Night of the Cobra Woman (1972) User Reviews

She bangs, she bangs...she bites, she bites....

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 26 October 2020]

Meet Cobra Woman 1972, not looking "for da Cobra jewel", but facing eternal life after being bitten by the deadly firebrand snake, a supposedly extinct relative of the cobra. She's Marlene Clark, a pretty nurse whose power over the snake can bring back life yet take it away to keep her youthful and eternal. Along comes Joy Bang, a student researching rare serpents, and her venture into the Philippines jungle results in an adventure she didn't count on, especially when she encounters the hopeful immortal Clark.

Bang threatens her immortality by preventing her continued supply of venom by keeping her immortal which sets Clark and her boyfriend Roger Garrett (whom Clark has bewitched into doing her biding) on a journey to retrieve a bottle of venom which Bang took to experiment with. This leads to bizarre twists that takes this down paths that the writers of "Cobra Woman" could never dream of and into camp lover's heaven.

This outlandish mix of tropical adveture and horror is a delightfully fun if proposterous film more memorable for its wild sets and wacky minor characters (including an obvious half wit mumbling a bunch of uninteligeable nonsense while hopping around with Page's feathered hat. The colorful sets and weird situations add to how delightfully fun this is to watch, not really memorable for its acting but the presence of the gorgeous Clark is unforgettable. She is definitely influenced by the Cleopatra legend in her characterization, and is the highlight of the film's weird characters.

Yay for the hidden pig.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 14 October 2021]

Some films have titles that are too good to be true. I mean, who doesn't want to see a cobra woman - a scaly half-human, half reptile with snake eyes and a flicking tongue? But this being a low-budget Filipino B-movie, we just know that what we'll get won't be that great. Sure enough, the titular creature is simply actress Marlene Clark with arms and legs coated in a thin layer of latex to make her skin look rough. Occasionally, she can be seen mid transformation with stupid looking large eyes slapped over her real peepers. The effect is terrible.

Of course, a lousy monster can be easily forgiven if the story is great, but NOTCW fails big time there: the plot feels like it was made up as it went along, and is not going to be easy to summarise. I'll give you the gist...

During WWII, nurse Lena Aruza (Clark) is bitten by the fabled Firebrand Cobra, endowing her with eternal youth, so long as she keeps herself topped up with venom. Decades later, and Lena is still going strong, her scaly pal Movini providing her with the necessary life-giving secretion. When UNICEF worker Joanna (Joy Bang) pays a visit to Lena, looking for help with making an anti-venom, she is turned away, so she sends her boyfriend Duff to see if he can have better luck (Roger Garrett). Quite the opposite... he's bitten by the Firebrand Snake, and only survives when Lena sucks out the poison.

Joanna goes looking for Duff, and while waiting for Lena at her home, notices a sample of Firebrand venom in a pot, and so half-inches it and leaves. When Lena realises what Joanna has done, she sends her snake Movini after the girl, not reckoning on her having Duff's pet eagle Dirk with her. The eagle kills the snake, leaving Lena no option but to feed on the life-force of young men by having sex with them, starting with Duff...

What follows is extremely sloppy storytelling, with zero concern for logic, terrible pacing, animal cruelty (a monkey is strapped to a table and snakes are killed) and very poor special effects, all leading to a downbeat ending in which Duff chooses to stay with Lena (who is in permanent snake form). Joanna walks away dejected, pausing to pluck a venom-infused mango from a tree.

On a 'scale' of 1 to 10, I give thissssss a 3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for the nudity (both Bang and Clark get naked for the camera), the hidden pig (I thought it was a rock, and then up it popped!) and for cult Filipino favourite Vic Diaz as a hideous hunchback.

An exotic exploitation blended horror from Philippines!!

[elo-equipamentos · 5/10 · 11 September 2023]

I'd already given up to find Night of Cobra Woman when decide take a look on Youtube, to my dismay appear there two options over the movie, a VHS print subtitled in Spanish and last one fully restored in Spanish language no subtitled at all, of course I've chose with last one, thanks Youtube to allowed me once more a hard to find picture whereof I did watched in far off 1981 at my teenager years.

