The Serpent and the RainbowMovies like The Serpent and the Rainbow
- Key Features:
- Voodoo, Zombies, Anthropology, Supernatural horror, Black magic, Ancient curse, Investigation, Cultural exploration, Cuba, Based on true events, Survival, Fear, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Horror fans, Mystery enthusiasts, Viewers interested in anthropology, Fans of supernatural thrillers
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Dread → Terror
The Serpent and the Rainbow

A Harvard anthropologist is sent to Haiti to retrieve a strange powder that is said to have the power to bring human beings back from the dead. In his quest to find the miracle drug, the cynical scientist enters the rarely seen netherworld of walking zombies, blood rites and ancient curses. Based on the true life experiences of Wade Davis and filmed on location in Haiti, it's a frightening excursion into black magic and the supernatural.
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Deep within the mysterious Arboria Institute, a disturbed and beautiful girl is held captive by a doctor in search of inner peace. Her mind controlled by a sinister technology. Silently, she waits for her next session with deranged therapist Dr. Barry Nyle. If she hopes to escape, she must journey through the darkest reaches of The Institute, but Nyle wonʼt easily part with his most gifted and dangerous creation.

Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.

A father survives a plane crash in rural Appalachia, but becomes suspicious of the elderly couple who take him in to nurse him back to health with the ancient remedies.

Unable to process the death of his daughter, Detective Boyd embarks on a hunt for a serial killer who murders according to a brutal tribal ritual: Muti. The only person who can help Boyd is Professor Mackles, an anthropologist who hides an unspeakable secret. The line between sanity and madness thins as Boyd goes deeper into the killer’s world.

The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.

An American doctor encounters members of a voodoo cult when she is summoned to Jamaica to treat a wealthy man's brother.

Two millennia ago, a Lybian king has a basilisk (snake-shaped dragon), which petrifies people, subjected to the same fate with a golden scepter during a solar eclipse. Both these and several victims are dug up by modern archaeologist Harrison 'Harry' McColl's expedition. Despite a cryptic warning from tribal locals, everything goes to his Colorado university's museum. It's all exhibited during another eclipse, which leads to the monster reviving. Harry and some of his friends must try to petrify the monster again.

French Guyana, not so long ago. Eliott, a young and naive anthropology researcher, goes on an expedition to study the Otopis, a mysterious tribe from the Amazon rainforest. It is also an opportunity for him to get away from the grip of his possessive mother, Chantal de Bellabre, an ethnologist hated by the profession for her biased and cold-hearted practices. Arriving in the forest Elliot realizes the Otopis are not the “good savages” he had imagined. Alcoholic, violent, crooked: they will turn his expedition into real hell in the jungle. Fortunately, Chantal, consumed by remorse and worried about her son, decides to abandon her own expedition and goes looking for him in the jungle, with the help of the not so helpful Lieutenant-Commander Raspailles and his men.

Eight people embark on an expedition into the Congo, a mysterious expanse of unexplored Africa where human greed and the laws of nature have gone berserk. When the thrill-seekers -- some with ulterior motives -- stumble across a race of killer apes.

Archaeologists discover the final resting place of a boy king, removing the remains to be exhibited in a museum. By disturbing the sarcophagus they unleash the forces of darkness. The Mummy has returned to discharge a violent retribution on the defilers as the curse that surrounds the tomb begins to come true. One by one the explorers are murdered until one of them discovers the ancient words that have the power to reduce the brutal killer to particles of dust.

A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.

Centuries ago, under the sands of ancient Egypt, a Prince was buried and his tomb eternally cursed so that no man would ever again suffer from his evil ways. But hundreds of years later on a greedy search for treasure, a group of archaeologists break the cursed seal of the tomb. Every man vanishes without a trace, leaving behind only a log book, and a deadly warning of the legend of the bloodthirsty Talos.

In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.

An eccentric scientist in the Amazon jungle rejects his research assistant for being a woman, but as bulldozers threaten their work on a potential cancer cure, they learn to collaborate and begin to fall in love.

When Dr. Yuen attempts to rescue a girl about to be sacrificed by the Worm Tribe in the middle of a jungle in Thailand, he is damned with seven deadly "blood curses" and must return there to find a permanent cure.

A scientist comes to believe that evil is a disease of the blood and that the flesh of a skeleton he has brought back from New Guinea contains it in a pure form. Convinced that his wife, a Folies Bergere dancer who went insane, manifested this evil, he is terrified that it will be passed on to their daughter. He tries to use the skeleton's blood to immunise her against this eventuality, but his attempt has anything but the desired result.

