Publisher: CinemaSerf June 14, 2022
Long before he found his stride with Messrs. Rathbone and Bruce and "Sherlock Holmes", Roy William Neill took the helm for this occult drama set on a paradise island riddled with voodoo mysticism. Dorothy Burgess ("Juanita") is the young woman who returns with her family to her childhood home, many years after losing her parents, only to discover that the locals consider her the reincarnation of a goddess. Before long she is fully enveloped in the role and this causes a certain degree of friction, shall we say, in her marriage! The story is - even for the genre - pretty far-fetched. Her comprehensive absorption into her new religion is glossed over far too quickly, and for some reason too much focus is then put onto the relationship between her husband "Stephen" (Jack Holt) and his glamorous secretary "Gail" (Fay Wray) which really distracts from this otherwise quite effectively eerie and atmospheric (admittedly, pretty stage bound) production with loads of flickering light and menacing drumming. The ending is predictable, but at times the route there is actually quite scarily put together - I can imagine it raising a few hairs in 1934. This is much better than I was expecting it to be - and if you like the theme, then I'd give it a go.