The plot is a slight confused to figure out at first glance, set in WWII on Philippines when a couple of nurses enter in a cave where the rock wall there a several figures displaying a big snake, one of them leaves the spot and another keep there and has been bitten for this snake, henceforth she doesn't died, meanwhile out of cave his co-worker is rapped by a Japanese soldier and has been shot afterwards, the bitten nurse Lena Azura (Marlene Clark) healed the wound of Francesca (Rosemary Gill) such snake poison somehow stop the ageing process on Lena that keep young forever, jumping to year 1972 when arrives a couple from Unicef the young girl Joanna (Joy Bang) and her boyfriend Stan Duff (Roger Garrett) on survey and find out an antidote for some kind of snake.

On the Institute Joanna receives an information about Lena that lives on rural area surround by dense forest with several snakes around, Duff bought a Eagle taking her there, on the meeting with Lena the Eagle attacks the special snake called Movini killing at once, Lena stays furious due this snake's poison keeps herself younger, thus she has making love with Duff and others men steadily to maintain young or Lena becomes into a snake, worst each man she makes love have a fastest ageing process, now she walking on the city and others places catching younger men aiming for keeping her human body.

A sort of exotic sexploitation blended horror, it's worth emphasizing the amateur make up whichever be part of the body, whether in skin, faces and eyes, really a bad work, that said the picture is fuzzy even pointless, displaying cockfighting and others off topic things, the special effects are in same level as well, anyway it was an average experience to see this weirdo and off color picture again, sad to know about the lead casting Joy Bang dropped out her career afthmaths.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1981 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 5.

Intermediate grade-B horror film

[EyeAskance · 24 August 2003]

During World-War II, a nurse is bitten by a cobra in a cave. She survives, and is blessed with eternal life, beauty, and a highly lethal sexual prowess. She cohabitates in the cave with the cobra(which she has named "Movini"), and utilizes its powerful venom for all sorts of surprising practicalities...as a healing agent, fertilizer, nail polish remover, etc.

Flash to modern times(1972)...pretty, young Joy Bang(fetching ingénue of many films of this type during the 70s)is a UNICEF researcher working to develop antivenoms. She hears about the reclusive snake-lady, and naturally goes snooping around her cave. Things heat up when Ms. Bang's pet eagle(!) kills Movini, and her boyfriend becomes the serpentine seductress's new "boy toy". All hell proceeds to break loose in a rather insouciant and formulaic fashion.

This film's theatrical poster image and tagline deceitfully suggested a story involving a woman in lustful, taboo concupiscence with a large snake. So much for tantalizing prospects. It is, however, a sufficiently entertaining low-budgeter which might register as slightly above average due to some able performances and marginally higher-than-usual production values for a quickie flick of its particular feather. Despite these minuscule endowments, however, NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN remains a very modest production, and a far-from-crucial viewing experience.

5/10

No serpents, women or animals, were harmed during the making of this film

[Coventry · 4/10 · 5 October 2020]

Those crazed people from the Philippines and their absurd horror tales are always guaranteed to keep you intrigued and entertained! I don't think I've ever seen a half-decent horror movie from there, but it doesn't matter, since they qualify as "so bad it's good". With "Night of the Cobra Woman", director Andrew Meyer doesn't deliver the same flamboyance and utter silliness as the notorious directors Eddie Romero or Cirio H. Santiago, but the concept is nicely messed up nonetheless!

The lovely Lena has been able to keep her youth and beauty ever since WWII, when she was bitten by a Cobra snake that she now keeps as her pet. But when a couple of dumb students pass through Manila with their pet eagle, her Cobra gets killed and Lena must find a different way to survive. She enslaves the dorky boyfriend and starts roaming the streets to pick up men and suck them dry. In case you were looking for any logic or sense, ... don't! "Night of the Cobra Woman" is pointless, incoherent and borderline boring, but there are a few remarkable highlights, including when Lena sheds her snakeskin, when her eyes turn all serpent-like, or simply when she parades around in red underwear. The actress, Marlene Clark, is ravishing, but I can't deny that I would undeniably have loved this film a lot more if her role was played by either Pam Grier or Laura Gemser. Weirdo Vic Diaz also briefly appears, although he doesn't add any value, as a sort of Quasimodo of the jungle.

