CULT OF THE COBRA (1955)
Article #397 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-16-2002
Posting date: 9-9-2002

Six soldiers are caught sneaking into the temple of a cult of cobra-worshippers, and are cursed. After they return to the States, they begin dying one by one, and it’s all tied to the presence of a mysterious woman.

The first twenty minutes of this movie, in which the soldiers visit the temple, is the best and most exciting part of the movie; even the temple dance is better than you might expect, though it doesn’t look at all like a native ritual dance. Unfortunately, the movie becomes singularly dull once the action moves to the States; there are too many scenes of scared animals, too many long sequences where we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats waiting for something to happen, and too many long talky sections which slow the pace to a crawl. Though it’s admirable that they try to give the mysterious woman some dimension, it really doesn’t work because we never achieve any intimacy with the character; the movie tries to have it both ways and ends up having it with neither. The cast includes Richard Long, Faith Domergue (the trailer finally helped me to figure out how to pronounce her last name), and David Janssen.