WEBVTT - Wes Craven Tribute: Serpents, Rainbows & Zombies 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:12.800 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.520 My name is Robert Lamm. Hi, I'm Christian Seger. Last 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:20.480 week we lost several key individuals. Oliver Sacks died, Wayne 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.520 Dyer also passed away. Yeah, I wasn't familiar with that 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.279 until you sent it to me. Yeah, as I was 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.880 inundated with stuff about Oliver Sacks rightly so, and when 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.199 we posted that on our social media accounts, it kind 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:37.040 of went I guess the kids call it viral. Yeah. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.040 But then rule of three, which really a thing. It's 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.400 all about our observation of events happening. But in this 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.519 case we did get a big number three. Yeah. Unfortunately, 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:51.200 Wes Craven passed away on I believe it was Sunday night, 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.680 probably Sunday afternoon his time. But I was unaware of this, 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:58.840 as probably most of the public was. But he was 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.760 battling with Can's sorry had um brain cancer? Yeah, brain 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.000 cancer um yeah, which yeah, I don't think that had 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.800 been a public knowledge yet. But yeah, well it's really unfortunate, 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.399 um because you know, as as many of you out there, no, Robert, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.280 Joe and I are are big horror fans. We grew 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.240 up watching Les Craven movies. I'd say that they were 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.000 probably more than a little responsible for my weird idea 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.880 of how high school was going to go. Yeah, yeah that, 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.080 Like even if you didn't see any of the Craving films, 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:31.640 and I have to admit for a long time I 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.360 didn't see them, but even then, you'd go into the 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.959 video stores and there's Freddy Krueger on the wall, like, 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.440 you know, a thousand feet high. Like the cultural residence 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.280 of his work was just unavoidable. In the the eighties 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.920 and nineties, everybody knows who Freddie Krueger is, even if 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.320 they've never seen any of the Nightmare in Elm Street movies. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.960 I would I would have to think, right, they at 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.920 least know that he's that guy from those slasher movies. Yeah, 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.480 he's an American cultural ion, arguably an international cultural icon. Yeah, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.640 I agree. In fact, when I lived in Singapore as 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.560 a kid, that was when I saw The Nightmare in 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.120 Elm Street three D addition and it was very big 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:08.920 over there. Oh, I thought you're gonna because I know 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.280 there are various like there's an Indian, Oh is there 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.080 there's like an iteration film. Yeah. No, we used to 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.600 buy bootleg versions over there. Uh, and that was I 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.920 had the three D one. So I'm looking through his filmography. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.320 I kept seeing films that, oh I never saw that, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.200 but it was everywhere, and I feel like I feel 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.160 like I've seen it. Other times it would be a film, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.000 you know, like Swamp Thing, where I enjoyed it as 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:34.840 a kid, but later on I realized there was more 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.840 to the comics. So I don't know that I really 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.160 love any particularly So I don't know that I actually 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.280 am in love with any particular West Cravean film, but 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.160 my world wouldn't be the same without. Yeah, I felt 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.760 the same way exactly that he definitely put a stamp 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.200 on the horror genre. But at the same time, I 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.880 don't know that I except for the movie we're gonna 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:02.160 talk about today, which I have a personal fascination with, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.000 I don't know necessarily that any of his movies were 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.000 classics for me. You know, My Maory in Elm Street 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.400 is a interesting story, uh, and and clearly grabbed the 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.600 attention of the world when it came out, and however 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.800 many sequels there were, But I don't know that I 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.000 would put it in like my top ten horror movies 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.240 of all time, you know, Um, and I generally anger 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.040 the world by saying that I actually liked the remake 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.799 more than I like the remake too. Yeah. I saw 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.840 that in the theater and I thought it was pretty 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.960 well done. Um and uh. I laughed out loud at 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.040 the kid wearing the Joy Division shirt. That was the 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.080 only part in the movie where I think, I, like, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:45.560 I broke character from watching a horror movie. There's just like, 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.440 you know, this teenager. When was that movie like two 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.400 thousand thirteen or something like that. It was relatively recent, 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:53.400 and this kid was wearing a Joy Division shirt to 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:58.080 signify how Gothy and and and Darky was. Well, you know, 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.480 I don't know, I thought it bought it, Yeah, but 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:03.600 I would buy it if it was set in the 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.200 seventies or eighties and he was wearing a Joy Division. Yeah. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:07.520 I don't know. I don't really know how much how 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.040 into Joy Division that could be me as well? Right 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.640 that with all these biopics about Ian Curtis and stuff, 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.640 maybe they're a lot more popular than I think they're. