Black Mamba (film)

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Black Mamba
Directed byGeorge Rowe
Starring John Ashley
Marlene Clark
Pilar Pilapil
Eddie Garcia
Release date
  • 1974 (1974)
CountryPhilippines
LanguageEnglish

Black Mamba is a 1974 horror film directed by George Rowe and starring John Ashley, Marlene Clark, Pilar Pilapil, and Eddie Garcia. [1] [2]

Contents

Premise

A doctor gets involved with a woman who practices witchcraft and can turn into a python. She intends for a young child to be her next victim. The doctor tries to stop her. [1]

Cast

Production

The film is notorious for depicting an autopsy performed on a real human corpse. A real corpse was exhumed from one of the local prisons and used on film. "It is a wild film," said Ashley, ""very graphic, very gory." [3]

The film was originally known as Witchcraft. Ashley said it co-starred one of the top female stars in the Philippines and that he made it just before his involvement in Apocalypse Now . He says the film was financed by a Chinese man involved in the advertising business. [1]

Release

Black Mamba was not widely screened. [4] The film was released in the Philippines but not the US. A person bought it and took it to Hong Kong to redub it but ran out of money. [3]

The film remained unreleased until after Ashley's death in 1997. [5]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Lamont, John (1992). "The John Ashley Interview Part 2". Trash Compactor (Volume 2 No. 6 ed.). p. 6.
  2. Vagg, Stephen (December 2019). "A Hell of a Life: The Nine Lives of John Ashley". Diabolique Magazine.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. 1 2 Weaver p 46
  4. Tom Weaver, "Interview with John Ashley", Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup, McFarland 1988 p 45-46
  5. Poggiali, Chris (January 20, 2011). "Slinking Through the Seventies: An Interview with Marlene Clark" . Retrieved January 9, 2015.