Serpent and the Rainbow: Zombie Movie or Not?
Where do we draw the line on what is and what is not a zombie movie? We just can’t decide on our own, so every Monday we’ll post a new movie to be debated by, you, our readers and ask the question: Zombie Movie Or Not? Every Sunday we’ll post our findings and possibly strike that movie off our Zombie Movie List. The week should give you enough time to rent the movie if need be or you desire.
What every reader must keep in mind is that there are two basic types of zombie that every zombie movie based off of – the Voodoo Zombie and the Romero Zombie. The Voodoo Zombie, while not always raised by Voodoo necessarily, is basically a person, either undead or entranced, that is controlled by a person or entity for the purpose of completing tasks, often killing. Romero Zombies are basically mindless, flesh-eating undead whose bite will turn victims into zombies. Now, not all movies adhere to all of these rules, but if the basics are there, you got a zombie movie.
This weeks debate is over The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) Directed by Wes Craven.
IS: This movie deals directly with the source of real haitian zombies.
IS NOT: There are no walking dead in this movie. No dead = not a zombies movie.
Now it’s up to you, reader. What do you think? The Serpent and the Rainbow: Zombie Movie Or Not?
Comments(24)
ughhhh voodoo zombies… hmmmmm? more thought and discussion requires. i am on the fence because i can see reasons to say no and yes
Voodoo zombies? YES. Where does everyone think the whole concept of the zombie came from?
This may not be a flesh-eating zombie movie, but it’s zombies. Know your roots, people!
This is clearly a zombie movie. The Haitian zombies might not be literally dead, just in a coma like state from drugs, but they are recognized as dead by local doctors, buried, and then “brought back” later on when the drugs have worn off. The lack of air when you are buried alive (along with the trauma of being buried alive) kills brain cells leaving the victim in the classic zombie like state and forced to work for the priest that put them in this state. This is the very essence of what zombie movies are based on, whether its “I Walked With A Zombie” or “Night Of The Living Dead”. The only thing that has been added over time is the cannibalistic craving for human flesh/brains. While some people might argue that some recent biological zombie movies like 28 Days Later or Quarantine might not be zombies movies because the monsters aren’t undead, just suffering from some form of rabies or similar pathogen that is on set almost right away and involves no death. Haitian zombies that “Serpent and The Rainbow” deals with die both in a symbolic sense, and to the eyes of everyone around. Doctors, friends, family, any witnesses see the victim as dead. No apparent pulse, no breathing, no reaction to stimulus. When they are brought back they are in a state of reduced motor skills and speech. Sounds like zombies to me.
I’ll have to go with a YES, but only because how the question is raised. It is a movie about voodoo and zombies, but it’s not a part of the “Zombie Movie Genre”. It’s too bad Romero’s ghouls were called “zombies” by some dorks back in the day (Romero himself didn’t contribute to this misconception). They have nothing to do with voodoo or zombies, and hence the genre we love should be called the “Ghoul Movie Genre” (or perhaps the “Flesh-Eater Genre”).
Colum: I think you’re dead-wrong, pun intended. But then again, I think 99,9% of people are wrong in this matter. (I’m of course the only one who’s not wrong.)
It’s been ages since I’ve watched this, but of what I can remember it was more on the practice of Hatian Voodoo… but now this is one I have to rewatch…
yeah, i am going to have to go back to a paper i wrote which was featured on library of the living dead in which i discuss the origins of undead in mythology. YES. voodoo zombies.
zombie movie!
I understand your hesitations on this movie and your argument, Pork-Eater, but George Romero didn’t invent the “zombie movie genre”. The basic ground work (corpses being brought back from the dead with poor motor skills, almost no speech or thinking capacity beyond simplest tasks, and little to no memory of their previous lives) is the same in the early voodoo zombie movies and Romero’s movies. He may have had a different take on it, but so did Danny Boyle in the often contested 28 Days/Months Later movies and in subsequent “zombie” movies where the antagonists aren’t even undead anymore. I don’t think the writers of 28 Days Later intentionally thought of the infected as zombies, but it was the “dorks” who watched them that made the case (even if it is still a point of contention).
