Monday, September 1, 2008

The Hungry Snake Woman (1986)

I don't know anything about Indonesian cinema, so take everything what I say here with as many grains of salt as you deem necessary.

Brian is a totally swell kind of guy. He loves his girlfriend Carlita (Nina Anwar) so much that he, when she is no longer susceptible to his dubious charm, first tries to rape her, then with the rape proving too difficult, to kill her. Fortunately she escapes relatively unscathed, while Brian goes on the run into the jungle, murmuring something about his lack of finances being responsible for e-vill Carlita's rejection. Yeah, I bet that must have been the problem, not his love for bloodshed.

He stumbles through the jungle for a reason, though. He searches for the mythical Queen of Snakes (Suzzanna), who is said to make her devotees rich - for a price. Thanks to the help of a female snake spirit and her dwarf husband (no, I don't know how this relationship came to pass either; I only know that I highly approve of the lecherous way he caresses her scales), or , well thanks to the female snake spirit throwing him there, Brian finds the cave where the Snake Queen dwells with her handmaidens - a bunch of giggling, flesh-eating young women. After breaking through one of those paper walls every demon's lair just has to have, the Snake Queen explains a few details about that getting rich deal Brian dreams of. He just has to prove his loyalty to her by killing three women, drinking their blood and eating their breasts(!). The man agrees.

The next time we see him, he has somehow been transformed into a traditional Western vampire, complete with cape and fake teeth. Oh, and he can fly, too. In this form, the blood-drinking and breast-eating is performed very quickly, so (after a bonus attack on Carlina) we soon see him back in his human form somewhere in the mountains, waiting to "receive" the Snake Queen herself. Only a bit of sex and the sacrifice of a loved one are standing between him and awesome riches. The sacrifice part seems to bother him a little, so he is all too glad to agree to a plan the snake spirit suddenly proposes. When the Snake Queen has her fun with him, he has to wait "until she is satisfied" to then stick a magical pin into her neck. The pin will transform her back into a snake and keep her in that form, unable to use her magic.

Soon, the Snake Queen arrives in her flying chair (wonderful special effect there), summons her rotating love-making mobile (only authentic with blinking flowers), and puts on the soft porn music (I wish I was kidding here). At the end of one of the funnier sex scenes I have seen, Brian uses the pin and throws the resulting snake away. Now he finally has all the money he could wish for.

Following an interesting kind of logic, he tries to propose for Carlita in a visit to her parents. Sure, he tried to rape and kill her, he says, but he is a completely different man now. Plus, he's rich.

Carlita's father remains skeptical, less because of unimportant things like rape and murder, but because of Brian's sudden wealth. There is only one explanation for this: Brian must have made a pact with the devil, and everybody knows what those curtail: The sacrifice of a loved one. Brian trots of after that, although not before one of the armed thugs he has with them (a good way to earn people's trust, I am sure) pulls his gun on the patriarch and Brian himself mutters some of the usual threats.

And if you didn't get it by now: Brian has used his incredible new wealth to become a gangster boss, which only proves how honest he is - lazy people like me would just stop working.

Later (I suppose, transitions here are as clear as the mythical London fog), Carlita and three friends, Joe, Donnie and Suzy (who looks exactly like the Snake Queen) are cavorting in a swimming pool, when suddenly a snake appears out of nowhere. Joe takes the snake in his care.

Later again, Carlita senior suddenly begins to puke up centipedes and dies of an exploding heart. This isn't one of those new-fangled diseases, though, it's the snake spirit's and Brian's work and not the final evil they will inflict on the poor family. Before watching The Hungry Snake Woman I didn't even know there is a spell that conjures up a body-stocking and lets a woman put on a disturbing "sexy dance" number.

Fortunately, Joe's snake turns out to be the Snake Queen, who, after losing her pin, seduces Joe (who thinks she's Suzy and isn't the least bit surprised by the love-making mobile suddenly appearing in his bedroom - happens every day to him, I suppose) and starts to help the young friends fight Brian and the snake spirit.

Umm, yeah, this is a very wrong and very silly piece of semi-sleaze (it seems there are problems with nakedness in Indonesia, therefore the "semi-"; mostly dressed sex scenes are funnier anyway) with everything I love: inept special effects, non-acting, a script that wildly jumps from one idea to the next without taking a few seconds to try and connect any of them. I think I mentioned the wrongness before?

It is also the first Indonesian film I have seen, so for now I picture Indonesian cinema as a cesspool of bad films with disturbing plot lines and a very puzzling relationship to sexuality - movie paradise.

 

No comments: