Roadshow Rarities (June 30 – July 6) In the old days of theatrical releases some of the more lavish movies would be promoted by holding limited screenings in large cities. These roadshow releases would generate hype before the nationwide release and allow producers to tweak the film to the audience’s reaction. This model also worked for low budget productions that may have had no intention of a wide release. These explo roadshows traveled an informal circuit of theaters, churches, revival tents, high school auditoriums and anywhere else they could run a projector. They frequently promised more than they delivered and left town before the angry audience could catch up to them. Through the restoration efforts of SWV many of these movies have survived to piss audiences off to this very day!

After White Zombie, this would be the second zombie movie ever made. It may also be the first movie to be absolute horror movie BS. That’s because as the story goes, the producers wanted to hire dancers and drummers from Haiti. However, papaloi voodoo priests objecting and the director was threatened with a wanga — a voodoo curse — on his car. To make things even worse, the prop master then stole sacred objects including stuffed snakeskins and skulls. When production moved to Jamaica, a cyclone killed two crew members, then supposedly another was murdered by a barracuda and another passed away from yellow fever.

Klili Gordon (Fredi Washington) is a half-white and half-black plantation owner in love with fellow plantation owner Adam Maynard (Philip Brandon). He likes her, but because of racism, he chooses Eve Langley (Marie Paxton) instead. Klili decides to use voodoo to kill off her rival, raising thirteen black men to do her commands. Adam turns to LeStrange (Sheldon Leonard), his plantation overseer, to stop this. He hangs a dead body dressed as her, but it fails, so he ends up just strangling her.

This movie has so many issues. Leonard was cast as a black man despite being a Jewish white man. And in her last movie, The Emperor Jones, Ferdi Washington kissing a black man looked too close to a white woman kissing a black man, so she had to wear makeup to appear darker. That’s before we even get into the idea that all black people know voodoo.

Director and writer George Terwilliger revised this movie and it was remade as a movie for African-American audiences called The Devil’s Daughter.

You can watch this on Tubi.