Cult of the Cobra

Excited about seeing a snake cult, Air Force soldiers have a curse visited upon them when their presence at the ceremony is exposed. Will the cult's "snake woman" unleash her venomous bite on them all?

 **½

I was looking over 1955, not long after revisiting Cult of the Cobra, and it was flush with sci-fi and creature features. A really solid year if you enjoy those genres. Already tied to one great science-fiction feature (This Island Earth) and another vintage Harryhausen classic (It Came from Beneath the Sea) of the same year, Faith Domergue had a third role in Cobra that I think is perhaps her most iconic in terms of her enigmatic, magnetic presence on screen. She was in another sci-fi film, “The Atomic Man”, from ’55 I’m unfamiliar. Maybe I’ll try to eye that one eventually as well. What’s cool about looking through the oeuvre of talents in the past who were significant to genres I love, is the discoveries they are tied to. Like Domergue being in the excellent Fulci thriller “One on Top of the Other” (’71). She’s even tied to Corman’s purchased Russian property, a sci-fi film with additional footage directed by Curtis Harrington called “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” (1965), which I also haven’t seen.

Trivia is always a plus when researching these little movies and their stars. What also makes Cult of the Cobra stand out is the cast of recognizable male faces. I know Richard Long primarily from Twilight Zone (the excellent episode Person or Persons Unknown (1962) is a particular favorite of mine) and House on Haunted Hill (1959), but he was linked especially to television. He’s the lead along with sci-fi stalwart, Marshall Thompson, who winds up being Domergue’s love interest. Thompson himself is tied to two cult sci-fi films that came three years after Cult: “It! The Terror from Beyond Space” & “Fiend Without a Face”, both in 1958. Fun back story behind Cult of the Cobra, for sure. 1955 also had “Tarantula” & “Revenge of the Creature”, and Ed Wood was dabbling in genre with “Bride of the Monster” of this year. Godzilla was tearing up Osaka in “Raids Again” and the British had “Quatermass Xperiment”. Quite a year. This is very representative of the decade as the 40s horror boom was ending and the viewing public was told to “watch the skies”.

Cult of the Cobra spins quite a yarn: soldiers of the Air Force in Asia encounter a culture of Lamians who worship woman who transforms into a cobra. This encounter is accidental: a snake-charmer offers them a chance to see the people and a ritualistic ceremony of the snake woman. When one among the soldiers (disguised in hooded robes) can’t resist taking a picture, the flashbulb gives away his identity, resulting in an ambush that is unsuccessful…the soldiers flee but a curse is placed upon them. That curse is Domergue, stunning and glamorous, moving next door to Marshall and Long, who are roommates. Marshall and Long were both vying for the affections of Broadway star, Kathleen Hughes, with Long winning out her love. Domergue becomes Marshall’s “rebound” (she’s much more). She’s exotic and secretive, seemingly devoid of certain emotional functions.

Cult of the Cobra operates on what we now consider a slasher formula. The Cobra woman executes the soldiers one by one through snake bite strikes. A car wreck and fall from a window are results of the strike. David Janssen, of the popular show, The Fugitive, runs his pop’s bowling alley and is one such victim. Marshall has little patience for womanizing Jack Kelly, socking him in the jaw for flirting with Domergue. She is responsible for Jack’s flight out off a balcony. William Reynolds realizes Domergue is a threat and he, too, must be done away with. Kathleen and Long are also on the “hit list”. Marshall she finds herself falling in love with.

While we see Domergue initially presented in a “cobra costume” with snake-head arms, emerging from a basket for the ceremony, the film refrains from showing her in this form afterward, opting for a shadow transformation on the wall, POV shot as the camera is her eyes looking directly at potential victims, and the snake itself in the position of an attack strike. The film is ideally about Marshall and Domergue’s endangered romance due to the curse which fuels her serial murders of his buddies from the war. I think this just barely misses being upper echelon sci-fi horror, close to the same vein as the Cat Peoples that came before it. It is kind of a precursor to The Reptile (1966), I guess.