H, blanc.

Lucien. We need to ask for your help

one more time. We found Christophe.

- He told us about the poison...

- Not another word.

Let's go inside.

If you blunder into this,

my people get hurt.

The world should know

what is happening here.

You see? She is an idealist.

She simply does not understand how

dangerous these times have become.

What I'm after is gonna save

too many lives. I'm not gonna back off.

I know you know the man

that makes the powder.

One name. Just one.

The one in the hat is our man, I think.

- Louis Mozart?

- This is important?

My friend represents powerful interests,

rich American interests.

- American?

- That's right.

They have an enemy they would like

to turn into a zombie.

A zombie, huh?

- That is all?

- That's all.

$100.

You've come to the right place.

Your enemy is as good as dead.

I will catch his soul like a spider

catches a fly in his web...

...and pop it in a canari...

...like this one.

You keep the zombie's soul sealed up.

It makes the flesh your slave.

It gives you power.

You send it into people's dreams.

Whose soul is that?

This place's previous owner.

Is that right?

$100.

I cast a spell, the coup l'aire, tonight.

It's not the spell that I want.

What I'm after is the powder.

The powder.

Some say there is such a thing.

Some say it.

I guess Celine was wrong. This guy

can't help us out. I'm sorry.

Celine? Lucien Celine?

Well, of course, of course.

Lucien and me, we are like that.

A man should help his friends.

$1,000.

$700.

$400, tops.

For Celine...

...$500.

All right. Let's see what you got.

I have some powder already prepared.

You like it, blanc, huh? It is beautiful.

Come in.

With this powder,

you must be very careful.

I make it so there is no second chance.

$500, huh?

How do we know it works?

- You want proof?

- Yeah.

Marie!

Don't worry. You have enough

for ten zombies, huh?

Yes.

You are very beautiful.

Are you looking for work?

He may keep you better,

but I will love you longer.

So you see, blanc?

No second chance. So, the money?

The money?

That you get tomorrow, when I see

you raise the goat from the dead.

I wanna see the goat alive again.

Zombies, remember?

It's too dangerous to wait at the hotel,

so we lose ourselves in the pilgrimage.

And though I came for the powder...

... I'm getting into

something much, much more.

You know, I still have a hard time

putting you and all that stuff together.

I was brought up in the faith.

My father was a houngan.

I was dedicated to Erzulie at four.

First ridden - possessed,

if you will - at eight.

- There is beauty and compassion in it.

- Oh, yeah, I can understand that.

- But you're a psychiatrist first.

- There is no conflict...

...between my science and my faith.

You can give it whatever words

you will, but in Haiti...

...our God is not just in His heaven.

He's in our bodies, our flesh.

There's something you should see.

What is this ceremony?

Voodoo or Catholic?

Haiti is 85% Catholic, but 110% voodoo.

For us, Erzulie and the Virgin Mary

are the same.

Blanc.

Blanc.

Blanc.

Are you all right, Dennis?

Yeah. It was just a dream.

I had a bad dream.

She tells me this is

one of the cathedrals of Haiti.

A place not only of great beauty,

but of great spirit as well.

And maybe the place is magic.

These waters are healing.

WWBC in Miami reporting.

The word is official now.

Responding to months

of demonstrations...

... the Duvalier government in Haiti

has declared martial law.

Police and military units have imposed

a strict curfew from sundown to sunup...

It was crazy. One minute

to be in such beauty and peace...

... the next surrounded by secret police,

the Tontons Macoutes.

Strangest of all,

in the middle of all this...

... I couldn't get my mind off

the zombie, Christophe.

Why would they do such a thing to him?

Why would they make

anybody a zombie?

Christophe was more than a patient

to you. You knew him before.

No, but I knew of him. He was just a

grade-school teacher. No one important.

But he wasn't afraid

to speak out for freedom.

He was very much admired.

That's why they made him what he is.

Instead of inspiring courage,

now he only inspires fear.

Doctor Alan. Come with me, please.

- Doctor Alan, come with me now.

- All right, just take it easy.

I'll be all right.

Ah, Dr Alan.

- That's right.

- Why are you in Haiti, Dr Alan?

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Richard Maxwell

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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