This is a tense and exciting little film. I was surprised how quickly and effectively the movie manages to ratchet up the tension without wasting time on endless setup, giving us just enough to know the characters and get involved with the situation. There is a very effective and ominous tone struck with the opening frames and nicely developed as the cast heads to an island that is cut off from help. Good performances and cinematography help greatly; for once we have a juvenile who is not annoying and smart leads in Fay Wray and Jack Holt. Dorothy Burgess does a good job with a complicated part. This plays like a forerunner to Val Lewton's classic I Walked with a Zombie, though there are no zombies present here. Worth catching the beautiful print on TCM.

These old voodoo films are strange fruits, I love them a lot though they're not particularly respectful towards the aboriginal population inhabiting the exotic far-away places which in the era were mostly fictionalized as destinations of great adventures but especially of great dangers. Blatantly racistic, and terrifyingly simplistic in their exploiting of the occult edges of voodoo as weapons of the natives, seen as barbarian beasts, against the white race, they stand as fascinating curiosities of the horror and mystery cinema of their times. Years before I Walked with a Zombie, we have here a white woman ''zombified'' in the original and accurate meaning of the term, hypnotized, drugged, and occultly manipulated into a being of voodoo folklore, a bloody queen performing dreadful rituals which include human sacrifices. There is no sympathetic approach towards the so-called ''savagery'' of the natives, so, by immediately associating with them, the white woman is seen as an enemy turning against her race, beyond redemption for her family and friends. Even her husband turns against her while she fiercely embraces the islanders' ways. For those who believe old black-and-white films are tame, there's a lot here to make one's skin crawl, including matricidal intentions which I consider it to be the most terrifying element of the film. In a role that's too small for her talent and charisma, Fay Wray is, as always, a delight on screen though her character is diminished in intensity by the restless lady of the house who metamorphoses into a murderous voodoo priestess. It is obscure compared to other classics of the genre, White Zombie or I Walked with a Zombie but it stands on its own and delivers a frightening, completely politically incorrect, tale of exotic voodoo mysteries

Black Moon (1934) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Twenty-plus years after her parents were murdered in a voodoo ritual, a woman (Dorothy Burgess) travels back to the native land where the people there want her to start up as their leader. The woman's secretary (Fay Wray) wires her husband (Jack Holt) to come and try to save her but it might be too late. This forgotten horror film from Columbia falls somewhere between WHITE ZOMBIE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE so fans of those two films will certainly want to check this out. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not a major fan of all three films as I think they all have a great atmosphere but in the end their stories just aren't strong enough to carry the films for me. There's a lot of stuff that does work here with the biggest plus being the atmosphere created by the director. We really get the feeling as if we're on this island surrounded by the strange locals and in the middle of something evil. There's no fog machines but that doesn't keep Neill away from delivering the goods as the dark tone of the film also hits on something that the Val Lewton films would eventually do and that's the use of shadows. Another plus is some fine cinematography as well as a nice performance by Holt. Wray, the original Scream Queen, is good too, although, as usual, she isn't given enough to do. What doesn't work, for one, is the performance of Burgess who is easy on the eyes but her character is badly underwritten. Another problem is the actual screenplay that really doesn't offer any twist or turns up until the very end when the movie does go in a direction that you wouldn't normally expect.

I'm not sure, but Black Moon may be the first horror film to be set in the West Indies and focus on voodoo. Of course, it would be the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur film I Walked With a Zombie that would go on to become the best known early example; but Black Moon is still a worthy effort. The plot focuses on a woman born in the West Indies. She left at the age of two when her parents were sacrificed in a voodoo ritual, but apparently she is under some curse and decides to return to the island. She takes along her husband, nanny, daughter and his secretary and upon returning to the island, is elevated to the level of a God by the locals; which leads to danger for her family. The film was obviously made on a low budget as it all looks very cheap throughout. This improves once the film reaches the West Indies as the location shoots take some of the focus off the cheap looking sets seen earlier on in the film. The film is very slow burning and takes a while to get going, but once it does it's constantly interesting. Director Roy William Neill (who would of course go on to become best known for his Sherlock Holmes films) does well at implementing the atmosphere needed to ensure that the film is successful. It has to be said that there isn't a great deal of tension in the early parts of the film; but this is made up for by the ending which is strong. Overall, I wouldn't quite say that this film is a classic; but it will certainly be of interest for fans of thirties horror.