There was an implicit credibility in this movie for two reasons. First, it was by one of the modern masters of horror and second, unlike the Romero school of zombies (the love affair of which is still gripping the world as I write this review in a seemingly endless string of movies and video games), it was about traditional, voodoo zombiedom and had a real 'voyage of discovery' feel.

Bill Pullman is an anthropologist who goes to Haiti to investigate stories about zombies in real life. He stumbles upon a supposedly crooked politician who's involved and learns that the secret is a drug that freezes people still for long periods whereupon they can be buried and 'resurrected' for the purposes of slave labour.

The narrative wasn't anything outstanding, but some iconic sequences stick in the memory, such a the dream sequence with the snake exploding out of the mamaloi's mouth to attack the hero and the skin-crawling spider in the coffin.