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Category: Aristide Massaccesi

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Plot: Eva, a snake dancer, is hired to perform at a gentlemen’s club in Hong Kong.

There always has been a thin line and a degree of overlap between horror and erotica. Nowhere was that line more blurred and the distinction more nebulous than in continental Europe in the early-to-mid 1970s. Around the Mediterranean countries such as France, Spain and Italy eked out very specific brands of kink-horror with their own distinct visual styles and regional flavours. When it came right to it, though, it were a mere three directors that took up the mantle of merging horror and sleaze. Jean Rollin, Jesús Franco, and Aristide Massaccesi (or Joe D’Amato as he’s internationally known) all worked on the fringes of their respective cinematic industries and frequently strayed into hardcore pornography whenever economic anxiety became too dire. No one extolled the virtue of the female form, preferably disrobed and gyrating, better than they did and each had their muse. Jean Rollin was an exploitation director with arthouse inclinations and aspirations who loved women and pebble beaches and Jesús Franco was a talented director who sadly fell victim to his many neuroses and obsessions upon losing his first muse. Standing in stark contrast to Rollin and Franco was Joe D’Amato. D’Amato was no ordinary smut peddler or base sleaze merchant. He was an extraordinary smut peddler with an undeniable talent for knowing what audiences wanted. He could’ve been just another workhorse exploitation director on the circuit. Instead he transformed himself into Italy’s first and foremost base sleaze merchant anoiting himself the grandmaster purveyor of perversity par excellence.

Towards the second half of the decade D’Amato was still churning out pulp of every possible stripe and variety. He had directed Rosalba Neri in the unforgettable intro segment to The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973) and directed his first giallo with Death Smiled at Murder (1973). Like any good exploitation director D’Amato was a fiendish and devious opportunist whenever it served his interests. Not only did he steal Black Emanuelle (1975) right from under Adalberto "Bitto" Albertini but he took his two principal actors (everybody’s favourite couple of Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti) with him. To make matters worse for Albertini not only did D’Amato spun off his own little franchise but he made decent money doing so. Eva Nera (or Black Eva, for some reason released as Black Cobra Woman in the English-speaking world) was filmed between the disastrous Venezuelan-Italian co-production A Beach Called Desire (1976) and Brunello Rondi’s Black Velvet (1976) while for D’Amato it landed in between Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) and Emanuelle in America (1977). One supposes that after doing Sister Emanuelle (1975) and Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) back-to-back that D’Amato wanted to stretch his legs a bit, creatively. However, let it be known that he can never be accused of not completely milking an idea while it was still profitable.

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Gabriele Tinti and Laura Gemser with director Joe D'Amato on the set of Eva Nera

Black Cobra Woman not only has Gemser and Tinti but also D’Amato warm bodies Michele Starck, Ziggy Zanger, and Koike Mahoco (who, judging by her name, was Japanese). Starck had been in Autopsy (1975) and Salon Kitty (1976). Her highest-profile role was probably in the Bud Spencer comedy Charleston (1977). Zanger was in Black Velvet (1976) and the Bruno Mattei sex comedy Cousin, My Love! (1976). Mahoco was another D’Amato regular that would figure in Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) and Emanuelle in America (1977) and much earlier in The Snake God (1970) (with Nadia Cassini). American actor Jack Palance was in the country for the Bruno Corbucci Nico Giraldi action comedy The Cop in Blue Jeans (1976). Black Cobra Woman was willed into existence and seems to exist for no other reason than to showcase goddess Gemser naked as early and often as humanly possible. And who in the right mind could fault anyone for that? Produced by Alexander Hacohen and an uncredited Harry Alan Towers (yes, him) and written, directed, and photographed by D’Amato; Black Cobra Woman is the perfect pulp storm considering it was edited by that other enfant terrible (and future king of the cheap knock-off) of Italian shlock, Bruno Mattei. At best something of a curio Black Cobra Woman covers most of the same territory as those early Black Emanuelle (1975) sequels, does quite a lot with very little and its accompanying posters, dare answer the rather pointy question of, “how much snake can one woman take?” As far as erotic potboilers go you could fare far worse.

