“What did you dream about this afternoon? A woman in your arms? The sea at your doorstep?
No! You dreamt of me and of the grave.
I know because I was there. And I can be there every time you close your eyes.”
Watched this a few times in the 80s and 90s but not for at least 10 years. There seems to be some internal conflict over what Wes Craven wants the film to be. There are scenes where Craven treats voodoo seriously, showing similarities with Christianity and separating tourist voodoo from the real thing. That respect crashes hard against the Horror genre, where voodoo is ultimately used for shocks involving zombies, blood, snakes and spiders. (You know, tourist stuff.) This walking contradiction is hampered further by a screenplay that has our hero traveling between America and Haiti multiple times, running into enemies realm spiritual and political. It’s no wonder I couldn’t keep the plot straight in my head.
So, it’s a film easy to pick apart, perhaps even more so now that we are trying to be respectful of other cultures. The film is also quite thrilling and plenty scary. Some of the imagery is silly and frustratingly nonsensical, but there’s a sweaty, bloody atmosphere and a proper sense of unease. This also contains one of Wes Craven’s Top 5 Scary Scenes. If you know the film, you know it’s the moment when Zakes Mokae says, “I want to hear you scream.”
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