When an archaeologist uncovers a strange skull in a foreign land, the residents of a nearby town begin to disappear, leading to further inexplicable occurrences.

A woman goes back to the island where her parents were killed. They had been working on a cure for cancer and accidentally raised the dead by angering a voodoo priest. With the woman is a group of mercenaries and they meet up with some other researchers. They raise the dead again and all hell breaks loose

The strange and brutal deaths of Cory’s grandparents has haunted him for years. Determined to discover the truth, he has returned to the desolate region where they lived, along with a group of friends, to try and uncover the mystery. Ignoring warnings from the locals that the area is cursed, Cory and his friends soon realize that the legend is true, as the Demon Wind, possesses and destroys them, one by one, turning them into monsters from hell.

Sir James Forbes arrives in a remote Cornish village to identify a mysterious plague afflicting the population. He discovers that one of the squires is a disciple of Haitian witchcraft and using dark magic to resurrect the dead. As the plan to create undead servants unravels, the squire unleashes his zombie army on the unsuspecting village.

A beautiful woman hires an intrepid adventurer to help find her father, who has disappeared in the jungle while searching for a rare and priceless butterfly. Along the way they run into cannibals, a race of Amazon warriors and all the usual attractions one would expect to find in a lost jungle.

Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.

When a remote village is plagued by a deadly curse, one brother must fight to save his family from a terrifying supernatural threat.

A sleazy producer develops a concept he dubs "blood surfing" -- tossing bloody fish remains into the water to lure sharks and then surfing through the animals as they chomp about. Along with his camerawoman, the producer brings two thrill-seeking surfers to the coast of Florida to capture some gnarly footage. But, as they blood surf, they encounter something even more deadly: a colossal prehistoric crocodile intent on devouring them.

Folklore professor Albert Wilmarth investigates legends of strange creatures in the most remote hills of Vermont. His enquiry reveals a terrifying glimpse of the truth that lurks behind the legends.

A New York University professor returns from a rescue mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of documentarians who were making a film about the area's local cannibal tribes.

A genetically created Anaconda, cut in half, regenerates itself into two new aggressive giant snakes, due to the Blood Orchid.

Haiti, 1962: A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, at the prestigious Légion d’honneur boarding school, a Haitian girl confesses an old family secret to a group of new friends - never imagining that this strange tale will convince a heartbroken classmate to do the unthinkable.

A struggling circus crew gets deceived by its former partner, as it embarks on a tour in Thailand. During the journey through a Southeast Asian rainforest, they encounter attacks by a giant python. They meet a mysterious man named Jeff who offers to help, but they soon realize he's a poacher. As they search for Jeff's boat, they face life-and-death struggles with the python and Jeff himself.

When siblings Judy and Peter discover an enchanted board game that opens the door to a magical world, they unwittingly invite Alan -- an adult who's been trapped inside the game for 26 years -- into their living room. Alan's only hope for freedom is to finish the game, which proves risky as all three find themselves running from giant rhinoceroses, evil monkeys and other terrifying creatures.

A team of Arctic researchers find a 40,000 year-old man frozen in ice and bring him back to life. Anthropologist Dr. Stanley Shephard wants to befriend the Iceman and learn about the man's past while Dr. Diane Brady and her surgical team want to discover the secret that will allow man to live in a frozen state.

A cruel circus owner beats and abuses his pregnant wife. One day the circus receives a leopard newly captured in Africa, but the animal soon dies. However, an evil creature that was inside the leopard bursts out of the animal's body, burrows into the wife's body and takes over her fetus. It soon starts demanding blood, and the woman goes searching for victims for her new "baby."

Medium Sylvia Pickel and psychometrist Nick Deezy meet at a psychic research facility in New York. Not long after, they're contacted by Harry Buscafusco, who offers them $50,000 to find his lost son in South America, in the heart of Incan territory where they discover an ancient mystical secret, and each other.

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

Harry and Valerie Spalding arrive in the remote Cornish village to an unwelcoming and suspicious population. Harry's brother dies suddenly, bitten by a lethal reptilian bite. They befriend a young woman Anna whose tyrannical father controls her life and, as they discover that others in the village have suffered a similar fate, their investigations lead to Anna. What they uncover is a victim of the most terrifying legacy... a destiny of mutilation and murder.