Eva (Laura Gemser) is hired to perform her famous “Dance of the Cobra” at a prestigious gentlemen’s club in Hong Kong. Always one to turn heads on the plane over she catches the eye of young playboy businessman Julius Carmichael (Gabriele Tinti) and she promptly invites him as a guest to her inaugural performance. Once in Hong Kong Eva goes on a dinner date with her girlfriend (Koike Mahoco). On the evening of her show Julius arrives in company of his older brother Judas (Jack Palance) who’s instantly smitten with the dark-eyed, raven-haired beauty. He uses his high society connections to obtain Eva’s phone number and invites her to an opulent dinner. The older Carmichael made his fortune breeding snakes and as a herpetoculturist he has an impressive collection of snakes, thus enough of a pretext to invite Eva to come see it. He has no physical interest in scantily clad, carnally insatiable, sexually omnivorous Eva in his old age, but instead he offers the Javan dancer patronage (including her own room, car, and bank account) and protective shelter from the aggressive advances of an especially abusive Chinese businessman. To celebrate his return Judas has organized a lavish party where Candy (Ziggy Zanger, as Sigrid Zanger) and her boyfriend offer Eva a threesome, but an incensed Julius prematurely stops it before it begins.

Sometime later Eva secretly embarks on a steamy affair with Julius’ friend Gerri (Michele Starck). Upon returning home Eva discovers that Candy was killed by a black mamba snake from Judas’ expansive collection. What she doesn’t know is that Julius staged the escape envious of her affection for (and attraction to) Gerri. Things turn complicated when Judas is expected to attend the annual Zoology Congress and he leaves his snakes in the care of Eva. Not able to bear the thought of sharing Eva with his younger brother (or anybody else, for that matter) Judas broods on a plan to get rid of his competitors. When Judas and Julius both announce that they have business obligations outside of Hong Kong Eva senses that something is afoot. Julius, as much of a snake as the venomous specimens his brother collects, has his eye on Judas’ considerable fortune and will stop at nothing to inherit it. While Eva and Gerri continue to their passionate affair Julius arranges for one of Judas’ snakes to kill Gerri so that he can have Eva all to himself. Having survived the attack and with no more women to distract her Eva deducts that Julius is behind the deaths of her previous lovers. With jealousy, betrayal and tensions - sexual, interpersonal and otherwise - running high between all parties, the love rectangle soon turns sour with deadly consequences for most involved when Eva introduces Julius to "The Rites of the Serpent" or an ancient custom for punishing liars and murderers by "putting the devil into a man."

Steaming up every scene she’s in is Black Emanuelle herself, Laura Gemser. Sure, there were others. Zeudi Araya and Me Me Lai are the first to come to mind but Gemser outlasted them all in terms of sheer visility and cinematic longevity. Here Gemser once again plays the only character she was ever hired for: the swarthy seductress that enchants everybody she comes in contact with. Like Edwige Fenech and Gloria Guida, Gemser would be getting naked in front of the camera during the second half of the 1970s and the entirety of the 1980s. Black Cobra Woman was one of five features that goddess Gemser would star in in 1976 and she would star in 6 the next year. D’Amato is wise enough to give la Laura a lot to do, most of which consists of cavorting around in the nude (with or without any snakes), frolicking around in various locales, and there’s an absolute dearth of dialogue and even less in terms of clothes. There’s acres of skin to be had and goddess Gemser gets to engage in lesbian histrionics with whatever actress happens to be within arm’s reach. Gemser, uninhibited in her nakedness, willingly indulges D’Amato’s every whim. This being a chintzy softcore romp Joe D’Amato shoots Gemser from a multitude of flattering angles, often with very little in the way of clothing. The snake dance sequences are photographed beautifully but no one was doubting D’Amato after seeing that The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973) opening scene where Rosalba Neri emerged nude from the fog-shrouded tomb. Michele Starck spents much of her time naked, but not nearly as much as Gemser. None of which really means that Black Cobra Woman is very inspired, or good for that matter.

