Review: Black Snake

Set in the 1800s in the West Indies on a plantation owned by whip-cracking Lady Susan Walker (Anoushka Hempel), a brutal tyrant ably assisted by the brutish Joxer (Percy Herbert). David Warbeck plays an Englishman who arrives to enquire on the whereabouts of his brother, Lady Susan’s husband who is missing. Character actor Anthony Sharp (in perhaps the most decent performance here) plays Lord Clive, whilst stunt man Bob Minor plays one of the slaves, and an American actor named Bernard Boston plays the snooty, gay, French soldier whom Lady Susan employs as the captain of her private army of mercenaries. The hulking David Prowse turns up in a small role that you can probably figure out the identity of yourself.

 

There were a couple of times in his career that former ‘nudie cutie’ director Russ Meyer (“Vixen”, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”) attempted to make somewhat ‘serious’ films, “The Seven Minutes” (a PG-rated Russ Meyer film!) being one of them. This 1973 slavery-themed film is yet another. Both films misfired, and hopefully you’ll note I’ve put the word ‘serious’ in parentheses there especially in regards to this film in particular. Scripted by Meyer and Leonard Neubauer (“New Year’s Evil”), the title certainly doesn’t suggest total seriousness and the entirety of the film itself suggests that serious filmmaking just wasn’t in Meyer’s wheelhouse at all. There’s very little of the Meyer touch beyond that naughty title (supposedly a reference to a whip but we all know what else it refers to) and to some extent his trademark rapid-cut, montage-style editing is here too. There’s also nothing much of interest, at least not for me. Let me put it this way: This is a Russ Meyer movie and I was most interested in the wild-haired, gay black Frenchman. He’s interesting (to some extent at least), but the film isn’t. It’s another “Mandingo”-style slavery story, but crudely made and confusingly told. The subject matter that at the very least demands much better execution than Meyer seems capable of here. It’s an awkward, rather unfortunate film that isn’t good enough to be taken seriously, and yet not explicit enough to satisfy sexploitation fans, either.

 

Speaking of that sexploitation factor, Meyer’s penchant for frequent nudity from large breasted women is mostly absent here in a film that is heavier on foul language and nasty violence than sex or nudity. And that’s where he loses me. Firstly, Hempel’s big nude scene actually features a breast double (because Meyer reportedly thought Hempel’s boobs were too small) and is featured in a nasty rape scene done for supposedly ‘comedic’ effect. One of my least favourite Meyer touches is his occasional tendency to infuse his T&A with extreme misogynistic violence. I didn’t like it in “Supervixens” (an otherwise OK film) and I like it even less here, and not because of the nude deception. Worst of all here is an absolutely disgusting scene where Hempel orders Percy Herbert to whip a half-dead African boy. He refuses until the boy actually does die anyway, so he just whips the lifeless corpse. I know slavery was disgusting and perhaps it needs to be presented in such a way to be accurate. However, I don’t have enough faith in the “Vixen” guy to believe that he had the aim of being true to historical record. Yes, I know he’s reported as saying the film is an anti-racism statement but my evidence against the sincerity of that is that it’s from the director of “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”. Case closed. At any rate it doesn’t work for me, and yet I’m the guy whose favourite Tarantino film is “Django Unchained”, a mixture of spaghetti western and “Mandingo”. So I’m not entirely against using slavery themes for entertainment purposes, even somewhat trashy entertainment. It just has to be well-done and the right kind of trash. Tarantino pulled it off, Meyer doesn’t.

 

British character actors Percy Herbert and David Warbeck have been sturdy elsewhere but completely out to sea here, Herbert is especially one-note and his apparent Irish accent is a disaster. I thought he was attempting a bad Southern American accent ala Michael Caine in “Hurry Sundown”. Warbeck tries hard but looks a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. Deservedly so as this is a regrettable career decision of his. Kiwi-born Anoushka Hempel simply isn’t anywhere near good enough of an actress to have such a large role in something of this subject. Like I said, actor Bernard Boston plays a somewhat interesting character (a gay, black French soldier working for white slavers), but his French accent is mostly impenetrable and the film is unfortunately incredibly homophobic. I also have to wonder what all the black actors in the cast made of what they were doing here with this crazy old white ‘titty movie’ filmmaker. It may have been a more serious Russ Meyer film in comparison to most of his other films, but it’s nonetheless trash – and very much the wrong kind.

 

Veteran exploitation filmmaker (and former war photographer) Russ Meyer treads in some very murky, treacherous waters here and completely drowns. This is just awful on every conceivable level and shouldn’t have been attempted let alone released. A film destined to please no one, and thus one of Meyer’s more obscure films. Even his trademark editing prowess is way off base here, it looks rough. Poorly made, uninteresting, and zero fun.

 

Rating: D