Title: The Isle of Fear
Air date: October 30, 1938
Guest star: Richard Widmark
Plot summary: Lamont and Margot are cruising through the Caribbean. They stop in Haiti and visit the mansion of Lamont's old friend Monsieur Dupree. The sound of drums in the hills leads M. Dupree to tell Lamont a disturbing story. There is a voodoo priest, Kay-on, who leads a quite sinister voodoo death cult that demands human sacrifices. Ten years ago, Kay-on's cultists went on a rampage, seizing women and children to sacrifice to the voodoo god. Among those killed was M. Dupree' swipe, who had only recently given birth to their son. Lamont and Margot were under the impression that voodoo was "stamped out", but on the contrary, M. Dupree tells them that voodoo "only sleeps."
In fact, M. Dupree thinks those drums mean that the voodoo cult is back. Sure enough, Kay-on's goons are readying a human sacrifice and gathering victims. When they kidnap M. Dupree's little son Juan, Lamont and Margo decide to hunt down this cult.
Notes: This would be the first of several minor appearances on The Shadow for Richard Widmark, then just getting started out in show business, who would eventually become an A-list movie star.
Tropes:
- Busman's Holiday: Poor Lamont and Margo can't take a vacation without running into some criminals. Even when they go to Haiti, they have to chase down some crazy cultists.
- Flashback: The orgy of violence from ten years ago takes place in a single flashback.
- Hollywood Voodoo: This episode doesn't even use the regular Hollywood Voodoo nonsense: there are no voodoo zombies or voodoo dolls. Instead it's an entirely different form of nonsense, as this voodoo cult practices human sacrifice.
- Human Sacrifice: It's the time of the "blood moon" and so the voodoo god demands human sacrifices, children no less.
- Jedi Mind Trick: The Shadow does this to get Gayot, one of Kay-on's main followers, to drop her knife, by using the power of his mind.
- Jungle Drums: The drums in the hills make M. Dupree think that trouble is coming again, and he is right.
- Vacation Episode: Lamont and Margo, taking a Caribbean cruise, running into a voodoo cult. This was the second vacation episode in a row and in fact the second Caribbean cruise episode in a row, coming one week after Lamont and Margo found a secret military base on a remote Caribbean island in "Gun Island." Maybe it was the same vacation? The same extremely violent vacation?
- Where da White Women At?: This is a pretty darn racist episode, and it employs this trope in a non-sexual way. The followers of Kay-on are pretty excited about sacrificing the white woman with "her skin like ivory" to the voodoo god.