The main argument that Serpent and the Rainbow would not be a zombie movie is, as DJ pointed out, that the zombies in the film are secondary characters and not the main point of focus. The main point of the movie is the voodoo priests and the process of making zombies. You could argue that this isn’t a zombie movie, its a voodoo movie because the focal point is the process not the end result. Most other zombie movies, whether they are dealing with voodoo zombies or Romero zombies focus on the threat provided by them (or the voodoo master controlling them by proxy).
just reading colums response is enough for me to vote yes
Colum: DJ does make a good point, so I will change my verdict to NO, not a zombie movie, but rather a voodoo movie.
As for Romero’s work being about zombies, I’m not buying the arguments. The man himself said in a fairly recent interview that he didn’t even realize that the ghouls in NotLD could be interpreted as “zombies” before he had spawned an entire genre. So NotLD has nothing to do with older zombie movies at all. I feel it has more to do with survival horror movies (like The Day of the Triffids). Sure, both his movie and older movies featured walking dead people, but that’s superficial. If anything, I feel NotLD has more in common with The Last Man on Earth – another b/w survival horror movie. It is however possible that Romero was in some shape or form influenced by all of these movies without even knowing it. (What his co-writer Russo was inspired by is another story entirely.) But that doesn’t make NotLD any kind of direct progression from older voodoo style movies (I Walked with a Zombie, and the like)!
As for 28 Days Later, it’s an obvious homage to Romero’s work, even if Boyle refuses to call it any kind of “zombie movie”. Romero doesn’t also think of it as such either – because the infected aren’t dead. But they are, of course, both wrong.
This movie is not worthy to be in my zombie collection because:
a) it stunk.
b) there aren’t any re-animated corpses (which is my definition of a zombie).
Not a zombie movie.
Yes. Definately a zombie movie. Point in case is that this is the Voodoo variety. Its where in their religion of voodoo in Haiti actually believes and uses such things as zombie powder to make mindless beings. Which are zombies. Even though Bill Pullman’s acting was not his best its not a bad movie if you are interested in fact based cases of zombism. Check out the book called the Serpent and the Rainbow.
I’m voting yes here, I agree with Colum.
Again you make a good argument, Pork-eater. Night of the Living Dead does take more from Last Man On Earth, but in order to distance his movie from just a direct ripoff of the vampire antagonists from the Vincent Price film. George Romero totally re-imagined the zombie genre, but it was still there before he came along. He might not have recognized, or intended, the viewers to interpret his flesh eaters as “zombies” but that was how the audience interpreted it. In the end, its the audience who left to interpret the art. By your own viewpoint, even though Boyle and Romero don’t recognize the 28 Days Later and the sequel as zombie movies, but you, the viewer, still view it as such. It is the viewer who is left to interpret these things, often reading more into a movie than maybe creator even intended (think of all the movies that have been seen as a Christ/Bible reference even if the creator didn’t intend it).
For all you people who agreed with me outright, I hate to disappoint but pork-eater and my own reflections on the movie, I actually want to change my vote to No. This isn’t a zombie movie. This is a movie about voodoo that has a couple of zombies in it, but the focus of the movie is more on the process than on the result.
A voodoo zombie is still a zombie.
Definitely a zombie movie in the more traditional and factual sense. For those that think zombies need to eat flesh to be deemed a zombie movie, the zombi powder that is created by the bokor does contain human remains.
The “zombie” or the notion of people returning from the dead has existed in folklore for thousands of years all throughout the world. The Serpent and The Rainbow features the most widely known factual evidence of ‘zombies’ in the lore of Haitian voodoo. Which is also where the term “zombi” is derived from.
Regardless of the semantics of what constitutes a “zombie” or a “zombie movie”, which is widely open to all sorts of interpretation, this film is definitively a zombie movie.
The zombie movie is already a sub genre of the horror genre, there’s no need for sub-sub-sub genres like ‘voodoo zombie movies’ etc.
