Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

This is my favorite Wes Craven film, a very scary and intelligent film based on a factual account. Many of Craven's films (especially his early ones) have had either bad acting, poor production values, but have all had a creepy, scary quality to them that is impossible to shake. This film has very good acting, incredible atmosphere (it's shot on location in Haiti), and incredible tension. Craven doesn't go for cheap laughs here. He takes his subject very seriously, and doesn't make light of it. There's no self consciousness or the self referentialness of his latter Scream movies. Craven has said that strange phenomena happened during the shooting of this film to those in the crew who mocked the idea of the native religion, but Craven respected it deeply and nothing unique happened to him. I've always had mixed feelings about Craven, liking this film, liking some others (Last House on the Left, the original The Hills Have Eyes), and hating others (I was never a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street, and I hate self referential films like Scream in general, but Craven didn't write the script). This is one of his best films, and the one I like the most.

Dennis Allan (Bill Pullman) is a Harvard anthropologist who just came back from the jungles of South America has been given an assignment to go to Haiti to find a formula which is rumored to bring the dead back to life and can be useful. On his trip, he falls for a female doctor (Cathy Tyson) who's father is a voodoo priest named Hougan (Paul Winfield) as he finds out that the secret of reanimating the dead which can bring deadly results when it comes to Alan.

Loosely based on a true story and a book by Wade Davis, this is a very fascinating and strange film from Wes Craven that is one of his most underrated movies yet. He makes a non-traditional zombie movie in the "E.C. Comics" mode and explores the secrets of vooodoo with the myth behind bringing the dead back to life. It also has the tradition of a classic Hammer film including masterpieces like "White Zombie" to it, Bill Pullman was ahead of his time making a good performance as the anthropologist. The movie has some intense and memorable moments such as the "I want to hear you scream" sequence which will make male viewers cringe, the make-up effects are alright and the storyline is quite solid. This is a more different zombie movie then your typical George Romero or "Return of the Living Dead" movie, i recommend it for fans of zombie movies and supernatural flicks.

This DVD has great picture with good sound and picture with the only extras being a Craven Bio and Theatrical Trailer.

Also recommended: "Cemetery Man", "Pet Sematary", "An American Werewolf in London", "The Return of the living Dead 1 2 and 3", "Dawn of the Dead (1978 and 2004)", "Tales from the Hood", "Re-Animator", "Day of the Dead (1985)", "White Zombie", "Bride of Re-Animator", "Candyman", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Versus", "Zombie (a.k.a. Zombi 2)", "City of The Living Dead", "Beyond Re-Animator", "Hell of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Night of the Zombies, Zombie Creeping Flesh)", "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (a.k.a. Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue)", "The Belivers", "The Skeleton Key", "Dead Heat (1988)", "Dead and Buried", "House By the cemetery", "The Beyond", "Prince of Darkness", "Night of the Living Dead (1968 and 1990)", "Diary of the Dead", "Land of the Dead", "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things", "Shaun of the Dead", and " I Walked with a Zombie".