Reg Park is one of our beefiest Hercules, with pecs the size of a regular guy’s head and his acting consists of standing around talking in a dubbed monotone, while periodically swinging giant paper-mâché stones over his head to accomplish whatever fantastic task this fun and colorful film demands of him. British horror legend Christopher Lee, who obviously lost some kind of bar bet, also shows up as the evil King Lico.
Hercules has a buddy named Thesus who battles some bandits and does a pretty good job of taking care of business, but finally Herc tags in, picks up a giant cart and heaves it into this really big platform the bad guys are on. It was such a monstrous heave that the when the big cart was flying through the air, it looked like it was being pulled with wires!
Hercules tells Thesus that they need to get moving to the kingdom where Herc’s girlfriend, Princess Deianira resides. They discover that the queen has died and even though Deianira was supposed to assume the throne, her kindly uncle with the evil haircut (Lee) has taken over for her because she is sick.
With his bowl shaped hair and dark clothes, it doesn’t take a genius to see that this guy is up to no good and is in league with Pluto. Of course, Hercules’ smarts are all in his massive arms and not his head so doesn’t see this and is told that to lift the curse afflicting Deianira, all he has to do is go down to Hades and get a magic rock that Pluto has. Herc tells Thesus to fire up the magic ship and make for Hades.
So what’s so magic about this boat? It sails against the wind and can get them to this place where some cursed women live guarding a golden apple. He needs the golden apple to travel in Hades. I suppose it’s like an ancient GPS.
Even though this is one of those movies where Herc encounters obstacle after obstacle, he meets them all with gritty determination. I’m assuming that Reg Park’s emotional range (which vacillated from muscleman pose to sticking his jaw out to thrusting his pecs in my face) showed me a steely confidence in the face of a crazy suicide mission and not just the fact that his acting prowess came from being Mr. Universe three times.
You know, there was a lot stuff in this movie that was memorable. Christopher Lee being dubbed by someone that surely wasn’t him, Medea periodically intoning some vital bit of information in a voice that reminded me of Jean from the Freedom School in Billy Jack, and even Thesus wussing out and falling into a lava pit to his death, only to reappear unharmed moments later with his new girlfriend Persephone, but the part I will always remember is that time that Hercules fell out of a tree!
There he was climbing up this big, evil tree trying to get the golden apple when all of a sudden there’s sparks, lightning, explosions and all sorts of other stuff you usually see up in the tops of really, big, evil trees and the next thing I know, I’m watching this demi-god take a header toward the ground below!
He survives falling out of the tree (he is Hercules after all!) and secures the apple with an assist from Zeus. The women who were watching the apple tell him good job, but while you were flopping down the hunky tree and hitting every branch your friends were being harassed by a rock guy named Procrustes!
Procrustes likes to cut and stretch everyone to fit in his beds. Hercules confronts Procrustes and we get one of our many guffaws as we see a guy in a really soft, foamy, rock suit lurching around, his voice sounding like an old, sinister computer!
Hercules has seen lots of fake-looking monsters in his career and is thus unimpressed by this rocky dude and simply picks him up and hurls him into a wall of rocks, breaking open the doorway to Hades! (Is Hercules a master tactician or what?)
Hercules has to climb over lava pits, dive into fire and avoid chained up maidens as he makes his way to this glowing rock that Pluto has. Once he gets it, the action and fantastical adventure is only beginning!
He spends the rest of the film trying to save his woman from the clutches of Lico as Lico tries to use Deianira’s blood in his own body so that something diabolical will happen. It’s all because Pluto has cursed the place after Theseus has hooked up with Persephone, who is Pluto’s favorite daughter.
Director Mario Bava (Hatchet for the Honeymoon) manages to bring his signature style to a lot of this movie, especially regarding the use of colors in his lighting. He’s able to shoot scenes in reds and blues and that give things an eerie, otherworldly feel. His inventive use of lighting also allows him to mask the cheap sets to good effect.
The plot didn’t always make much sense as it charged from one action scene to another and the pacing of the movie was strange to say the least (characters stand around talking about what they have to go and do, then they do it, then they talk about what they have to do next and go and do that and so on throughout the film), but Bava smartly never gets bogged down in one location and the fast paced nature of things combined with the unique visuals triumph over the questionable story, the criminal acting, and the high school play sets.
© 2009 MonsterHunter