~RM~
I think the argument at this point is that while the film does contain zombies, are the zombies themselves the main focus of the movie? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this wasn’t a zombie movie. For it to be a zombie movie in any incarnation (voodoo, undead, or infected) the zombies would have to play a central role. Bill Pullman’s character is there looking for the process of making zombie powder, not to make zombies, but to use to develop an anesthetic for a pharmaceutical company. When he travels to Haiti, he gets drawn into the world of the voodoo priests, their powers, and the sway they hold over the local government. There is a zombie in it, and Bill Pullman’s character undergoes part of the process himself, but those scenes just there further the plot along as needed and aren’t the main theme of the movie.
If 28 Days Later spent the duration of its plot stuck in a lab with scientists studying the rage virus it wouldn’t be a zombie movie. If the same theoretical movie did feature a couple of test subjects who shown in only a couple of scenes, were infected, but safely isolated and never posed a threat, it still wouldn’t be a zombie movie. If Night Of The Living Dead was just a movie about seven people from different backgrounds who lived together, argued alot, and happened to feature a couple of shots of zombies, it wouldn’t be a zombie movie. It would be the Halloween episode of the Real World.
So is there some sort of official set time or number of zombies to appear on screen before it’s deemed a zombie movie? Zombies are usually secondary characters in most every zombie film anyways, why would they need to play a “central role?”
If Wade Davis’ intention was to go to Haiti in search of the zombie powder so that he could make his own zombies then you’d consider it a zombie film? Is that what you’re saying? You’re not giving an accurate recount of the film’s premise…his intention is to obtain a ‘real’ sample of the zombi powder and his endeavor takes him into the heart of Haitian voodoo which then becomes the rest of the film’s premise. That’s not “furthering the plot”, that IS the plot.
I Am Legend (the book, not the atrocious film) was more about the ill effects of a post-apocalyptic world on the human psyche. It did however feature vampires that tormented Robert Neville at night, what genre would it fit into?
Oh and I believe the examples you gave would still be considered zombie films. Often times the more interesting plots are the things that we don’t get to see but let our own minds envision.
~RM~
By your own description of the plot, RM, this movie isn’t about zombies themselves. Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman’s character) is there to find a real sample of the zombie powder (not the zombies themselves). He then gets drawn further into the voodoo practices and the people involved. Christophe, the zombie Alan meets, is a plot device. Meeting him shows Alan that the powder may be real and allows the story to proceed with the voodoo and its practitioners. The point of the movie is the powder, not the actual zombies, and the voodoo priests. Its the process not the end result that is the focus.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula starts out mentioning Dracula wanting to buy properties in London, resulting in Harker going to Transylvania. That doesn’t make the movie about Victorian Era real estate. It was a plot device to further the story along.
In answer to your questions, no I don’t think there is a set time or number of zombie appearances to qualify a zombie genre movie. Idle hands has two zombies in it that appear frequently, but I wouldn’t call it a zombie movie. The fact that they are zombies isn’t the point of the story. If the intention of the Serpent And The Rainbow was to have Dennis Alan go to Haiti in search of zombie powder to make his own zombies and he did make zombies, then yeah it would be a zombie movie because then the end result of the voodoo (the zombies) would play an important role in the story. In Serpent and the Rainbow, the end result isn’t as important as the process (the powder) and the practitioners (the voodoo priests). I wasn’t saying that finding the powder was just there to further the plot, I was saying Christophe, the actual zombie, was.
As for what genre I Am Legend fits into, I can’t really comment, because I have not read the book (shame on me). Looking at the movie of the same name (yeah it was bad) then yes, I would say that it was more of a post apocalyptic movie than a vampire movie because the fact that they were vampires was pretty much irrelevant other than the monsters had a sensitivity to light. Last Man On Earth fits much better into both the genres.
Most often in zombie films, the protagonist is the infection or outbreak itself which spawns secondary characters, i.e. zombies. Zombies don’t have to be the “main focal point” of a film for it to be considered a zombie film.