Black Cobra Woman serves largely as a preamble to get Laura Gemser naked at every possible opportunity. It’s also a rather flat and uninspired precursor to D’Amato's in every way superior deluge of softcore – things like Eleven Days Eleven Nights (1987) and Top Model (1988) to name the most prominent – during the 1980s. In the grand scheme of things Black Cobra Woman is but a blip on the radar. It’s solid enough from a technical standpoint, but that’s faint praise indeed. The natural beauty of Hong Kong is seldom exploited or properly captured on camera. The entire thing isn’t helped by the dreary editing from Bruno Mattei. On the plus side, Joe D’Amato was to keep Gemser (and his assorted stock company players) busy through the rest of the following year with Emanuelle Around the World (1977) and Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977). For one reason or another Black Eva was never explored further in any sequels. Not that continuity, or main characters dying, ever stopped old Joe from milking what potentially could have been a parallell franchise. Imagine Laura Gemser starring alternatively in Black Eva and Black Emanuelle (1975) sequels. The world may never know what those would’ve looked like… and maybe that’s not a bad thing per se.

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Plot: tourists are stalked by cannibalistic killer on remote Greek island.

The nineteen-eighties were an interesting time for American cinema. The old fashioned terror and suspense films were given a new coat of paint and updated for the new decade. Halloween (1978) was instrumental in that regard. John Carpenter’s little fright flick was just as much indebted to grindhouse features as Wicked, Wicked (1973) and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) as it was revolutionary the way it upgraded worn-out conventions of the decade past making them relevant again for a completely new audience. It was Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980) that, for better or worse, codified and cemented the slasher as it’s known and understood today. Whereas Halloween (1978) was a murder mystery (although there’s never any doubt about who’s doing the slashing and hacking) Friday the 13th (1980) had no such aspirations. First and foremost, Friday the 13th (1980) was horror with not an ounce of suspense. Stylistic decisions aside, it was a critical failure but a resounding box office success. Naturally, European producers/directors wanted to get in on the international slasher boom and wasted exactly zero time in formulating their own slashers. Who better to imitate yet another American art form than the birthplace of such things, la bella Italia?

That Europeans, especially those in the continental regions such as Italy and Spain, had an entirely different concept of what a murder mystery entailed, should surprise exactly no one. The Italian giallo and the German krimi existed and evolved parallel from each other all through the sixties and seventies. While they’re generally considered the common ancestor to the American slasher and frequently overlap in terms of conventions they don’t strictly abide by those rules or parameters. By 1980 Italy had accumulated around 15 to 20 years of giallo tradition. Spain had a tradition of horror and macabre cinema that existed for about as long. They were in a habit of imitating their Italian brethren when the occasion arose but never with any regularity. Spain responded to the American slasher with Pieces (1980) and Bloody Moon (1981). Leave it to professional pornographer and part time smut peddler Aristide Massaccesi (under his English nom de plume Joe D'Amato) to throw a wrench into the slasher formula. Before he introduced the world to Jessica Moore with Eleven Days, Eleven Nights (1987) and Top Model (1988) there was this. Old Joe had just made Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977) and Beyond the Darkness (1979) and wasn’t ready (or willing) to meet American tastes fully. He hadn’t gotten that cannibalism itch out of his system yet. Something had to give. Filmed in a month (31 March 1980 to May 1980) on location in Greece (mostly around the Acropolis in Athens) and in Sperlonga, Viterbo and Ponza, Italy as the launch title of his Filmirage Anthropophagus (released in censored form in North America as The Grim Reaper and as The Savage Island in the rest of the world) is a slasher on the American model but one that’s all all’Italiana.

American tourist Julie (Tisa Farrow) has come to the Greek islands to reconnect with old friends. En route to her destination she tries to charter a boat making her acquaintance with a party of five friends about to go on a boat tour of the Aegean. She’s first approached by medical student Arnold (Bob Larson) and his very pregnant wife Maggie (Serena Grandi, as Vanessa Steiger), their friend Alan (Saverio Vallone) and his superstitious sister Carol (Zora Kerova) as well as the group’s would-be playboy friend Daniel (Mark Bodin). When Julie asks the group to sail to a remote island only Carol, an avid believer in Tarocco Piemontese, lays her cards and has a chilling premonition. She insists that something terrible will befall them if they do choose to travel there. As they make landfall on the island Maggie sprains her ankle and stays behinds with the boat. She’s attacked and dragged off by an unseen assailant. While the group explores what appears to be a ghost town a mysterious old lady gives them ominous cryptic warnings to steer clear from the island. The woman eventually identifies herself as Ruth Wortmann (Karamanlis in some versions) (Rubina Rey) and when the group reaches the abandoned house of Julie’s French friends Carol senses an evil presence that she can’t explain. The discovery of an assortment of desiccated corpses don’t help her fragile mental state nor for do things improve when the group happens upon Ariette (Margaret Mazzantini, as Margaret Donnelly), the blind daughter of Julie’s friends, blood-caked and screaming murder about a madman who smells of blood.

