The 1975 film, Lord Shango, takes place in a small, rural town in the Deep South, where the population appears to be firmly divided between those who worship at an evangelical Christian church and those who follow the Yoruba religion.

(To answer the obvious question, I have no idea how faithful this film is to the realities of the Yoruba religion.)

Jenny (Marlene Clark), who is a waitress at a local restaurant, is a member of the evangelical church, largely because her boyfriend is a member and he thinks that her attending the church will help her to get pregnant.  Her daughter, Billie (Avis McCarther), is in love with Femi (Bill Overton), who is a follower of the Yoruba religion.  One Sunday morning, while all the church people sings hymns, a series of baptisms are held in a nearby river.  When it is time for Billie to baptized, Femi rushes into the water and objects.  After he shoves her out of the river, the men of the church grab Femi and announce that the evil must be taken out of him through what appears to be a forced baptism.  They force him under the water but, with Femi struggling, the end up holding him down for too long and Femi drowns.

Traumatized, Billie sinks into depression and Jenny grows disillusioned with the church, especially when the men who held Femi down refuse to take any responsibility for their actions.  She also learns that her boyfriend, Memphis (Wally Taylor), had sex with Billie after Billie mistook him for being the spirit of Femi.  When she finds Memphis praying in the church, she proceeds to yell and curse at him while he pathetically apologizes.

The next morning, Jenny wakes up to discover that Billie has run away, leaving behind a note that simply reads, “I can no longer live in your house.”  When the men of the church again prove to be insensitive and ineffectual when it comes to finding out where Billie has gone (and instead are more concerned about why Jenny and Memphis has not been coming to the prayer meetings), Jenny turns to Femi’s friend, Jabo (Lawrence Cook).  Under Jabo’s guidance, Jenny offers up a series of sacrifices to the local Yoruba priest (Maurice Woods) and asks for her daughter to return home.

The sacrifices appear to work.  Billie returns home and reveals that she’s pregnant with a baby that she believes to be Femi’s and which Jenny believes to be Memphis’s.  Jenny, now firmly under the control of Jabo, continues to make sacrifices and bad things continue to befall the men that she holds responsible for Femi’s death….

A frequently surreal film, Lord Shango is an interesting, if not always easy-to-decipher, portrayal of the battle of two different belief systems.  While the evangelical Christianity that Jenny first followed could only promise an eventual reward, Jabo’s tribal religion offers her immediate reward and revenge.  (Significantly, even though Billie was in love with Femi and wants to have his child, she has no interest in following his religion.)  The film is often edited to provide a direct contrast between the staged cermonies of evangelical Christianity and the sensuality of the Yoruba religion.  The film is full of Southern gothic atmosphere and is well-acted, particularly by Lawrence Cook and Marlene Clark.  That said, the film is also frequently very difficult to follow.  At times, one gets the feeling that the film is being surreal simply to be surreal and it’s hard to find a coherent message in the film’s collection of odd scenes and strange dialogue.

Lord Shango is a frequently intriguing film, as long as you’re willing to accept a little incoherence.