Meaningless, anonymous sex is degrading

[evening1 · 2/10 · 1 March 2020]

I tried to make some sense of this movie as I left a screening at New York's Museum of Modern Art. "Night" is part of MOMA's vaunted movie collection, but I'm not sure it deserves a berth there.

This production, which was filmed in the Philippines and features snakes popping out of everywhere unexpectedly, is beyond confusing. It's way too long and repetitious and it has unnecessary characters. If I had to take a stab at summarizing the plot, I'd say: Beautiful, unempathic woman gets bitten by cobra, achieving eternal youthfulness as long as she ingests snake venom and beds, then discards, local men, who immediately begin aging prematurely and experiencing body decomposition. Er, OK.

Shortly into watching this film, I was sorry I hadn't checked to see its length and wondered when it would end. I stuck with the movie out of trust in MOMA and morbid curiosity about where it was heading -- which didn't turn out to be anywhere particularly interesting. Hiss!

Only Marlene makes it watchable

[gregorycanfield · 5/10 · 8 May 2022]

Marlene Clark is good (and very sexy) as a nurse who becomes a Cobra Woman. This could have been an interesting little horror film, but the film is defeated by amateurish acting and a mediocre presentation. There were two female leads, so why was the focus more on the completely ineffectual male actor? As for Joy Bang (interesting name), her problem was that she didn't have any "bang." As my heading says, only Marlene Clark makes this movie worthwhile. Marlene shows some skin here, but not enough. The movie, in general, comes across as too timid for its own premise.

VIVA LA PHILLIPINES!

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 10 January 2020]

Roger Corman wasn't happy with the end results of this film, which was shot in the Philippines, but man, he has no idea. This is my kind of insane movie, where a movie leaves his woman for, well, a cobra woman who keeps him alive by pimping out his native lover who draws venom from the men that she kills.

Andrew Meyer only wrote and directed one other film, The Sky Pirate, which is a shame because this movie is pretty much insane. It has snake murders, an air of filth and women ruining lives. Is there anything else you can put in a movie?

How about Joy Bang? You know and love her from Messiah of Evil and she's here, looking gorgeous. She's the former girlfriend of Stan Duff (Roger Garrett, who got a poultry infection while making this movie!), who has now found love in the arms of Lena (Marlene Clark from Ganja & Hess, Beware the Blob and Switchblade Sisters), the cobra woman herself.

Vic Diaz, who was Satan in Beast of the Yellow Night, also shows up. Quentin Tarantino would refer to Vic as the Peter Lorre of the Philippines, a title he earned in appearances in movies like Beyond Atlantis, Black Mama White Mama, Superbeast, Daughters of Satan and Raw Force.

An off-beat & interesting Filipino horror oddity

[Woodyanders · 7/10 · 9 April 2006]

Filipino fright flicks don't get much stranger than this singularly messed-up no-budget curio which treats its hilariously absurd story with an endearingly misguided conviction that proves to be as utterly engaging as it is weirdly engrossing. Granted, we're not talking unsung overlooked classic here, but this honey's peculiar enough to warrant a viewing.

The ever-adorable blonde sprite Joy Bang (who had sizable co-starring roles in the lowdown funky early 70's drug deal items "Cisco Pike" and "Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues") is a perky, kooky, constant delight as Joanna, an eager beaver college biology student who treks off into the Filipino jungle to research rare breeds of snakes. Joanna brings her scrawny, charmless drip boyfriend Stan Duff (woodenly played by insipid string-bean Roger Garrett) along to keep her company. Unfortunately, Stan falls under the lethal and alluring spell of Lena (the busty, beautiful, frequently nude Marlene Clark of "Slaughter" and "Switchblade Sisters"), a sexy, slinky, slithery black snake goddess who has to regularly make love to a huge volume of dudes in order to retain eternal youth! Naturally, said guys wind up prematurely aging after they've enjoyed a night of carnal bliss with Lena. It's up to Joanna to find an effective anecdote to Lena's deadly venom before Stan meets a most horrid fate.