In the mansion they find a diary about one Klaus Wortmann (Nikos Karamanlis in some versions) (Luigi Montefiori, as George Eastman), his wife and their son having been presumed dead after a shipwreck. Then the terrible realization dawns upon them that Ruth was Klaus’/Nikos’ sister and that the incident sundered her sanity. They learn that Klaus/Nikos had been stranded at sea and in his desperation accidentally killed his wife in an argument about eating their son to survive. Driven mad by hunger he ate the remains of both his son and his wife and now has developed a cannibalistic appetite. As the shades of night descend upon the abandoned mansion and the group falls apart through arguments and romantic conflicts they realize that Klaus/Nikos is aware of their presence and surely will come to hunt them down. What was supposed to be a relaxing holiday soon will become a terrible ordeal for all involved. Soon they will come face to face with the prowler of the Greek islands, the eater of man, the Anthropophagus.

Headlined by a would-be American star, an accidental one and domestic one in the making and supported by no one in particular Anthropophagus has the good fortune of featuring a few familiar faces. The biggest name here is Tisa Farrow, Mia’s less popular sister who had starred in Some Call It Loving (1973) and played a small role in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979). Somehow she got got mixed up in Italian exploitation and etched her name into the annals of cult cinema history with Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1979). Apparently she took fashion advice from German sexbomb Olivia Pascal. Zora Kerova hailed from East-Europe and commuted between her native Czech Republic (then still Czechoslovakia) and Italy. While hardly an actress of great talent, she had much more of an actual career than, say, Mónica Zanchi or Cindy Leadbetter. Although she had starred in The House of the Laughing Windows (1976), and Escape From Women’s Prison (1978) Kerova would be the Italian exploitation pillar of the 1980s with roles in Umberto Lenzi’s patently ridiculous Cannibal Ferox (1981) as well as latter-day Fulci romps as The New York Ripper (1982), The New Barbarians (1983), as well as Fulci adjacent gore epics as Touch Of Death (1988), Sodoma’s Ghost (1988) and Escape from Death (1989) (often in tandem with Luciana Ottaviani). The other nominal star is Luigi Montefiori (or George Eastman) who had worked with D’Amato on Emanuelle Around the World (1977) and would star in, among others, Ironmaster (1983), Hands Of Steel (1986), and the Lamberto Bava giallo Delirium (1987). The remainder of the cast comprised of Mark Bodin from Alien 2: On Earth (1980) and Bob Larson from Filipino topless kickboxing sub-classic Angelfist (1993).

Looking almost matronly and modest compared most of her work by mid of the decade Anthropophagus introduced the world to one of the prime pin-up girls of the day, she who was loving dubbed the Italian Dolly Parton, miss Serena Grandi. Serena was a graduate in computer programming and initially employed in a scientific analysis laboratory and like her contemporaries Donatella Damiani and Pamela Prati her curvaceous, plus size figure soon to led to bigger opportunities. After playing roles of no real weight in the comedies The Traveling Companion (1980), The Women of Quiet Country (1980) and My Wife Is A Witch (1980) la Grandi got her first big break here and she had dialogue and actual things to do. Serena’s body of a goddess – an eye-watering 38D (85D) bust with an ass to match - didn’t go unnoticed and by 1982 she was in the Italian Penthouse. This brought her to the attention of professional worshipper of the female form Tinto Brass, who casted her in and as Miranda (1985), a high-profile role requiring extensive (partial and full frontal) nudity. From there Serena became a regular in glossy men’s magazines. First she landed a role in Luigi Cozzi's The Adventures Of Hercules (1985) and spent the rest of the decade showing off her divine dimensions in erotic romps as Desiring Julia (1986), Exploits Of a Young Don Juan (1986), Rimini Rimini (1987), and Delirium (1987). By the next decade her star had faded until Brass casted her again in Monella (1998). Grandi continues to act to this day and has settled into supporting maternal roles. Also making her screen debut was Margaret Mazzantini who, unbelievable as it may sound, was poised to become one of Italy’s leading figures in literature and who as an award-winning novelist saw her work translated into thirty-five languages worldwide.

