April 4: Remake, remix, ripoff — A shameless remake, remix or ripoff of a much better known movie. Allow your writing to travel the world (we recommend Italy or Turkey).

When a gorgeous photographer named Elys Trumbo (Eva Grimaldi, Obsession: A Taste for Fear) watches the leader (Bruno Bilotta, Demons 2) of a motorcycle gang kill someone, only one man can protect her: Robert Malone (Fred Williamson).

Were you expecting someone else?

Manny Cobretti?

Yes, this movie is Cobra but made in Italy by director Stelvio Massi (Arabella, Magnum Cop) and writer Danilo Massi (who yes, is his son, and also the writer of Convoy Busters).

Williamson starts the movie by stopping a swimming pool hostage situation with a shotgun — yes, there’s nudity, this was made in Italy — and is the kind of action hero who can look dangerous wearing a leather trenchcoat and still be secure enough to have a cat for a pet. He also has Chief Max Walker (Maurice Poli, Malombra, The Murder Secret) as his boss and has to save Max’s daughter. And wow! His daughter made the movie for me because she’s played by Sabrina Siani from The Throne of Fire.

What I love most about this movie is that the biker gang is in our reality but dress like they’re from after the end of the world. I guess Cobra did the same thing.

As good as Stallone’s movie was, there was never a sequel. Black Cobra got three, two directed by Edoardo Margheriti and another by Umberto Lenzi which has Bobby Rhodes in it.

If you dig this, check out the book “How the World Remade Hollywood” by Ed Glaser from McFarland Books. You can also read the interview that I did with Ed.

You can watch this on Tubi.

UPDATE: Thanks to Ed Glaser and Rutledal on Twitter, I learned that there’s a fifth Black Cobra movie, The Last Mission of Detective Malone, that is Godfrey Ho-style assembled from footage from Black Cobra 2 and Umberto Lenzi’s Bridge to Hell. You have no idea how happy this makes me.