Two guys, one of them a magician, are transporting an ancient chinese vampire who can only be controlled by a series of yellow tapes, and is the ancestor of the other guy. On the way, while flying over Africa, their plane stalls. And of all places, where do they land? That's right, in the village of the tribe of "The Gods Must Be Crazy".

The son of the inventor of a matter-transporter, which turned him into a monster when he tried to transport himself along with a tiny housefly, continues to pursue his father's experiment, while his own two sons attempt to extricate him, themselves and the family name from further disaster and scandal.

After miners disappear in the Namib Desert, some scientists find their remains and the demonic creature that killed them.

Arranged to marry a rich man, young Ada is crushed when her true love goes missing at sea during a migration attempt — until a miracle reunites them.

A mad scientist's DNA experiment on the bones of a mysterious jungle creature brings the carnivorous beast to life, and only his former assistant Ash Mattley and CIA operative Claire Sommers can stop it.

When seven archaeologists find an ancient Inca temple, they become victims of an ancient curse. Back in Europe, one by one they fall into a deep sleep and only once a day, all at the same time, they wake up for a few minutes and experience hallucinations where the sinister living mummy of Rascar Capac appears.

Katherine Morrissey, a former Christian missionary, lost her faith after the tragic deaths of her family. Now she applies her expertise to debunking religious phenomena. When a series of biblical plagues overrun a small town, Katherine arrives to prove that a supernatural force is not behind the occurrences, but soon finds that science cannot explain what is happening. Instead, she must regain her faith to combat the evil that waits in a Louisiana swamp.

A newly dead New England couple seeks help from a deranged demon exorcist to scare an affluent New York family out of their home.

A man with an unknown disease travels to an island with his girlfriend where his relatives once lived, hoping to find a cure to his illness. Although his relatives were all thought to be dead, he finds them living underground.

One by one the archaeologists who discover the 4,000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka are brutally murdered. Kharis, high priest in Egypt 40 centuries ago, has been brought to life by the power of the ancient gods and his sole purpose is to destroy those responsible for the desecration of the sacred tomb. But Isobel, wife of one of the explorers, resembles the beautiful princess, forcing the speechless and tormented monster to defy commands and abduct Isobel to an unknown fate.

Tony Washington is killed in a hit-and-run after saving the local bodega clerk from robbers. Molly Mokembe is a Haitian voodou practitioner who brings him back as a zombi from a debt owed by Tony's late dad in an act of sacrifice that saved her. Jimbo, the kid that iced Tony, is embracing some new sadistic feelings. What follows is a revenge that can only be sated once all of those who were with Jimbo that night have had their due.

Police sergeant Neil Howie is called to an island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. The investigation is further complicated as Howie’s religious views clash with those of the island’s residents.

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.

A student and her photographer boyfriend visit an island off of Massachusetts to research a hotel supposedly haunted by a witch.

In 1981, an enthusiastic young adventurer follows his dreams into the Bolivian Amazon jungle with two friends and a guide with a mysterious past. Their journey quickly turns into a terrifying ordeal as the darkest elements of human nature and the deadliest threats of the wilderness lead to an all-out fight for survival.

A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.

After their prison ship sinks in the Caribbean, a group of prisoners and a doctor wash ashore on a seemingly deserted island. They soon discover a strange couple, who invite them to stay at their house. While the prisoners plan an escape, the doctor does some investigating, and soon finds out just what the pair are really doing, and why the prisoners keep disappearing mysteriously.

After Jake Tilton is given a mystical "monkey's paw" talisman that grants its possessor three wishes, he finds his world turned upside down after his first two wishes result in his malevolent coworker, Tony Cobb, being resurrected from the dead. When Cobb pressures Jake into using the final wish to reunite Cobb with his son, his intimidation quickly escalates into relentless murder - forcing Jake to outwit his psychotic friend and save his remaining loved ones.

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

After a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses appear to be coming back to life and living normally as locals in the small town.

Two priests, one in crisis with his faith and the other confronting a turbulent past, must overcome their differences to perform a risky exorcism.

A kindly English botanist and a gruff American promoter lead an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti.

A Coca-Cola bottle dropped from an airplane raises havoc among a normally peaceful tribe of African bushmen who believe it to be a utensil of the gods.

Anthropology professor Michal develops two overwhelming obsessions. The first one is a mummified, 3,000 year-old, perfectly preserved body of a shaman he and his colleagues have recently dragged out of a swamp. The second is an enigmatic student he meets by chance at a railway station.

