Director: Avi Nesher
Year: 2002
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Suspended from practicing medicine, a doctor takes a position giving care for a man's brother who lives in Jamaica where she finds that he's suffering from the effects of a powerful voodoo curse that turns them into zombies forcing her to put an end to the evil forces once and for all.
Review:
This one here is a rather fun and enjoyable voodoo film. One of the best parts of this one is that it builds up an incredible atmosphere in here through the effective use of it's supernatural overtones. This is one of the few films that manages to really use the mystery and magic of voodoo and does this spectacularly, making it appear to be quite dangerous and something to be feared. Due to this, the first half is incredibly suspenseful with the mysterious actions around them which are done through a series of rather freaky ideas. The set of hallucinations that occur here are marvelous, with the jungle coming alive and attempt to destroy the car the two are traveling alongside being one of the, and a later scene where a hallucination of the collapsing roof falling onto them, despite being the only one to see it, is a fantastic scene as well.
As these grow in stature throughout the film, there's plenty to like here with the way these cause an enhancement of the supernatural threat that constantly runs in the film. That starts with the opening, with the wedding ceremony giving way to the confrontation in the lab which is a nice way of getting this going, the increasingly strong supernatural attacks that are used to build a strong mystery in the meantime and the freak-outs done by the possessed victim are just plain fun. The ending confrontation in the fields during the voodoo ceremony is really good as well, using more voodoo charms, a tense buried alive sequence and a suspenseful stand-off that is pretty intense. The last big part of the film is the gore, which here works quite well for the film. This one has a stomach sliced with a machete, a knife deep in the back, a couple found dead that were hacked up with a machete, one is destroyed after being dropped onto a car and another exploding and bursting out of the skin from supernaturally-afflicted heat which are all incredibly well-realized that adds to the belivability here. These here are all that work for the film as this one didn't have many flaws, and there really is only one which does affect the film somewhat.
This is that the film is slightly overlong and somewhat dull at times. This one really shouldn't have been that much over an hour and a half at all, and really should've been trimmed in certain areas as there's several scenes which go on for much longer than they should. The middle section of this is the most apparent, featuring several scenes that aren't that important. The trip to the beach to frolic in the surf and the family visits to the shack for no reason being the main exceptions, and the exposition in the beginning to get the story involved could've been done a little quicker as it really could've had the same impact it does now with a little time removed. Since there's no titular connection to the series, including the Crypt Keeper wraparounds are unnecessary as well, and since there's hardly any dark comedy or humor to come from it, it's just pointless. All of these make the film feel longer than it should, and give the film it's one true flaw.
Overview: ***/5
A fairly enjoyable and fun film with some good parts and a little flaw that does hold it up somewhat, there's some good to come from this one. Check it out if there's something about it that appeals to you or you have a general interest in the style, otherwise heed caution with it.
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