Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Lee Eisenberg The 1970s is known as the era of disaster movies, but the Me Decade also saw Italy release some of its greatest exploitation flicks. One example is Joe D'Amato's "Eva nera" ("Black Cobra Woman" in English). Laura Gemser plays a snake dancer who hooks up with some strange people in Hong Kong. Jack Palance has a great time playing a snake aficionado. But I'd say that the movie's main purpose is to show Laura Gemser's naked body (and she DOES have a fine one). The movie contains just about every guilty pleasure imaginable. The movie makes no pretense about what it is. It might make you want to go to Hong Kong, but more than anything it'll make you wonder why Laura Gemser stopped acting. Maybe Quentin Tarantino will give her a bit part in a movie one day.Anyway, a really fun movie, especially a certain shower scene (every exploitation flick's gotta have one of those). Among D'Amato's lesser movies was "The Blade Master" - aka "Cave Dwellers" - which got riffed on "Mystery Science Theater 3000".

jaibo This slithering pit of serpents tells the story of a beautiful young female snake dancer, Eva, who falls in with two wealthy brothers whilst working in Hong Kong. The older brother, Judas, is an amateur herpetologist with his own collection of deadly vipers, adders and mambas; the younger, Jules, carries with him some resentment at having to work running the family business for five more years before he can get his hands on his inheritance. Judas adds Eva to his collection, setting her up with her own room, car and bank account, but things get complicated when Jules starts using his brother's snakes for his own deadly purposes.This early (1976) D'Amato thriller throws his usual jaundiced glance at the predicament of a woman in a man's world and, like the previous year's Emanuelle e Françoise le sorelline, it shows a woman going to extreme lengths to revenge herself on the man who does her and her female companions wrong. In the previous film, Emanuelle had wrought revenge on the man whose abuse drove her sister to suicide; here, Eva seeks redress when one of Jules' victims is her female lover; the revenge is lurid and horrific, as Jules is tricked into going to a remote island whereby a cobra is inserted into his anus and left so that it has no option than to eat its way out (this is apparently an old custom of the Island Eva was born on, called "putting the devil into a man to set him free"!). Yet Eva's revenge does her little good, and she ends up rejected by Judas and committing suicide like a modern day Cleopatra.D'Amato's film shows him stepping onto the path which was eventually to lead him down the route from softcore to hardcore porn and he loses few opportunities to show his actresses in various states of undress and erotic clinch. But he also ensures that his women are treated sympathetically – Eva's relationship with her girlfriend is seen as a refuge from a male world which is exploitative, abusive and tainted by the idea of ownership and patronage. Eva is given a considerable back-story, which details her being left and orphan, taught by a guardian to dance with snakes and being prostituted to men when she was still in her teens. She chooses Judas' patronage in order to escape the poisonous relationship she is having with a jealous Chinese businessman. The irony is that for all her attempts to escape from the world of male power, she can only help her girlfriend by her own patronage (using the money Judas has given her) and her revenge on Jules does nothing to free her from the cycle of violence which is as involving and inescapable as Ouroboros, the famous serpent which swallows its tail. In some ways, the film is a twisted contemporary spin on Biblical myth, with the traitor Judas at the top of the patriarchal tree and the temptress Eve the struggling victim of male power.Eva Nera isn't a perfect film; there are major plot-holes and there's rather too much erotic filler. D'Amato's cinematography is nevertheless immaculate; Gemser and Palance give their usual turns, which will delight their admirers, and the Hong Kong locations are well used. It does add weight to the idea that D'Amato was using his exploitation film-making put on screen valid visions of a female against a world of power, corruption and dominance in which the cards are stacked against her and in which, if she turns into a snake to fight the snakes, she is caught in a deadly, venomous trap.

Michael_Elliott Black Cobra (1976) * 1/2 (out of 4) Joe D'Amato directed film about a shy, lonely man (Jack Palance) living in Hong Kong where his only friends are his pet snakes. One night his brother takes him to a strip joint where he sees a beautiful woman (Laura Gemser) putting on a dance with a snake. He moves the woman in but soon someone starts killing off her lesbian friends. The killer doesn't know the woman is a Goddess to snakes. Like many other D'Amato/Gemser films, this one here basically leaves the plot behind in favor of the beautiful actress walking around in the nude and carrying out various lesbian scenes. Gemser is also fun to watch (when she's naked) but the story here is pretty dull and lifeless. Palance must have really been down on his luck at the time.

johnmorghen If you're like me, you grew up watching late nite softies on Cinemax every Friday nite. If this is the case, then you have definitely heard and probably seen quite a bit of the lovely Laura Gemser. After seeing "BLACK EMANUELLE" many, many moons ago, I became an instant fan and have since viewed several of her films.This particular gem qualifies as one of her lesser known films. Essentially, this is a variation on her Emanuelle role with Jack Palance and a whole lot of snakin' goin' on! Fun stuff most likely, if you are a fan of Gemser.Gemser plays an exotic dancer named Eva. Performing with snakes is her specialty. No, not those kind! Now, you're getting ahead of me!Anywayz... Gemser's real-life husband, Gabrielle Tinti, portrays Jules Carmichael. Jules is an executive of some sort, who persuades his brother Judas (Palance) to visit a nightclub with him to watch one of Eva's nightly performances.Judas loves snakes (No, not those kind!) and his apartment is filled with them. So, along with her beauty, it's natural that Judas would fall for a gal like Eva. He soon arranges to meet and introduce her to his snakey friends. Judas hires Eva to take care of his pets while he is away on business. From here on out, you know the drill... While the cat's away, the mice will play... and dance around naked with the cat's snakes.We soon learn that Eva really digs the lady-lovin' which overrides her tendencies to charm any snake other than the reptile kind. Several nude scenes later, Eva's girlfriend is killed mysteriously and Eva must find out who killed her and why. This is a common filmmaking trait known as a "mild plot motivator". I guess they need to keep things moving along but I, for one, wasn't complaining. I thought the pacing was just fine. Do what you gotta do, Eva. I'm all for it.These are all the details I gathered. Aside from Gemser and the fact that this was one of those "Palance earns a week's pay" performances, I deemed all other plot elements unnecessary and naturally focused on the good parts, of which there are plenty.You cannot go wrong with any film featuring a topless Gemser within the first five minutes, and fully nude around the eight minute mark. It's just a damn fact. Why can't more filmmakers hint on this?"BLACK COBRA" was directed by the masterful eye of Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi), who would later collaborate on several films with Gemser and eventually go on to a successful career directing real pornos with an entirely different breed of snake.Sadly, Gemser has pretty much left the filmmaking scene and her films no longer play on Cinemax. Most of them have since gone out of print on video here in the States, making them nearly impossible to find.A quick program note: This is a long, long movie! Over four hours in length! Actually, it only clocks in at around 90 minutes, but if you find yourself using the slow-motion and pause feature on your VCR as much as I did, expect to gain an additional 2 1/2 hours of screening time.In closing, I highly recommend this film. A truly uplifting experience! Teachers, show it to your classes today. They'll thank you for it! Trust me. Later kids! -NM.