Anthropophagus is interesting in how it adapts an old favorite into a newly codified subgenre. In 1980 the Italian cannibal craze was still in full swing and despite yielding a classic or two in the prior decade the classics were very well a thing of the past. This in no way slowed down to pretenders and wannabees from hacking out a few memorable hybrids and creative experiments during the ongoing feeding frenzy. D’Amato had dabbled with cannibalism in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977) and to a lesser extent in his necrophilia epic Beyond the Darkness (1979) and Eastman was very much his go-to man for his greatest gross out and sleaze fests. As a collaborative effort between the two Anthropophagus bears hallmarks from both (D’Amato and Eastman shared writing and production credits on this after all). Director of photography Enrico Biribicchi had worked as a camera operator with Fernando Di Leo and Roberto Rossellini but by the late ‘70s was working with shlockmeisters Andrea Bianchi and D'Amato.

As one of the more prolific composers of the day Marcello Giombini is known around these parts for the Bella Cortez spectacular Vulcan, Son Of Jupiter (1962), the gialli Murder Mansion (1972), The Flower with the Deadly Sting (1973), the enjoyable The Exorcist (1973) imitation Enter the Devil (1974) (with future realtor of the rich and famous Stella Carnacina), the Venezuelan Laura Gemser jungle romp A Beach Called Desire (1976) and his association with Alfonso Brescia. None of which really changes that Giombini completely phoned it in here with disconnected washes of tranquil ambient, random sci-fi blips and plops and a vaguely Greek sounding theme. He wasn’t exactly giving Klaus Schulze, Michael Stearns or Vangelis a run for their money. The special effects by Giuseppe Ferranti and Pietro Tenoglio are effective in their brutally utilitarian minimalism. Then again, Ferranti was busy that year with Hell Of the Living Dead (1980) from masters of disaster Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980) and Fernando Di Leo’s Madness (1980). No wonder then that Anthropophagus is hardly remembered as any of these men’s (or the director's for that matter) finest hour.

Had things been allowed to run their natural course than perhaps Anthropophagus would have been remembered as nothing but a curious footnote in D’Amato’s massive filmography. Yet never underestimate a zealot on a mission. By the early eighties Great Britain was in the grip of yet another moral panic: the unregulated home video market and the corruption of the minds and hearts of the youth it (supposedly) threatened. In a crusade spearheaded by conservative activist (and teacher) Mary Whitehouse the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) compiled a list of 72 films they believed to violate the Obscene Publications Act 1959. An additional 82 titles were confiscated under the Act's forfeiture laws. The entire sordid episode became known as the Video Nasties. If it weren’t for Whitehouse perhaps a great deal of these admittedly shoddy shockers wouldn’t be as legendary as they (often unjustly and most of them undeservedly) became in the aftermath. Then again, what are conservatives without a good moral panic; manufactured, imaginary, or otherwise?

The outrage and moral panic was perhaps indirectly responsible for spawning the nominal sequel Absurd (1981), which also ended up on the Video Nasties list. Almost twenty years later German gorehound Andreas Schnaas unofficially remade it as Anthropophagus 2000 (1999) and another twenty years later the D’Amato original begat a very belated spiritual sequel with Antropophagus II (2022) from director Dario Germani and sometime D’Amato producers Franco Gaudenzi, and Gianni Paolucci. For those in the know, Gaudenzi was the man that produced some of Bruno Mattei’s prime works in the ‘80s and Paolucci, lest we forget, facilitated a late-stage career revival for Mattei when he allowed him to direct shot-on-video sequels to his beloved/detested classics. Anthropophagus does a lot with very little and that was always D’Amato’s forte.