
Cult Of The Cobra 1955 Story by Jerry Davis, screenplay by Jerry Davis, Cecil Maiden and Richard Collins, directed by Francis D Lyon. Jerry wrote 8 other movies and a lot of popular TV shows in the 50s and 60s. Richard wrote a few movies, starting in the 30s, in the early 50s he started writing a lot of TV shows, some of which I watched. He's got an uncredited writing credit on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Francis worked on some TV that I know I've seen, The Adventures Of Spin & Marty, Adventures In Paradise, Whispering Smith and Laramie.

The Second film in the Universal Horror Collection Volume 6. The Blu-ray has an interesting commentary with Tom Weaver, Steve Kronenberg, David Schecter ad Dr Robert J Kiss. There's also a trailer and a still gallery.

Left to right that's William Reynolds, Richard Long, David Janssen, Marshall Thompson and Jack Kelly. They're American soldiers who are ending their tour in an unnamed Middle Eastern city. They visit the bazaar, while watching the snake charmer one of the soldiers mentions he's heard of a cult of snake worshipers. The snake charmer says he can take them to a gathering for a hundred bucks. That's a good bit of money in the mid 40s.

They decide to go and the snake charmer warns them they must be in disguise. No one must know they are foreigners. If they are found out they will be killed by the cult. Of course one of the more stupid guys in the group, James Dobson, pulls out a camera during the snake lady's performance. The camera has a flash, everyone sees it when he snaps a shot. James grabs the snake woman's basket and bolts. The cult goes nuts, the snake charmer is stabbed to death, the priest curses the soldiers as they escape. A few blocks away from the temple they find their pal has been in a jeep accident. He dies in the hospital and the autopsy reveals he'd been poisoned by a snake. The other 5 are sent back to the US.

Little do they know as they settle into their new domestic lives that the cult has sent an assassin after them. That's Marshall, Kathleen Hughes and Richard. She dated both men before the war but now that they are back she's picked Richard.

Faith Domergue plays the cult's assassin. She moves into the apartment across the hall from Marshall. They strike up a bit of romance. Faith gets to revenging pretty quickly, she's efficient, David gets it first, bitten in his car, crash, dead. Things get pretty bad for everyone, especially Jack, he fell off the balcony of his apartment. Marshall doubts the curse theory, so do the police but we've seen the snake cam. They'll have to be pretty darn lucky to get out of this predicament.
It's a fairly good story and a decent cast. I like the way the film looks and there's a good level of jeopardy. I'd watch it again someday.