The “based on a true story” tag has never seemed so silly when in regard to this film. Yeah, there might be a powder that makes people seem dead and an anthropologist that went looking for it, but the rest of this film feels like pure fantasy.
Yet the film is indeed based on anthropologist Wade Davis’ book about his studies on zombism, which have now been widely discredited. However, I went into the movie not looking for realism, but a pre-NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD classic zombie tale like I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. What I did get is a weak horror flick that disguises itself as a drama.
Director Wes Craven is one of the masters of horror, but here he is not working from a fairly well-crafted screenplay, but one that is very thin. Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman, SPACEBALLS) is a Harvard anthropologist who is interested in seeking out mysterious tribal medicines, so that the world can benefit from these ancient potions. After having a scary experience in the Amazon, Alan is assigned a mission by a large pharmaceutical company to go to Haiti and discover the ancient secrets of zombies.
On the tropical island, he teams up with psychologist Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson, MONA LISA), who is a strong believer in voodoo. The local voodoo priest Lucien Celine (Paul Winfield, THE TERMINATOR) leads Alan and Duchamp to the lucid zombie Christophe (Conrad Roberts, THE SCORPION KING) and a shady wheeler-dealer named Louis Mozart (Brent Jennings, WITNESS), who may have the secret to zombism. However, the corrupt and sadistic police chief Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae, WATERWORLD) doesn’t like Alan poking around his island.
Many of the film’s scares, which aren’t really that scary, are all dreams that Alan has. The real threat comes from Peytraud and his secret police. Craven at times creates some great creepy imagery, but doesn’t often allow enough setup to establish dread.
However, toward the end of the film, Craven has established enough risk over the course of the film that the film starts to work. You know what is going to happen and you fear it, however you know there will be an out for the characters. It’s a mixed bag for certain.
Some of the dialogue is clunky and Pullman is a bit miscast. Tyson’s role is strictly there to serve the plot. However, Jennings steals every scene he is in and Mokae plays his role with the right degree of menace. Some of the action is too extreme for a film that is supposed to be fact based. Moreover, when the film seems like it’s going to end strong, it tacks on a last scare that is really cheesy and tries to have its cake and eat it too. So as a whole, it turns out the film is just average fare trying to be something more.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
