Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Tag: Caribbean

Yambao (AKA Cry of the Bewitched AKA Young and Evil)
The relatively obscure Mexican-Cuban production Yambaó seems to be lumped into the horror genre because of its elements of voodoo/Santeria and spirit possession, but frankly, it deals with those subjects in such a matter-of-fact manner (perhaps reflecting the level of cultural belief that these types of events are real...
The Plague of the Zombies horror movie poster
I was disappointed to learn that "the Hammer Collection" didn't star MC Hammer. In fact, there few, if any, significant black characters -- just a bunch of pasty British people -- in any of the legendary UK studio's films, but I thought that a zombie/voodoo pic might be the...
Zombies on Broadway
Zombies on Broadway is an effective spoof of I Walked with a Zombie (with many of the same black cast members) featuring a wannabe Abbot and Costello duo traveling to the same fictitious Caribbean island St. Sebastian as IWWAZ (part Hispanic, part black, all evil) to bring back a...
Zombie Island Massacre
You'd be hard-pressed to find a film containing the word "zombie" in the title that has less to do with zombies than this one. A zombie is raised by a voodoo ritual in the first 15 minutes, but it's promptly killed and never heard from again. The film then...
Zombie Zombi 2 horror movie poster
I don't expect Italian horror movies to have too many black people, but when they revolve around zombies on a Caribbean island, as Zombi 2 does (Zombi being the name Dawn of the Dead was released under in Italy), I'd expect more than a few. I should learn to...
White Zombie is often acknowledged as the first zombie movie. Like Plague of the Zombies some three decades later, there are no major black roles (surprising, given the plot takes place in Haiti, although not so surprising given the title). Most of the black people appear in the opening...
Vault of Horror horror movie poster
Voo-did it again. Like fellow Amicus studio production Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, this British anthology features a tale of voodoo revenge -- although by the time Vault of Horror came out eight years later, the roles of black folk in horror movies had evolved beyond this dated formula....
Spirit Lost movie poster
Really more of an erotic drama than a horror movie, Spirit Lost is like an episode of Black Shoe Diaries with a supernatural twist. Although it's a BET production, it wasn't made to air on the network (the nekkid boobies are a hint), so we're not subjected to cheesy cameos...
Shrunken Heads horror movie poster
I generally think of shrunken heads as being more South American than Haitian, but if Hollywood says the contrary, it must be right! After all, it's taught me that Jamaican Rastafarians practice voodoo (and get their asses kicked by Steven Seagal) and that Wilmer Valderrama invented the dozens. I...
Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow horror movie poster
As much as I love Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow, it's one of those films that revolves around an issue in a black community (in this case, voodoo and political turmoil in Haiti), but examines it through the eyes of a white protagonist. This is a sub-genre I...