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.640 You know, it turned out though that Craven, you know, 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.320 there's a lot more to him than just the horror films. Yeah, 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:23.800 he's a fascinating guy. Yeah. He earned a master's in 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.960 philosophy and writing from John Hopkins, uh and after a 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.880 brief stints in academia, he returned to the movie industry. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.760 He started out as a sound editor. I think he 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.960 worked under pseudonym on an adult picture more than one, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.120 that was what I was reading. Yeah, apparently he did 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.680 a lot of work in a pornography. I think mostly 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.880 as like a sound editor, maybe doing some directing work. 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:51.400 But I believe that there's a documentary about the infamous 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.800 Deep Throat movie and he had some involvement with that, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.279 though he won't reveal what it was, but probably on 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.760 the technical side. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but yeah, fascinating guy. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.920 He I mean, he worked his way up the ladder 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.080 in academia, taught for a while, uh, and then just 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.679 dropped everything because he had an opportunity for to do film. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.920 And you know, you see why after you look at 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:15.960 the bulk of work for his career. I mean he 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.400 really put his all into it. Yeah, twenty nine films 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.160 that he directed. That's not getting into stuff that he produced. 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.680 But yeah, I mean he was a successful filmmaker. And 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.320 that's I mean, it's especially commercially like even the film 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.360 we're gonna talk about today, despite some of the problems had, 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.920 you know, it worked with the critics and it brought 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.000 in a profit. Yeah, certainly. And he Um, you know, 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.080 especially when you think about like I think it was 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.080 like sort of the seventies was when he was doing 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.239 that work with adult films. And then his first real 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.800 like horror film was Last Tough on the Left, I believe, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.400 And that is a movie, first of all, that is 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.599 a movie that is I think would probably be in 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.080 most people's top five top fifty horror movies of all 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.400 time it least in terms of the gruesome impact that 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.080 it had on the industry and so kind of an 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.800 infamous video nasty huh. And he just came right out 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.000 of the gate with that and then was so successful. 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.760 He just rolled into making one successful movie after another. 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.680 You know. Um, Last House on the Left, that is 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.919 a movie that really is upsetting to watch. Um, I 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.680 as a horror fan, UM, sort of forced myself to 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.360 watch both that and the movie. I spit on your 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:34.000 grave that they're both two films that I know. I 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.400 know what's up in him, and I just not my 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.120 It is not for me either, but I felt like 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.600 I should understand why it wasn't for me. And they 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:49.680 are really really difficult to watch. But um, I'm I 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:51.880 have not seen it. But the remake of Last House 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:53.680 on the Left came out a couple of years ago, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.960 and I'm kind of curious about that because it had 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.920 this very strange cast for the plot of the movie, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.680 people who you wouldn't expect to do that kind of thing, Like, um, 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.920 the kid from Breaking Bad was was in Um, what's 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.360 his name, Aaron Something. I can't remember his name now, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.440 but um, and uh, Garrett Dilla Hunt, you know that guy, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.680 he's in it as well, and Ricky lind Home And 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.080 I was just like, wow, this is the strangest group 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.840 of people to put together to remake this utterly like 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:31.600 trashy horror film, you know. Um, so I'm curious about it. 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.240 Another one that I've always really thought it was kind 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.680 of funny is Deadly Blessing. Have you ever seen that one? 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.160 I don't think I've seen this thing. I read about it. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.440 It's another one of his early ones. It's I can't 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.120 remember if they're Quakers or Amish or if it's just 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:50.560 like a fictional version of of that kind of religious community. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.360 But there it's a horror film set within that kind 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:59.200 of community, probably early eighties, um, and it's just utterly 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.120 bizarre and kind of silly in some spaces. I think 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.280 that's something you could say about almost all of West 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.640 Craven's films, is that they have a sort of sense 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:14.120 of self awareness that is making fun of themselves. Of course, 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.040 he also directed What Music of the Heart? I haven't 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.520 seen that? Yeah, yeah, that and that one that one 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.760 actually had an Academy Award nomination? Is that right? Wow? 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.360 Meryl Street I believe was nominated for it. And that 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.760 was a serious film about you know, about music and 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.040 school and kids and all. Um. I don't think he 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.480 ever got to make one about bird conservation, but that 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.880 was of course one of his big passions in life too. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.960 It's interesting, yeah, define that actually conservation lines up with 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:41.679 a lot of horror guys. Did you know that the 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.600 writer Robert Aikman was a big conservationist in England. Yeah, 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.760 he's an interesting character. So. But but related to this, uh, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:52.960 In order to get into kind of the space for 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.160 talking about the science behind Serpent and the Rainbow today, 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.640 I really I've never seen Wes Craven's People Into the Stairs, 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.840 So I watched it last night, and man, I wish 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.640 I had seen that at a younger age. It. Um, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.840 it's kind of like the perfect like intro to horror 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.520 for a kid. It's very much just like a dark 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.839 fairy tale. Yeah, there's you know, there's more going on 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.800 and meets the eye. Your parents are not who they seen, 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:23.679 you know, and there's a there's a gump living in 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.520 the basement, you know that your standard stuff. There's all 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.280 kinds of crazy stuff in it, but it's basically a 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.960 kid's film with like occasional over the top violence thrown 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:40.079 into it. Uh structure. Yeah, yeah, essentially I loved it. Um. 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.120 But yeah, I hope that you know, um, I guess 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.120 with his passing that he gets a little bit more 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.080 attention for some of the movies like that that he 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:48.760 was really invested in. You know, that was one of 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.440 the ones that he wrote and directed and kind of 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:52.839 shepherded all the way along. That's the one that I 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.720 seem to recall that the mother and father and that 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.440 are are supposedly patterned on Ronald and Nancy Reagan. So 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.200 there's like is there some at least mild political um 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.160 statement to view. I could see that. I could see 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.000 that for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's fantastic out there. If 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.520 you haven't seen it, I recommended, uh, you know, even 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.959 if you're not into you know, really gory horror movies. 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.319 It's not particularly gruesome in that way. It's especially by 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.320 today's standards. I'd say it was. It's about as scary 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.760 as a modern day Doctor Who episode. Um, but it 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.839 is grim for sure. But um, today we're going to 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.480 talk about this movie that he came out with the 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.760 n And when I saw the trailer for this on 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:39.920 actually like the commercial for it when I was a 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.680 little kid, the commercial alone scared the pants off of me. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.920 I was so terrified of this movie. And it's called 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.719 The Serpent and the Rainbow, and it's based on an 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.560 academic book by a guy named Wade Davis. And so 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.800 we thought, with West Craven passing away, we wanted to 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.520 do some kind of tribute to him. But also the 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:07.160 science behind Wade Davis's uh anthropological look at Haitian society 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:13.320 and Voodo culture UH is just fascinating and there's interesting 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.719 stuff going on with the biological and chemical science in there. 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.040 But there's also some really interesting stuff going on with 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.040 the battles in academia over this work as well. Yeah, 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.200 I mean, just right off the bat, it's it may 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.600 strike some people with weird. It certainly did me when 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.160 I first read about it, that you have an academic 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:35.040 publication and it's adapted into a horror movie and the 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.200 title is the same, because I mean, that's uh and 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.800 that's telling and we'll get into that. So should we 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:46.080 do like a breakdown of what this movie is about first? Yeah? Yeah, okay, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.720 let me see if I can, if I can summarize 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.800 this and you help me out along. It's been fifteen 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.839 years since I've seen it taught on TNT Monster Vision 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.640 with Joe Bob Britty. Oh yeah, well I saw it 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.000 more recently than that. I rewatched it when I was 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.760 on Netflix last year. But so, The Serpent in the 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:07.520 Rainbow is a very loose fictional adaptation of Wade Davis's 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:14.520 trip to Haiti to investigate what's known as zombie powder. Basically, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:20.560 the idea here was that um so that the idea 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.760 was that a medical company supposedly approached Wade Davis about 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.240 using said zombie powder as like almost like a anesthetic 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:34.679 I guess when performing surgeries. Yeah, and and uh, we 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:36.520 have the details on that that we'll we'll we'll get 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:41.240 into later, but yeah, it has potential medical application, and 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.520 the film itself kind of goes way beyond that in 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.439 that the character who's supposed to be based on Wade Davis, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.640 I don't think they even call him that in the movie. 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.280 I think he has like a totally different name. He 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.400 gets enmeshed in both the Haitian Revolution and this kind 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:02.679 of like very stereotypical, a kind of culturally insensitive depiction 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:07.199 of voodoo UM in which people are being buried alive 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.200 and then brought back from the dead as these sort 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.560 of mindless slaves. Yeah. I mean, especially in the time 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:16.360 period um voodoo is an in Haitian culture in general 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.520 is just right for for exploitation. