Horror Noir: Where Cinema's Dark Sisters Meet by Paul Meehan

Author:Paul Meehan [Meehan, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-04T03:10:00+00:00

Shapeshifting Femme fatale

The Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur supernatural thriller Cat People was reformulated for the 1950s in Universal's Cult of the Cobra (1955). The film begins somewhere in east Asia in 1945, where six American airmen are enjoying some leave time in an exotic eastern city prior to being demobilized and sent back to the States at the end of World War II. Looking for some local excitement, the flyboys hook up with snake charmer Daru (Leonard Strong), who claims to be a member of a snake cult called the "Lamians." For a hundred American dollars Daru agrees to sneak the servicemen into a forbidden Lamian ceremony where they will behold the spectacle of "she who is a snake and yet a woman." Clad in cowled robes, the airmen are escorted into the Lamian temple to watch a bizarre ritual that features a woman dancing in an elaborate cobra costume. During the ceremony one of the Americans, Nick (James Dobson), takes a photograph and the presence of the interlopers is discovered. The airmen fight their way out of the temple and escape, but that night Nick is mysteriously bitten by a cobra and dies.

Returning to New York, the five remaining friends settle in Greenwich Village, where Tom Markel (Marshall Thompson) and Paul Able (Richard Long) share an apartment. An exotic, mysterious woman named Lisa Moya (Faith Domergue) moves into the apart ment next door and Tom is immediately smitten with her sultry beauty. The enigmatic Lisa, who dresses in black and has large, expressive eyes, insinuates herself into the group of friends while learning their habits and whereabouts. She is in reality a lamia who can shapeshift into a cobra and she is stalking the men to exact the vengeance of the snake cult upon them. Assuming her serpentine form, she slithers into the car of Rico Nardi (David Janssen) to put the bite on him, causing him to lose control of his vehicle, then drives Carl Turner (Jack Kelly) out of his apartment window to his death. The police suspect nothing and rule the deaths accidental, but Paul, who has an academic background, begins to suspect that Lisa is a lamia who is killing the members of the group one by one.

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