"Now this is really an insane/inane little movie that deserves attention if only for the unexpected, perfect evocation of Greenwich Village bohemian life in the 1950s. It starts out, however, in Southeast Asia, a kind of Hollywood Thailand, where GIs are stationed. A bunch of these dopey guys smuggle themselves into a secret 'native ritual' involving a cobra cult...They see things they're not meant to see...Back in the U.S. of A., civilians all, these goofy witnesses to the dark forces of the East are hunted down one by one by the Cobra Princess, played by Faith Domergue, who somehow manages to look reptilian even in female human being drag...The most striking shots in this snake-noir epic are the shadow-on-the-wall ones of Faith's woman-into-cobra transformation. Cult of the Cobra is director Francis D. Lyon's great paean to anthropomorphism; sophisticated foolishness that nevertheless conveys a vivid image of psychosexual conflict." --Barry Gifford