If one can get past the admittedly asinine story, Nonong Rasca's crude cinematography, the jarringly choppy and abrupt editing, Restie Ulami's sleep-inducing score, the mostly flat acting, a deadeningly slow pace and lots of banal dialogue ("Doctor, I've really hit the jackpot with this venom"), "Night of the Cobra Woman" makes for an enjoyably quirky piece of high camp horror dreck. Chief among its strongest assets are the commendably straight-faced mood that treats the whole ridiculous story with utmost seriousness, plenty of choice nutty moments (after having sex with a guy a freshly rejuvenated Lena peels off her old skin and stuffs it in her purse!), Marlene Clark's sexy, often undraped, roll-your-tongue-up-from-off-the-floor smoking hot beauty, and, best of all, an oddly moving performance by invaluable trash movie treasure Vic Diaz as a pathetic, deformed, imbecilic mute retard victim of the irresistibly vampy villainess Luna (Vic also briefly appears as a Japanese soldier at the start of the film). It's a genuine pity that director and co-screenwriter Andrew Meyer, an eccentric talent who started out doing experimental underground features for Andy Warhol and died in 1987, next wound up directing the cheesy Lorne Greene insert sequences for "Tidal Wave," which was Roger Corman's terrible, truncated travesty of the epic Japanese disaster stunner "The Submersion of Japan."

For cult and/or vintage nudity completists only.

[punishmentpark · 6/10 · 22 February 2016]

This is nothing special. The premise is fun enough for a cult flick, and the story is worked out neat enough, but it's mostly amateur stuff. Marlene Clark as the Cobra Woman is a pretty spectacular dame, though, and she shows a fair amount of nudity as well. Joy Bang is also a sight for sore eyes, and yes, she bares some as well.

The story is a bit like "when Nosferatu came to the Philippines in the form of a snake", and it's entertaining enough. The horror of it all (aka the gore and stuff) is essentially pretty cool, but none too overwhelming either. Someone elsewhere on the net mentioned the hunchback as a very welcome addition to the film, but I only agree partially there. The nice backdrop of the Philippino nature, the village and the city streets is something that I'm more into, and there's plenty of that.

A very small 6 out of 10.

Not bad for a Filipino horror/exploitation flick

[lazarillo · 21 January 2008]

Joy Bang plays a brilliant scientist (hold on a second--I have to stop laughing hysterically) who is in the Philipines doing research on snakes. Her dorky boyfriend comes to visit, for some reason bringing his pet falcon with him. He goes exploring in the jungle and his falcon ends up killing a snake--bad news since this was the sacred snake of a Filipino snake cult led by an African-American woman (Marlene Clark) who has been using snake venom to keep herself young ever since she was accidentally bitten by a snake while serving as a nurse during World War III. Problem is all this snake venom apparently causes her to turn into a snake (at least, I think--they kept this particular transformation offscreen, possibly as a homage to the original "Cat People", but more likely because this is a cheap-ass Filipino production). But speaking of asses, it is left up to the owner one of the nicest ones of the early 70's (Bang) to save the day after her boyfriend is seduced into some interracial ((and perhaps inter-special) lovin' by the evil cobra women.

Actually as Filipino productions go this isn't that bad. It has the same scruffy charm as the John Ashley/Eddie Romero "Blood Island" series and between Clark and Bang it almost approaches the T and A level of the Roger Corman/Jack Hill WIP films. It also seems to directed with a considerable amount of intelligence by someone who was clearly in on the joke (although being in on the joke is vastly overrated in my opinion). The acting is a little weak. Bang is a little miscast and not nearly as good as leading lady as she is as a character actor, and Marlene Clark is no Pam Grier (who really should have played this role). The interest of either of these women in the dipstick leading man is REALLY beyond me though.

Not great, but Filipino horror/exploitation fans at least will certainly want to check it out.

