Russ Meyer's Blacksnake (1973)

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Cult director Russ Meyer's biggest financial flop is also one of his best-looking films, a gorgeously photographed wallow in pre-Mandingo plantation sleaze lensed by Arthur J. Ornitz. Set in 1835, the film concerns Charles Walker (David Warbeck), who travels to San Cristobal Island in the British… More Cult director Russ Meyer's biggest financial flop is also one of his best-looking films, a gorgeously photographed wallow in pre-Mandingo plantation sleaze lensed by Arthur J. Ornitz. Set in 1835, the film concerns Charles Walker (David Warbeck), who travels to San Cristobal Island in the British West Indies to search for his missing brother Jonathan. Posing as a bookkeeper, Charles arrives at Blackmoor Plantation, an illegal slavery operation viciously run by the whip-wielding Lady Susan Walker (Anouska Hempel), Jonathan's one-time wife. The usual crucifixions, whippings and interracial couplings ensue, until Charles finally finds his brother, a castrated zombie (David Prowse), who frees him as he is about to be sodomized by Susan's epicene enforcer, Raymond (Bernard Boston). The brothers run outside to find a slave revolt in progress and Lady Susan ends up hanging upside down from a cross, burned alive as her atrocities are replayed against a background of flame. A narrator then ends the film speaking about the decline of colonialism as interracial couples run naked through the fields to the strains of "Glory, Glory Hallelujah." ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi