Monroe College professor Norman Reed
(Lon Chaney, Jr.) is worried about the
superstitious beliefs of his young bride Paula (Anne Gwynne), an orphan who was
reared on a South Seas island by Laraua, the high voodoo priestess
of Kauna-Ana-Ana. An old friend of her late father, Norman
discovered Paula on the island, and the two then fell in love and
returned to America.
While he is congratulated on his marriage and
completion of a new book, Superstition:
Reason and Fact , by
many of
his Monroe colleagues, Norman receives only bitter jealousy
from librarian Ilona Carr. When Norman later rejects Ilona's
adulterous advances, the librarian begins a campaign to destroy the
professor's marriage. Ilona first sends love-struck college student
Margaret Mercer to work for Norman, then tells Margaret's
jealous
boyfriend, David Jennings, that the professor has a special interest
in the young girl.
Later, when Norman's book becomes a sensation, Ilona tells her friends that Paula is a "witch-wife" whose voodoo
practices have led to the book's success. Most convinced of this is
Evelyn Sawtelle, the wife of Millard Sawtelle, Norman's rival for
the chairmanship of Monroe's sociology department. Later, Ilona
discovers that
Millard has stolen the basis of his new book from the
unpublished thesis of a deceased student, and she falsely tells the
meek professor that Norman intends to use this information against
him.
That night, Norman follows Paula on her nightly pilgrimage to
the local cemetery, where she practices her voodoo rituals. Norman
catches Paula performing a ceremony over an effigy of Ilona, but he
stops her before she can finish. They return home, where, despite
Paula's warnings, he insists that they burn all her voodoo
accouterments. Soon thereafter, Millard commits suicide, and the
hysterical
Evelyn accuses the Reeds of murder. After Millard's
funeral, Paula warns Norman that they are now in danger from evil,
as he has broken their "circle of immunity" by destroying her
artifacts.
Later, Norman is forced to fire Margaret as his secretary
when she makes her romantic intentions known, which leads to a brief
fight between Norman and David. Paula, in turn, is tormented by
death chants from an unknown caller. After Margaret and David
falsely accuse Norman of sexual harassment,
Grace Gunnison, the dean
of women, suggests that Norman go to a gymnasium to work out his
problems. He is confronted there by an armed David, and when the two
men struggle over the gun, David is accidentally shot and critically
wounded. After he is released on bail, Norman learns that Ilona is
behind all the deceptions.
When David later dies in the hospital,
Norman calls upon Evelyn to help him prove his innocence. That
night, Evelyn calls Ilona to her home, telling the librarian that
she was visited in a dream by her late husband, who told her that he
died "because a woman
lied," and that woman will be choked to death
in thirteen days unless she confesses. The guilt-ridden Ilona slowly
goes crazy over the next thirteen days.
With minutes to go until
Evelyn's "deadline," Ilona rushes to the Sawtelle home where she
confesses all, only to learn that she has been tricked by Norman,
Paula, Grace, Margaret and Evelyn. Unnerved, Ilona rushes out of the
house, where she trips on the catwalk and is strangled to death by
hanging vines, just as was predicted in the dream.