I dig any woman who eats her Cheerios right out of the box.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 18 July 2014]

Rather obscure production from Roger Cormans' studio New World is admittedly a curio. It's far from being an unsung gem, but it's just weird, atmospheric - and sad - enough to make for mildly interesting viewing. The truth is that not that much ever happens, and the pace is pretty slow. Most of the acting is pretty underwhelming - some of these people have a hard time getting their dialogue out - and the dialogue isn't too hot. The filmmaking is crude overall, but there is something that's still compelling about this trashy and schlocky material.

Sexy Marlene Clark plays Lena Aruza, a nurse during WWII who ventures inside a Filipino cave, where she's bitten by a special kind of cobra and for the next 20 plus years is able to maintain her youthful appearance - and can change into a snake as well. Then along comes a young supposed snake expert, Joanna (Joy Bang) and her boyfriend Duff (Roger Garrett). Lena and Duff are drawn to each other, but when the pet eagle that he bought on a whim kills Lena's god / companion Movini, she must find alternate methods for looking young by playing up to horny young men.

Clark, who gets to show off a lot of her body, is good, but most everybody else here is dull, although it's always nice to see Filipino icon Vic Diaz, who's cast in two roles. The music by Restie Umali is actually quite nice. The makeup effects are not too bad for whatever budget this movie must have had, and there is one amusing gag involving the shedding of skin.

Worth a look for B movie addicts who like discovering little known oddities like this one.

Six out of 10.

Bad Enough to Get a Few Laughs

[Michael_Elliott · 28 October 2013]

Night of the Cobra Woman (1972)

* (out of 4)

Really bad Filipino horror movie starts off during WWII when a nurse (Marlene Clark) walks into a cave and is bitten by a special snake, which makes her live forever as long as she has its venom. Flash forward several decades and the nurse has her snake killed by a studying student (Joy Bang), which means she now needs sex to live. NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN is a really, really bad movie that has a few moments that are so bad that they at least keep you mildly entertained. I'm not sure where to start on this sucker because pretty much everything here is bad. I guess the lack of a screenplay could be the biggest issue because scenes just seem to happen out of nowhere and deal with things that really aren't necessary to anything else in the movie. The movie never makes a lick of sense and it appears that the producers were just making things up as they went along. Even worse is that the special effects are going to be some of the worse you've ever witnessed but these here do get some of the biggest laughs in the picture. Just check out the transformation scenes of the woman turning into the "cobra" and have yourself a good laugh. As far as the acting goes, it's clear that most people were never trained and if you check their credits it appears most never appeared in another movie. The best thing about lead actress Joy Bang is her name. Mrs. Bang would appear in a few notable films including PLAY IT Again, SAM but this here was certainly one of her only lead roles. Clark, who appeared in a few cult movies including SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, has several nude scenes, which certainly adds some appeal. The supporting cast members are all equally bad and forgettable. The film does offer up some cheap sex scenes and nudity, which might help keep some awake but there's really no defending a movie like this. It's beyond cheap and so poorly produced that you have to wonder what the entire point was.

"I Get Enough Of A Kick Watching The Feathers Fly!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 3 November 2019]

NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN stars Marlene Clark as the titular character, Lena. Joy Bang (MESSIAH OF EVIL) is UNICEF field researcher, Joanna, who seeks out Lena, and her mythical cobra in the jungles of the Philippines. Upon meeting Lena, Joanna steals a vial of the cobra's venom, leading to her being attacked by the snake.

Luckily, Joanna just happens to have a cobra-killing eagle, named Dirk! Oh, and she has a rather dense boyfriend, named Duff (Roger Garrett), for whom Lena has nefarious plans. And, there's a hunchback (Vic Diaz)! And a mad scientist! Annnd black magic!

Even by Filipino cinema standards, this is one weird, disjointed movie! Plot? What plot? Thankfully, there is ample nudity! Unfortunately, there's animal cruelty as well.

Actually, Lena's eventual rampage is the best part of the story. She's sort of a reptilian vampire, draining the life from her victims. The rest is mostly flotsam...