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:26.240 like I think of James Bond, was it The Living Daylight? Yeah, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:31.160 I think it was either that or a Thunderball, But yeah, yeah, exactly, 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.880 this is the air. Yeah. The depictions of voodoo culture 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.600 that we grew up with were very insensitive com to 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:40.720 kind of kind of what I don't think a movie 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.040 like that could get made today. Um, but I do 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.720 still just because of the time I grew up in 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.040 I sort of had this personal affinity for it because 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.000 it scared me so badly. Um it really. I mean again, 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.400 I was just came out in eight, so I was eleven. Uh. 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.240 Probably wasn't the target audience for this, but you know, uh, 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.200 it really got its hooks into me, you know, And 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.560 I've always held it up as one of those movies 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.280 over the years that can just even now, it's kind 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.760 of silly when you rewatch it. The stuff isn't actually 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.160 all that scary, but there's something about it that still 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.560 resonates with And it was a major studio relief. So 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:18.160 even if you didn't see it in the theater and 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.400 you weren't the target audience, you definitely saw the advertisements 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.160 and you were a TV watching household, and if you 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.560 went to the video store it was a thousand. It 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.360 was prominent. Yeah. So okay, let's you know, we've talked 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.600 a lot about West Craven. I know our audience is 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.680 probably more interested in the science of this, so let's 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.600 dive into that. So first of all, we're stepping away 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.320 from the movie here and we're talking more about Davis's work. 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.600 He did a cultural ethnography of the sort of beliefs 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.400 around Haitian culture and this zombie folk lore. And we're 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.640 talking about zombie without any here zo m b I 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.760 that's how it's spelled in that culture. Um, let's let's 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:58.440 dive into that and then we can get into the 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.160 research and kind of what he came up with. This 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.800 is early eighties. I want to say. Two, here's an 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:11.240 interesting fact um long long before Davis looked into this um. Actually, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.680 Zora Hurston, American folklorist, anthropologist and author of Their Eyes 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.640 Were Watching God in nineteen thirty eight, after doing some 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.720 work in Haiti and in Jamaica. She was one of 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:25.560 the first who suggest that there could be a material 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.320 basis for zombies, for the zombie phenomenon. And so what's 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.160 kind of interesting about that is that's before the zombie 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.800 horror phenomenon really caught hold of America's interest in the 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.400 When did white zombie come out? I am not not 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:42.200 really clear on the time, but the Night of the 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.040 Living Dead was the latest sixties early seventies. That's the 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.680 one that really yeah, put it in hyper drive. Yeah, 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.080 So this is she's kind of taking a look at 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.320 the reality of this beyond myth before it's really grabbed 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.960 the cultural interest. Davis, on the other hand, he comes 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.480 in well after it's entrenched in our culture. In fact, 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.600 I mean I would I would say that it's arguable, 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.280 like it's not like Davis exposed this culture and he 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.280 was the first one to do it, and people told 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.600 him what was going on and sent him down there. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.640 He was funded by people. But um, basically the idea 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.920 is that Haitian zombies aren't what we think of as 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.680 zombies today. Right, So if you're thinking Walking Dead, the 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.680 TV show out there, that's not what this is. Uh. 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.840 The way that it's considered in this culture is that 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.120 they are quote the living dead, which is a little different. 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.640 I know it sounds the same at first, but they're 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.400 undead slaves and there's a certain kind of vood on 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.800 priest that I believe it's pronounced boker um that can 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.720 perform this ritual and it it's seen as a sort 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:52.040 of sociological punishment. Actually, um, so in that religion that 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.800 there's this concept at least this is how Davis presents it, 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.320 that human bodies contain two types of angels. Is what 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.040 he calls them. One is the Big Good Angel and 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.080 the other is the Little Good Angel. The little Good 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.520 Angel is essentially the essence of our individuality, right, it's 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:14.119 your I guess soul uh and Davis actually in his 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.120 text referred to it as quote the governing thought, memory, 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:22.399 and sentiments of a person. However, if anything were to 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.800 happen to that before you physically die, you might become 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:31.560 a zombie. And that supposedly this ritual is the the 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.680 voodoo priest taking the little Good Angel out of you 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:40.640 and enslaving you as such. Yeah, it seems to definitely 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.360 play into just humans trying to figure out what's going 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.880 on with cognition, what's going on with identity in cases 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.359 where say, you know, there's been an injury and an 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.439 individual is clearly not in their own head, like what 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.280 happened to the person that you were physically you know, 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.800 what's the link between the mind and brain? Like? Essentially, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:05.680 this is the voodon h take on the mind body problem. Absolutely. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.320 In fact, the idea is that when you die, the 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.960 big Good Angel is the one that goes to heaven. 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.960 The little Good Angel actually like sticks around for a 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.080 couple of days, roughly three days, and as such, some 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.760 relatives will sit by the grave side of their loved 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.760 ones for that many days because they feel like they're 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:26.680 still there and they you know, need to be with 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.640 them that part of their personality, the individual part of them. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.120 And that definitely I can see where that would play 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.760 into mourning for the dead, because you're you're struck by 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.919 this dichotomy of that's the person that I loved and 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.679 the person I still love but they're not there, but 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.840 they still but I still feel this connection to this 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.440 body exactly right. Uh. And so what's really important about 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.560 Davis's research is that it's a combination of looking at 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.880 the biology that's going on here with this what we're 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.399 gonna talk about as zombie powder, as well as the 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:02.640 cultural resonance that's here and how that plays into the society. 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.600 So the first thing that's important to understand that he 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.919 states is that becoming a zombie is a loss of 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.560 individuality that is worse than death. So this is a 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:18.160 punishment that they they use for breaking the largest taboos 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.679 of their community. Right, It's a It's also seen as 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.640 a form of social control. So maybe you're a criminal, 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.240 or maybe a rapist or something like that something that 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.720 is affecting the community, right, and so the Voodoo priests 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.679 subsequently enslaves you as such to take that problem away 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.760 from the community. Yeah, a lot of the stuff that 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:39.840 you you know, seeing a lot of Caribbean cultures and 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.600 uh and and and also in the vood and religion 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.920 is that, of course you have a mix of of 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:50.080 of African belief systems mingled with some Christian beliefs systems 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.800 and uh. Ian davis is follow up book, Passage of Darkness, 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:58.800 The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. He argues that, Yeah, 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.119 getting into what you just just said that it it 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.359 ties into a long history of secret societies, uh that 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.280 stretched back to the earliest days of slavery, societies that 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.199 carried with them more of an emphasis on African beliefs 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.919 that carried with them. Uh some of this uh you know, 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:18.320 this folkloric pharmaceutical knowledge. Uh. And this was especially the 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.119 case with escaped slaves such as the Maroons who lived 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.760 deep in the mountains sort of had their own outsider 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.119 culture that they established. And that it's here especially that 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.040 you would see zombie powder used as a means of 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.760 punishing individuals who who broke with tradition, broke the broke 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.280 their their laws, and and of course all punishment, all 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.800 capital punishment, is essentially symbolic. But the symbolity of this 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:48.280 is very potent um. It's been an escaped slave culture. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.640 In the same way that you would here it argued 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.760 in American culture that capital punishment is a deterrence. You 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.520 could argue the same thing here, right that you the 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.399 last thing that you would want to do is have 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.440 your individual reality taken away from you and be under 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.200 the thrall of somebody else. So subsequently that would keep 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.359 you from doing bad things. So there's two things I 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:11.440 want to note here before we go on. The first 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:13.920 is that I think that Davis is a really fascinating 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.760 individual because of this sort of cross disciplinary approach that 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.920 he took to this study. Now I know that that's 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.439 part of what tweaked certain scholars the wrong way in 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:28.720 the eighties and made them upset with him, and we'll 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.520 talk about that as well, uh, But but I think 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:34.680 that it's an interesting approach and I'm glad that he 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.840 did it to at least sort of set a standard 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.280 for other people to do the same thing down the road. 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.320 But maybe a little more carefully with their methodology. The 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.400 second thing is that we have to say that all 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.719 that stuff that we just mentioned about voodoo culture, it 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:56.399 has been heavily criticized. At least Davis's interpretation of it 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.399 has been as just being a complete misrepresentation, and that 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.760 it's something that as a person who just kind of 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.359 came in and visited the culture for a number of 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.040 years and then went and wrote this book, that he 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.879 didn't necessarily understand all the complexities of it. Yeah, I 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.520 mean he was he was a young buck jumping out 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:17.320 into the world and uh, and a lot of the 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.919 criticisms I was looking at they often referred to him 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.600