During a shootout in a saloon, Sheriff Hunt injures a suspicious stranger. The doctor's assistant, wife of the local foreman, tends to him in prison. That night, the town is attacked and they both disappear—only the arrow of a cannibal tribe is found. Hunt and a few of his men go in search of the prisoner and the foreman's wife.

Xixo is back again. This time, his children accidentally stow away on a fast-moving poachers' truck, unable to get off, and Xixo sets out to rescue them. Along the way, he encounters a couple of soldiers trying to capture each other and a pilot and passenger of a small plane, who are each having a few problems of their own.

After being stabbed with an ancient, germ-infested knife, a doctor finds himself with an insatiable desire for blood.

Dexter and Royce, two stoners in the small town of Weedsville, attempt to cover up the overdose of Royce's girlfriend Matilda. What leads from an old drive-in being perfect place to ditch her turns into the accidental discovery of a Satanic cult, who brings Mattie back from the dead after their ritual is botched. Along with the two's dealer Omar on their tail, how will these buddies and their slightly-off lady-on-board deal with the dangers of drug debt and demon-worshipping magic?

Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.

Many years after her notorious husband, Henry Fool, fled after killing a neighbor, Fay Grim receives a visit from CIA agent Fulbright, who tells her that Henry is dead, but that some of his journals have been unearthed in France. She sets forth on a globe-trotting odyssey that soon leads to the discovery that he is alive, and his journals are more than they appear to be.

When a team of explorers ventures into the uncharted maze of bones that lies beneath the streets of Paris, they embark on a journey into madness and terror.

Though safely entombed in a crypt deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient queen whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension.

Laura is still waiting for Prince Charming at the age of 24. So when Sandro appears at a party, exactly like her Prince would in her dreams, she thinks she's found the right one. But then again, when she meets Maxime, Laura starts to wonder if some Princes could be more charming than others? Of course Sandro has problems of his own : his father, Pierre, just bumped into Madam Irma at his father's funeral and this reminded him of the date of his own death which Madame Irma had predicted ages ago. Now Pierre is unable to make any plans, not with his new partner Eleonore, nor with Sandro. And Maxime has his own problems, and so does Eleonore, Marianne, Jacqueline and many others. But don't worry, in the end, they'll all live happily ever after.

A horde of rampaging warriors massacre the parents of young Conan and enslave the young child for years on The Wheel of Pain. As the sole survivor of the childhood massacre, Conan is released from slavery and taught the ancient arts of fighting. Transforming himself into a killing machine, Conan travels into the wilderness to seek vengeance on Thulsa Doom, the man responsible for killing his family. In the wilderness, Conan takes up with the thieves Valeria and Subotai. The group comes upon King Osric, who wants the trio of warriors to help rescue his daughter who has joined Doom in the hills.

A young woman recuperating at her father's run-down home after a tragic accident soon encounters a terrifying presence with a connection to her long-deceased mother.

Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.

An ex-Navy seal, his girlfriend and their friends head out on a road trip to New Orleans. The group decides to stop at a roadside convenience store owned by Chopper, who tells them the tale of Lockjaw, a fabled god-like creature who is half-man, half-alligator.

Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.

Kirikou's Grandfather says that the story of Kirikou and The Witch was too short, so he proceeds to explain more about Kirikou's accomplishments. We find out how little boy became a gardener, a detective, a maker of pottery, a merchant, a traveler and a doctor.

Vicaria is a brilliant teenager who believes death is a disease that can be cured. After the brutal and sudden murder of her brother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to bring him back to life.

Whilst on their way to a concert four friends get sidetracked and stranded in a seemingly abandoned town and whilst looking for help find themselves stalked and terrorised by a gang of violent clown dressed psychopaths who will stop at nothing ensnaring them into their sinister blood thirsty games.

Six American grad students have arrived in Africa to study apes with a renowned professor. But after setting up camp in a jungle clearing, they soon become witness to the carnage inflicted by the strange and remote species.

U.S Marshal Mike Donovan has dark memories of the death of his first love. He keeps peace between the Americans and the natives who had temporarily adopted and taken care of him. The evil actions of a white sorcerer lead him to confront the villain in the Sacred Mountains, and, through shamanic rituals conquer his fears and uncover a suppressed memory he would much rather deny.

A scuba diving instructor, her biochemist boyfriend, and her police chief ex-husband try to link a series of bizarre deaths to a mutant strain of piranha fish whose lair is a sunken freighter ship off a Caribbean island resort.