I’m not understanding your logic. Basically what you’re saying is that if Alan went to Haiti to obtain the zombie powder to bring back to the US to make his own zombies then you would consider it a zombie film? So in essence, if we distorted the factual finding’s of Wade Davis and Davis was here in the States creating zombies then it would be a zombie film? You do understand that the film is loosely based on anthropologist Wade Davis’ experiences in Haiti right? Are you saying that zombies can only exist in fiction? You should check out Davis’ book ‘Passage of Darkness’.
In the film, Christophe was portrayed as the evidence of the effects of the powder which plays a pivotal role in the film. I don’t think his character was thrown in as filler, his character is based on an actual case of zombism in Haiti.
The zombies are always the main point of the of a zombie film. Its not the infection that is the main threat, its the infected. The mass of undead trying to eat your flesh, or in the case of Haitian voodoo zombies, the mindless servants of a controlling master. They are (with the exception of the occasional movies like Fido) the antagonists. The zombies, as a group since their individuality is mostly gone, are always a central character of a zombie genre movie regardless of what style of zombies they are.
My logic is that Alan wasn’t there to find zombies, he was sent to find the powder that makes them. If the story wasn’t about just finding the powder, and instead more about using the powder and the end result (zombies) of using it, then it would be a zombie movie. Instead the movie centers on the finding of the powder and the voodoo practices and practitioners in general that it was connected to. This is a Voodoo movie.
Yes, Serpent and The Rainbow is loosely based on actual events. Yes, zombies are part of the actual voodoo practices in Haiti and Africa. Yes these are real things. The argument isn’t if Haitian zombies are zombies, or if the events have any grounds in reality. The argument is if the movie Serpent and the Rainbow is a zombie movie or not. I don’t think it has enough focus on the actual zombies to qualify as a zombie movie. Its a Voodoo movie that has a zombie in it. The part does not make the whole. Wade Davis’ actual experiences doesn’t change what Wes Craven chose as the direction of the film.
I disagree that zombies are the main focal point of zombie films. Anyone can throw a bunch of zombies in frame and have a zombie movie. It’s the devastation, hopelessness and uncertainty that makes the films interesting. The more interesting films deal with the mental anguish of the situation albeit in relation to not just the zombies but the bigger picture of the outbreak…the overwhelming sense of doubt.
Take Harry Cooper for instance, he couldn’t handle the mental torment of the situation and went homicidal. Take the entire story arc of The Walking Dead comic, the zombies completely take a back seat to all of the things going on with the main characters and their mental downward spiral, creating all sorts of imbalance and completely crazy people that are more terrifying than zombies. 28 Days Later has the military as a facade of a safe haven when in actuality, all they want to do is rape and pillage. The societal breakdown and what comes along with that is much more terrifying than walking corpses.
It would be strangely ironic to be cowering in fear of zombies and ultimately be taken out by the 17 year old kid that works at Pizza Hut having a mental meltdown.
I never said the infection is the main threat, I don’t think you could pinpoint a main threat. However, the infection is what got the ball rolling. You have the infection in whatever fashion that it originated and still exists in, then you have subjects that are exposed and become infected who in turn attempt to spread the infection. Given the situation, you’re not going to know right off the bat what causes the infection, you’re going to fear EVERYTHING… it could be airborne, it could be contaminated water, whatever…you’re going to be wary of everything because you don’t want to become infected. Undead things trying to eat my flesh and kill me are scary, yes but there are a lot of other threats given the situation.
I will say that I’d be interested to see a shift change and have more focus from the perspective of the zombies (like the film Colin) and less narrative from the survivors perspective.
Also…
“Night of the Living Dead does take more from Last Man On Earth, but in order to distance his movie from just a direct ripoff of the vampire antagonists from the Vincent Price film. George Romero totally re-imagined the zombie genre.”
Last Man On Earth is based on I Am Legend which Romero has been quoted as saying he generously borrowed the idea from Matheson when creating Night of the Living Dead.
For sure a zombie movie, creepy as hell too when you think that this stuff actually happens.
I think that given the subject matter, any zombie fan would be happy to view this movie and gain a little perspective on the history and nature of “real” zombies.
Yes, zombie movie.