In this hauntingly atmospheric tale set in the West Indies, voodoo and personal rivalry combine for a devilish double dose of evil. Brought to a mysterious island to tend the ailing Jessica Holland (Christine Gordon), nurse Betsy (Frances Dee) finds herself privy to skeletons in the Holland family closet that mutely walk the earth of their own accord. Like Irena in Tourneur's more famous Cat People, Jessica is a kind of receptacle for wickedness: Haiti's uneasy slave relations, an undercurrent throughout the film, repeat themselves in the unsavory relationships between men and women at the Holland plantation. But, unlike Irena, the cat's got Jessica's tongue: in a permanent sleepwalking trance, she cannot speak of her cataleptic condition. Animal sacrifice, gloomy rituals, and the ominous appearance of Carre-Four, voodoo god, along with an eerie ballad sung by the calypso singer Sir Lancelot, cast a spell more chilling than an open grave.