The Devil's Daughter (1939) / Chloe (1934) (Voodoo Double Feature)

The Devil's Daughter (1939; 59 minutes): The blood-curdling sound of menacing voodoo drums haunts Sylvia Walton when she arrives from Harlem to take control of the Jamaica plantation she has inherited. There's also no sign of her half-sister, Isabelle, who had up to now been running the plantation but disappeared after being disinherited. The brooding Isabelle is actually in hiding, planning to use the power of voodoo and primitive local superstitions to plot her vengeance and regain control of the plantation.

Advertised as a "burning drama of love and hate in the tropics," The Devil's Daughter (a.k.a. Pocomania) was filmed on location in Jamaica. Actress Nina Mae McKinney, sometimes referred to as "The Black Garbo," was the star of Hallelujah, the first all-black, all-sound musical film made in 1929.

Chloe (1934; 62 minutes): Deep in the eerie swamplands of the south, an aging conjure woman named Mandy returns with beautiful daughter, Chloe, to the old ramshackle home she fled almost twenty years ago following her husband's grisly lynching death by a white mob. With a lust for revenge, Mandy plots against Colonel Gordon, a wealthy white distillery owner. When it's discovered that Chloe is actually the Colonel's long-lost daughter, the venomous Mandy flies into a mad rage and calls upon the local voodoo cultists to help her perform a bloody ritual of sacrificial vengeance.

Filmed in Florida, the low-budget Chloe (subtitled Love is Calling) was distributed mainly to black neighborhood theaters. Actress Olive Borden had been making movies for ten years and her role in Chloe marked one of her strongest performances, as well as her last. Tragically, the actress drifted onto Hollywood's version of Skid Row and met an early death nearly forgotten in a homeless shelter in 1940.

• horror