cult film freak: FAITH DOMERGUE WITH DAVID JANSSEN IN 'CULT OF THE COBRA'

Poster Artwork for CULT OF THE COBRA Year: 1955 Rating: ****

The kind of Horror flick epitomizing the "Body Count" aspect since, at the beginning, before a group of soldiers return from Asia to America... after breaking a no-camera rule in a cobra cult temple... that they'll all die one by one; so it's no surprise when that very thing happens and keeps happening, making CULT OF THE COBRA suspenseful despite its telegraphed predictability...

Before which our creature feature's femme fatale in Faith Domergue does the sexiest of sexy dame dances wearing unique tight-fitting clothes, a surrogate special-effect actually resembling a serpent as she slithers across the floor till that flashbulb flashes... after which she winds up in New York City, in human form, with a vengeance...

Opening Credit for CULT OF THE COBRA

Where the soldiers all just happen to live either down the street, next door or are roommates, and she gets her fangs into the weaker (least important) ones while becoming a tad weak herself, falling for the most sensitive in Marshall Thompson... but their romance lacks both chemistry and logic...

It doesn't really matter since the cast includes a slick David Janssen and intellectual leader Richard Long, spouting exposition about the cult, engaged to nice girl Kathleen Hughes... who'd chosen him over Thompson... and, overall, this Universal Horror resembles a Noir Thriller when the good and bad girls meet, a snoopy cop moves in and macho jealousies arise while serpentine shadows are cast within dark lurking alleyways.