Review: Black Cobra Woman

Laura Gemser comes to Hong Kong to do some sexy snake dancing at a nightclub, and gets involved with two very different brothers. There’s Judas (Jack Palance), who despite his name and being a reptile enthusiast is rather a milquetoast sort, who takes an immediate liking to our heroine. Younger brother Jules (Gabriele Tinti) is seen as the less responsible one. Judas was given all of the family inheritance until Jules proves himself worthy after a five year period. It’s Jules who introduces Gemser to a lady named Gerri (Michele Starck), whom she immediately falls for and gives the brothers someone in common to be jealous of.

Like a Jesus Franco film with almost all of the fun bits taken out, this 1976 exploitation piece from writer-director Joe D’Amato (“Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals”, the notorious “Antropophagus”) is kinky and weird but not in any especially interesting way. It’s weird to a point and there’s plenty of full-frontal nudity and the occasional Sapphic touch, but that only gets you so far if there’s nothing else going on. At least most of Franco’s work has a real auteur’s stamp on it, whatever you might think of that particular stamp. Even on the level of exploitation, for the most part this one’s quite a tease, unfortunately. The sexy snake routine at the start is more erotic than any of the sex scenes. So it ultimately doesn’t reach the heights of a “Vampyros Lesbos” or “Emmanuelle II” in the exploitation cinema annuls. Since it fails on that level and is also clearly unable to really be defended as a movie on legit terms (D’Amato’s a hack), it’s in that awkward, mediocre-bordering-on-subpar level of meh. Reading the plot description and looking at the cast and crew…it defies belief, but that is indeed the impression one is left with: meh.

Laura Gemser (who had a cameo in “Emmanuelle II” but is best known for a series of similarly titled “Emanuelle” films) is no actress, but like Franco regular Soledad Miranda she has a certain beguiling presence and willingness to get naked often. She’s certainly a great, exotic beauty but even for this kind of thing her character is senselessly horny, having sex so often simply because it’s in the script. Look out for the requisite massage scene, which gets almost everything wrong that Gemser’s cameo in “Emmanuelle II” got right. The bodies are hot, but machinery is doing most of the work, the scene lacks any eroticism whatsoever as a result. Jack Palance turned up in all kinds of films during his colourful career and doesn’t offer up his worst performance ever here. However, for most of the film he plays a boring, nerdy Gregory Peck meets Farley Granger-type and it’s certainly not casting to his best advantage. Yeah, he ultimately proves to be rather eccentric but not in an especially compelling way. Gabriele Tinti is his usual dull self as Palance’s brother, I’ve never gotten into him as an actor and his character here is boring too.

Nice location shooting and lots of nudity, but overall this one isn’t very well-made and even the exploitation content isn’t nearly as explicit or crazy as one would like. The dreamy/sleazy/jazzy vibe carries it for a bit, but not for terribly long. Disappointing, and not especially worthy for curio purposes either.

Rating: C