The Hungry Snake Woman Blu-ray Review

Mondo Macabro

Blu-ray Release: March 11, 2025 (following an October 8, 2024 Limited Edition)

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Indonesian and English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono 

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 82:28

Director: Sisworo Gautama Putrai

Burhan, desperate for wealth and glory, decides to visit the Snake Woman (Suzzanna), a mysterious and powerful deity who can confer instant riches on those who obey her commands. She tells Burhan he must kill three women, feast on their blood and eat their breasts. Transformed into Dracula, he sets off on his mission and encounters Nyi Lajang, the Snake Woman’s mortal enemy, who offers Burhan a way out of his contract. But his problems are far from over... (From Mondo Macabro’s official synopsis)

Nyi Blorong or the Snake Queen of Indonesian and Javanese mythology – a sort of combination of elemental goddess, djinn, and succubus archetypes, depending on who is telling the tale – has been the subject of quite a few Indonesian stories and performances, from stage and film to television. During the area’s major horror and fantasy boom, she was the antagonist of a number of outrageous exploitation films. 

Legendary Queen of Black Magic (Indonesian: Ratu ilmu hitam, 1981; directed by Liliek Sudjio) actress Suzzanna (aka: Suzzanna Martha Frederika van Osch) began her brief tenure as the Snake Queen with Sisworo Gautama Putra’s aptly titled The Snake Queen (Indonesian: Nyi Blorong) in 1982, followed closely by The Snake Queen's Wedding (Indonesian: Perkawinan Nyi Blorong), also directed by Putra, in 1983. After playing Nyi Blorong’s mother, Nyi Roro Kidua, in Awakening of the South Seas Queen (Indonesian: Bangunnya Nyi Roro Kidul, 1985), the star and director paired once again to make The Hungry Snake Queen/Woman (Indonesian: Petualangan Cinta Nyi Blorong, 1986).

The Hungry Snake Woman (the title Mondo Macabro is going with) is a perfect sampling of ‘70s/’80s Indonesian cinema’s remix/mash-up approach to horror and action. Its opulent widescreen photography, DIY special effects, and casual hyperviolence all match the uniquely weird flavor of its contemporaries. That said, its mile-a-minute, one-thing-after-another storytelling approach is intense, even by Indonesian standards. It’s not the kind of movie you ‘review,’ because simply describing some of what happens is enough to pique the curiosity of cult film enthusiasts.

For example, the main antagonist, Burhan (Brian on the English dub), is basically a soap opera villain who stumbles into a deal with the title character that transforms him into Dracula – not an Indonesian or Malaysian vampire type, like a kuntilanak or penanggalan, but a Hammer Studios-styled Dracula. Then the terms of Burhan’s deal change and the Dracula angle is completely dropped, after which he postcoitally kills her at the behest of a different snake woman (as in a woman who is literally half-snake) and becomes the gangster pimp owner of a strip club/drug lord.

And that’s only the first half! Burhan and the snake woman (that’s the snake woman, not the Snake Queen) kill his ex-fiancé’s father with an Alien style chestburster snake, then force her to do a seductive dance with an umbrella to the theme from Tony Maylam’s The Burning. The Snake Queen survives her ordeal and hooks up with Johan (Joe on the English dub), the martial arts expert that fought Burhan/Dracula in an earlier scene. There’s a chainsaw fight, a wizard battle…don’t worry, it doesn’t make a lot of sense in context, either.

Putra was one of Rapi Films production company’s biggest name directors. His filmography included Italian cannibal cash-in Primitif (1978), the Friday the 13th rip-off Wolf (Indonesian: Srigala, 1981), and the first film in the popular Warrior series, Jaka Sembung (1981), all featuring Barry Prima, who was (as I understand it) one of the few Indonesian actors whose star eclipsed Suzzanna’s.

Bibliography:

• Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe by Steven Jay Schneider (FAB Press, 2003)

• Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World by Pete Tombs (St. Martin's, 1997)

Video

I found evidence of a double-feature DVD release of both The Snake Queen and The Hungry Snake Woman (interesting that The Snake Queen's Wedding didn’t make the cut), but I can’t find a company name behind it (it is labeled “World Cinema Classics” and that’s about it). Either way, it looks like a tape quality transfer with burned-in Japanese subtitles. There’s also a VHS version of the English dub somewhere out there (I believe that it’s a Hong Kong tape). Otherwise, this is a particularly rare film and Mondo Macabro’s Blu-ray is the first time the film has been available in full 2.35:1 widescreen and 1080p HD. The ad copy states that the new transfer was created from a digital restoration of the original negative, though they don’t specify a 2K or 4K scan. 

From what I understand, the reason why it has taken Mondo so long to start bringing Indonesian cult movies to Blu-ray is that original elements are nearly impossible to find, so we really have to extend them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these releases. The transfer’s weaknesses are very similar to their Warrior collection releases, namely soft black levels (especially during really dark sequences, leading me to assume they had to brighten those shots to make them at all discernible), vibrant, if not sometimes inconsistent colors, and minor digital artifacts.

Audio

The Hungry Snake Woman comes fitted with its original Indonesian and English mono dubs, both in uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio. The two tracks are very similar with the English dub sounding a bit louder and the Indonesian dub coming across slightly cleaner. I personally think the chaotic nature of the English dub adds to the experience – the dialogue choices are insane and some of the women are unconvincingly voiced by men pitching up their voices – but either choice works. There is no credited composer on the print, because the soundtrack is made out of stolen assets, including some recognizable pieces, like the aforementioned piece from Rick Wakeman’s The Burning OST. 

Extras

Sadly, there aren’t any special features included with this disc.

The images on this page are taken from the Blu-ray and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.