Black Cobra Woman

Worth a look

The main reason I purchased this movie was because Laura Gemser is the star, and as always she is amazing. In Black Cobra Woman Laura is very young, thin in a beautiful way, a lot lighter skinned than she is in Love Camp (terrible title, but great scenes of Laura, even though her voice sounds dubbed), and I believe in Black Cobra Woman we hear Laura's real voice with a slight accent; very cute. All of Laura's movies have interesting stories, and Black Cobra Woman has a series of exceptional plots dealing with conflicts that illustrate the differences between Europe and Asia; men and women; religion and science. There are three main characters in Black Cobra Woman: Judas (Jack Palance/god figure), the oldest son who is an ophiologist and a fortunate man since he has inherited the family business, which allows him to live a life of leisure sequestered in his high rise apartment with an assortment of deadly snakes; Jules the troublesome brother (Loki god of mischief) who runs the company with the understanding that if he behaves himself for five years he will inherit a fifty percent share of the business; and Eva (Laura Gemser/Eve/snake goddess) who is an entertainer who uses snakes in her cabaret routine. One night Jules convinces his brother Judas to go out and experience Eva's snake dance. When Judas sees Eva handling the snakes like a goddess from an ancient cult, he immediately loses his scientific, detached reserve and asks her out: taking her first to dinner, and then to his apartment where Judas introduces Eva to his poisonous snakes. By this time in the movie we have already experienced a little of Eva's personality: she is strong willed; used to getting her way; opportunistic; erotically attracted to women; and self-centered. Judas conveys to Eva as he handles his prize mamba that he is worried that his snakes might frighten Eva. Eva explains she likes his snakes, but she is afraid of him... With this revelation Eva dramatically flees from Judas' apartment and we suddenly shift to a scene where Eva relates to her boyfriend in a very cruel way that she is moving in with Judas... Judas takes really good care of Eva, giving her the use of a convertible Mercedes and allowing Eva her peccadilloes. During this time Eva finds herself attracted to a young, blonde woman who is having financial difficulties and in much the same way that Judas is looking after her, Eva mothers the young woman. As Eva seduces the blonde who while shorter than Eva, is almost a pale body-double of Laura... we learn that Eva's mother abandoned her when she was ten years old, leaving Eva on an island in the care of a woman who knew the ancient secrets of snakes and passed them onto Eva. It is during their courtship that one of the most interesting scenes in the movie takes place: Eva takes her girlfriend to an all girls club to watch the Kim sisters perform... In ancient Greek drama, hubris was usually the source of a person's downfall and Black Cobra Woman neatly inserts this concept into the main plot. Judas and Jules both announce they are going out of town. Laura takes this opportunity to invite her girlfriend over for the night, and of course a tragedy that has been foreshadowed several times takes place. Broken hearted, Eva explains to Judas that Jules and her are going back to the island where her mother abandoned her as a child; Eva needs to heal. Once on the island, Eva takes her revenge... While the act that takes place is more bogey-man type fiction than anything near reality, it is the kind of myth that is often accepted in what we might refer to as primitive cultures. Laura as Eva does an excellent job of acting as she returns to Judas' apartment in an attempt to recapture her brief time in Eden. Her body posture, her facial features all portray a woman who has lost so much, one who knows she can never go back to the person she was, and yet is determined to try no matter how much it costs her. While Eva might have softened the scientific heart of Judas, he too has come to a point of no return, and in the denouement there is a fall from grace of a pagan goddess who loses her absolute confidence in herself, and a cold hearted scientist who implodes back into his self-inflicted exile from humanity. Some of the great things in this movie besides Laura and her girlfriends are the landscapes of Hong Kong. It is so much fun to see the city back then. And of course the snakes, while their portrayal might upset an expert, the vipers are amazing, especially the mamba, who is as much of a star of the movie as Laura Gemser.

Not ONE of the reviews listed here is for the movie pictured - the pictured film listed here is for one of the WORST Joe Damato films made, Jack Palance was out of his mind for appearing in it, and a total bust for fans of Laura Gemser- I know what you might be thinking, for this kind of $$, how bad can it be? Worse than you can imagine - and as for fans of Laura Gemser - DON`T DO IT. You have been duly warned...

the women could have been better looking but still enjoyable

Do you think that when Jack Palance bounded to the stage, ready to do one-arm pushups and accept his Best Supporting Oscar for City Slickers after being nominated for Sudden Far and Shane, that he had a flashback and said to himself, “I’m in the A list tonight, but man, how can it compare to being in a movie where Laura Gemser dances with snakes?”Seriously, the man who would become a star again at the age of 73 has a wealth of roles in aberrant movies in his past, but playing Judas Carmichael in a Joe D’Amato movie may be the pinnacle. Or the pit.Gemser plays Eva, a snake dancer who obsesses Judas, because he has a snake collection at home — as you do — and he wants to show it to her. So she finally gives in and moves in with him while confining her horizontal dancing to the ladies — including Candy (Ziggy Zanger, who Gemser would go on to appear in Black Emanuelle, White Emanuelle with, along with Nieves Navarro, and just writing that sentence made me a little faint). Judas’ brother Jules (Gabriele Tinti) wants Candy all for himself, so he messes around with the snakes with her — which seems ill-advised — and she gets killed by a mamba. And then he doubles up and kills off Eva’s lover Gerri (Michele Starck, Forever Emmanuelle) and ends up taking Eva from his brother!Of course, that’s not the end of matters. Eva’s more devious than she looks. And so is Judas. I mean, if your mom names you Judas any time in a year that doesn’t have BC in it, you’re not going to turn out all that great.Bruno Mattei edited this movie — a fact that makes me love it so much more — and it was also called Emmanuelle And The Deadly Black Cobra, Hot Pants and finally and most awesomely Emmanuelle Goes Japanese, which makes no sense for a movie set in Hong Kong.

👍👎

They censored this film almost to a pg. Not worth the watch. The film was known for it's sex scenes, as with all of Gemsers films. but they took them out.

Must see for cult fans.