The Serpent and the Rainbow 1988

In 1978, a Haitian man named Christophe mysteriously dies in a French missionary clinic as a voodoo parade marches past his window. The next morning, Christophe is laid to rest in a traditional Catholic funeral, and a mysterious man in a suit—who was outside Christophe’s hospital window on the night he died—attends the ceremony. As the coffin is lowered, Christophe’s eyes open and tears roll down his cheeks, hinting at something beyond a simple burial.

Seven years later, Harvard anthropologist Dennis Alan travels to the Amazon in search of rare herbs and medicines, studying how shamanic practice and plant lore intersect with healing. After drinking a potent potion, he experiences a chilling vision: the suited man from Christophe’s funeral appears again, this time amid a pit of corpses.

Back in Boston, a pharmaceutical company approaches Alan with a controversial project: to investigate a drug used in voodoo that can induce zombie-like trances, with the aim of turning it into a powerful anesthetic. Enthusiastic about the potential, the company funds Alan’s next expedition and sends him to Haiti, which is then convulsed by political upheaval. With the help of Dr. Marielle Duchamp, Alan arrives in the island nation and there, within a turbulent landscape, he locates Christophe alive, not buried at all but rather living in hiding. The revelation triggers a tense confrontation as Alan is seized by authorities, and the formidable Captain Dargent Peytraud—the very man from Christophe’s funeral and the Amazon vision—warns him to leave Haiti at once.

Determined, Alan presses on and learns from a local man known as Mozart how the zombie-making procedure supposedly works and how it might be acquired for a hefty price. Mozart tries to swindle him with a sham sample of poison, but after a public humiliation, he agrees to teach Alan the actual method for a fee. Alan’s pursuit is brutally interrupted when the Tonton Macoute detain him again; he endures a brutal torture involving a nail driven through his scrotum and is dumped onto the street with a stark warning to get out or face death. Refusing to abandon the mission, Alan re-engages with Mozart to complete the drug’s production.

Nightmares deepen as Alan confronts the true nature of Peytraud—revealed in the course of terrifying dreams as a bokor who steals souls and enslaves enemies. When he wakes, he finds Christophe’s sister decapitated, and the henchmen arrive to frame him for murder. Peytraud delivers a chilling demand: depart Haiti forever, or face execution, his soul claimed in the process. A U.S.-bound flight becomes a perilous route back to Boston, but Mozart slips aboard and foists the zombie drug upon Alan once more, asking for public fame in return. Alan agrees to share the discovery and completes the mission, seemingly returning the process to the external world.

At a celebratory dinner, Peytraud possesses the wife of Alan’s employer, signaling fresh trouble on the horizon. Alan returns to Haiti, where his only ally is a houngan named Lucien Celine, who is killed by Peytraud. Mozart is beheaded as a blood sacrifice to empower Peytraud, and Alan is sprayed with the zombie drug, dying in the process. Peytraud then abducts Alan’s body from the hospital, delivering him to a graveyard where Marielle is held in peril and where Celine’s soul is displayed in a canari. Alan is buried alive with a tarantula to “keep him company,” only to awaken hours later and be rescued by Christophe, who has also been turned into a zombie by Peytraud.

Reinvigorated, Alan returns to the Tonton Macoute headquarters to confront his foe. A final clash unfolds as Alan confronts Peytraud in a battle of wills, drawing on Celine’s white magic to strike a fatal blow: a nail is driven into Peytraud’s groin, and his soul is sent to hell. In the aftermath, the Haitian people celebrate the downfall of the oppressive regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier, while Marielle, radiant with relief, proclaims a hopeful close to the nightmare: > The nightmare is over.