|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Paul (Richard Long) and Tom (Marshall Thompson), two GIs
returning from World War II where they served in Asia, are both in love
with the same girl, actress Julia (Kathleen Hughes), but she chooses Paul
over Tom, which leaves Tom heartbroken - but not for long, soon he meets
Lisa (Faith Domergue), his new next-door neightbours, falls in love with
her on the spot, and starts to date her. She loves him back, too, but
there are a few things odd about her, she seems to have commitment
problems that make her almost frigid, animals seem to fear her, and both
Paul and Julia soon grow mighty suspicious about her. Oh, and then Paul
and Tom's army buddies start to die ... ... but that's not how the story
starts, actually it starts back in Asia, when Paul and Tom and four others
(William Reynolds, Jack Kelly, David Janssen, James Dobson) sneak their
way into a ceremony of the highly secretive Lamia cult, a cult worshipping
cobra-women, are found out and cursed by the high priest - and since then,
all of Paul and Tom's friends have died in cobra-related incidents. Paul
soon starts to suspect Lisa is a cobra woman, but of course he cannot make
the police believe ... until it's almost too late, and while he and the
police still try to track her down, Lisa is in Julia's dressing room with
her and Tom, turns into a snake and tries to kill them - but Tom manages
to throw the cobra off the window ledge just in time ... though it's Lisa
who hits the ground. This Universal horror film of the
1950's is not as much reminiscent of the Universal
horror cycle of previous decades (that has long run its course
by 1955) as is it of Jacques Tourneur's classic Cat People from
1942 - yet with none of that movie's verve. Where Tourneur tried to create
a very unique atmosphere of unease, Cult of the Cobra just relies
on tried-and-true but overused lighting techniques, where Cat People
had strong yet masterfully disguised psychosexual undercurrents, this film
just seems blunt, and where the earlier film appears to be highly
innovative even today, Cult of the Cobra just seems old-fashioned
and derivative. That all said, Cult of the Cobra is not the worst
film ever, not by a longshot, it's ok low budget run-of-the-mill horror
fare for the drive-in crowd, a bit on the stiff and stuffy side, but not
too bad after alll - just not too good, either.
|