The 1980s Horror From A Master Director Based On An Even Scarier True Story

The Serpent and the Rainbow is the story of anthropologist Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) and his exploration of Haitian Vodou powders in the midst of that nation’s 1980s revolution against its ruthless dictator. Alan is sent to the country by a pharmaceutical company whose owner believes that a vodou bokor (priest) is making a powder that is able to zombify helpless victims. Believing that this powder could be used as a type of safer anesthetic, he commissions Alan to the nation to bring back samples.

The Serpent and the Rainbow finds Alan and his Haitian contact, Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson), tracking down a man named Christophe, who was declared legally dead and buried seven years earlier. Christophe’s family has made sightings of the man since then and allege that a local bokor turned him into a zombie slave. Things take a turn for the worse when Alan is detained and threatened by Captain Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae), the leader of the Tonton Macoute (secret police).

Not heeding Peytraud’s warning to leave Haiti, Alan tracks down a person who claims he can make the zombie powder by isolating the poison from a puffer fish. As he is waiting for the powder to be finished, Alan has recurring nightmares about Peytraud that reveal the military police officer to be a bokor that has been zombifying people for years.

The Serpent and the Rainbow sees the bokor Peytraud exact brutal retribution on Alan for meddling in Haitian affairs. You’ll wonder if the anthropologist and his newly found allies will make it out of Haiti before Peytraud is able to use the powder to zombify Alan and capture his immortal soul.

The Serpent and the Rainbow is loosely based on the autobiography of Canadian anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis, who theorized that tetrodotoxin could be used to put unsuspecting human subjects into a powerful trance. He first posited this theory in 1983 and doubled down on it in the 1985 book that later bore the same name as the film.

Davis believed that the bokors used tetrodotoxin as the main active ingredient in what he referred to as “zombie powder.” Subsequent studies have shown that while this chemical can cause paralysis, numbness, and death, there is no evidence to suggest that it causes a trance-like state like Davis described.

One theory that supports Davis’s theory is that the powder slowed down the body’s heart rate enough that doctors in a developing nation might not be able to detect it and declare the person deceased. A bokor that arranged for their target to be buried under the influence of the powder but still technically alive could measure how long the victim could survive after running out of oxygen in their casket. Digging them up and reviving them, they would have a brain-damaged “zombie” that could function after the effects of the zombie powder wore off.

Davis pointed to a real person who claimed to have been a victim of the zombie powder in Haiti, a man known as Clairvius Narcisse. Narcisse was admitted to a Haitian hospital in the early 1960s and declared dead, but resurfaced in 1980, claiming that he was dug from his grave and forced to work at a local plantation. His family verified his identity, two American doctors swore by his account, and he served as the basis for The Serpent and the Rainbow character Christophe.

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The Serpent and the Rainbow certainly takes poetic license with Davis’s writings, but director Wes Craven does an incredible job taking these spins and making them as terrifying as possible. The scene where Alan is buried alive is particularly frightening, creating a sense of claustrophobic horror that is difficult to top. The spiritual elements woven into the storyline are also well done and help to paint a more vivid picture of what other forces might be working to help (and harm) humanity.

The Serpent and the Rainbow isn’t currently streaming for free, but you can rent the film On Demand through Prime, Vudu, Google Play, and AppleTV.