In 1905, a man travels to a remote island in search of his missing sister who has been kidnapped by a mysterious religious cult.

Black police officer Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to LA—the Colombian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works his way up from the bottom undercover, until he reaches the boss.

Two Egyptologists, Professor Fuchs and Corbeck, are instrumental in unleashing unmitigated horror by bringing back to England the mummified body of Tara, the Egyptian Queen of Darkness. Fuchs’s daughter becomes involved in a series of macabre and terrifying incidents, powerless against the forces of darkness, directed by Corbeck, that are taking possession of her body and soul to fulfill the ancient prophesy that Queen Tara will be resurrected to continue her reign of unspeakable evil.

Five years after giving up his powers and separating from his friends, Leo San Juan has started a new life trying to focus on his family and their bakery, staying away from danger and adventures. However, Leo knows that his plans are rarely fulfilled and this time is no exception: while traveling with Nando to Veracruz, things start to get weird, and from the depths of the Tuxtlas jungle, an ancient curse has returned and only Leo can face it.

A group of college friends reunite for a trip to the forest, but encounter a menacing presence in the woods that's stalking them.

Born a fully grown black man in a village in the Brazilian jungle, Macunaíma later magically transforms into a white man before making an adventure-filled trip to the city of São Paulo. Once there, he becomes something of a dandy, falling in love with Ci, a revolutionary who dies in an accidental bombing. After robbing a ruthless industrialist, Macunaima returns to his village where he finds his newly acquired knowledge and possessions of little use.

While on a joyride with the headlights turned off, two men hit and kill another man carrying a satchel full of money. The two men decide to take the money and throw the body into a pond and bury the money in a coal hill. The next morning the police discover the body of a kidnapped 12-year blind girl, Melody, in a warehouse near the site of the hit-and-run. They determine that the kidnapper saw the girl's father bringing the ransom to him and also witnessed the hit-and-run and the men stealing the ransom.

A young woman's life spirals into chaos after she is involved in a hit-and-run accident. Then she encounters a mysterious man named Evian who offers her an opportunity for redemption. Narrated by a fish.

In 35,000 BC, the tribe of the Dirty Hairs is at war against the tribe of the Clean Hairs for eight hundred years, trying to get their shampoo. The chief of the Dirty Hairs sends his daughter Guy disguised to the enemy tribe to get some shampoo for his tribe. When the healer of the Clean Hairs tribe surprisingly kills two cavemen of his tribe, their imbecile chief assigns Pierre with curled hair and Pierre blonde to investigate the murder and find the criminal.

In ancient Egypt, peasant Mathayus is hired to exact revenge on the powerful Memnon and the sorceress Cassandra, who are ready to overtake Balthazar's village. Amid betrayals, thieves, abductions and more, Mathayus strives to bring justice to his complicated world.

A couple on holiday on a remote South Pacific island awaken one morning with a hang over and no recollection of what transpired. When playing back a video of the previous night, they see they participated in a local ritual that somehow ends with him murdering her.

The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.

A shy French anthropologist who happens to be secretly in love with her college superior, chooses "bimbos" as the subject of her thesis. She becomes one of them in order to do that, and the professor she loves falls for her new identity.

Archaeologists, tomb robbers, a strange character and an adventurer undertake the search for the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, driven by different motivations: from the mere archaeological find to the destruction of humanity.

Two journalists set out to document their friend's journey to reunite with his estranged sister. They track her to an undisclosed location where they are welcomed into the remote world of "Eden Parish," a self-sustained rural utopia composed of nearly two hundred members and overseen by a mysterious leader known only as "Father." It quickly becomes evident to the newcomers that this paradise may not be as it seems. Eden Parish harbors a twisted secret. What started as just another documentary shoot soon becomes a fight for survival.

From the beginning, stories of angels and men have captured our imaginations and have been etched into our history crossing all boundaries of culture, religion, and time. These two races have dominated the landscape of modern mythology for countless centuries, almost washing away the evidence that a third ever existed. This third race, born of smokeless fire, was called the jinn. Similar to humans in many ways, the jinn lived invisibly among us and only under dire or unusual circumstances were our paths ever meant to cross.

A sheriff investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a small island discovers there's a larger mystery to solve among the island's secretive, neo-pagan community.

A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

After his career is destroyed, a brilliant but arrogant surgeon gets a new lease on life when a sorcerer takes him under her wing and trains him to defend the world against evil.

