 |
 Hercules heads off to Hades with a "buddy" to get a plant that he needs to cure
a sick princess. Along the way the run into lots of strange things. They note
that Christopher plays an evil "servant of Pluto" and that this movie has
"rock-men, lava seas, a naked maiden in chains, Hercules throwing boulders,
etc." They also claim that this movie is the probably the only one of the
Hercules films that "really makes it as a fantasy." 1961, 84 minutes, VHS
Mario Bava directed this fun and colorful entry in the Hercules canon of films,
though I never was quite able to keep up with what I would nicely term its
"breakneck plotting". Reg Park is one of our beefiest Hercules, with pecs the
size of a regular Joe's head and his acting consists of standing around talking
in a dubbed monotone, while periodically swinging giant papier-mache stones
around over his head to accomplish whatever fantastic task the story demands of
him. British horror legend Christopher Lee, who obviously lost some kind of
bar bet, shows up as the bad guy in this one, a character named Lyco or Lichas,
demanding on whether you want to believe the back of the Something Weird Video
box or the Internet Movie Database. Sure, I watched the movie and all, but I
couldn't understand half the names they babbled on about. That brings me to
the real problems I had with this movie. While the movie was a hunky good
time, the video provided by Something Weird was something else. I know that
this just came out on DVD, but I placed my order with Something Weird a few
weeks before it was announced that Fantoma was releasing a widescreen DVD
version. Something Weird's service was fine - it didn't take real long to get
the stuff I ordered, but when I popped this baby into the VCR, I was aghast at
status of the print they were using. It was scratchy, the sound wasn't that
good and it was full frame. Now, they never claimed it wasn't full frame, but
what's the point of selling these "collector's tapes" if you're not going to
give me a widescreen version and a decent print? Especially of a movie that's
easily available from other companies? This thing looked like it had been shot
at the time of Hercules and stored in his leather jock. But wait, that wasn't
the only thing Something Weird did that made me question whether I should ever
bother with them again. They also managed to put some ugly-ass watermark on
the lower right part of the entire movie, a gray "SWV" like they were CNN or
somebody. Uh, memo to the self-important boobs at Something Weird: I don't
think you're going to have to worry about somebody copying your cruddy copy of
this movie and passing it off as their own. I guess my next stop is Sinister
Cinema. Live and learn, right?  The whining about the actual presentation from Something Weird behind us, I
suppose we should actually take a look at what the team of Reg, Mario, and
Chris Lee can come up with as far as Hercules movies go. Hercules has a buddy
named Theseus and being that they seem to run around together in leather
mini-skirts an awful lot of the time, I was somewhat surprised to see that both
Herc and Theseus had love interests played by real women. I don't know what
Herc and Theseus were doing or where they were at during the beginning of the
movie,
but Theseus is making out with some broad and Hercules is calling for him to
get going already ("Why are you always laying with these women Theseus? Is not
my company pleasurable enough?" - I may have just made that dialogue up, but
if you say it in a really deep, stilted voice, you get the vibe that was
running through things.). This is about the time that some bandits show up and
try and do something or other. They may have trying to kill someone or steal
something, but since this was out in the wilderness, near a river, they may
have just been interested in doing cannonballs on the innocent villagers who
were milling around for no reason. They start fighting with Theseus, who 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
and everyone falls off or something. And don't for a minute think that as that
big cart was flying through the air that it looked like anyone had actually
thrown it. Looks more like it was being pulled with wires, but then again
those were different times when gods and magical beings freely walked the
earth, so my mortal eyes were probably deceived by Hercules and his really
gigantic chest. Herc tells the not too muscular and very blonde Theseus that
they need to get moving to some kingdom where Herc's girlfriend, Dianira
resides. If I was Theseus, I would have said, "what's the rush, big guy? You
already have a beard."  Hercules and Theseus go to Dianira's kingdom and is informed that the queen has
died and that even though Dianira is supposed to be on the throne in place of
her mommy, her kindly uncle with the evil haircut (Chris Lee) has taken over
for her, because she is sick. With his bowl shaped hair and dark clothes, it
doesn't take a Hercules to see that this guy is up to no good and is in league
with Pluto or whatever crabby god has a hankering to fart around in the palace
intrigue of some nothing kingdom. Of course, Hercules doesn't see this (that
leather thong must be too tight) and somehow Herc gets told that to lift
whatever curse his woman has on her, all he has to do is go down to Hades and
get some magic rock or plant that Pluto has. Even though going down to Hades
sounds about as appetizing to you or I as going to my old neighborhood in Gary,
Indiana, Herc shrugs his massive shoulders and tells Theseus to fire up the
magic ship and make for Hades. But it isn't that simple. See, the magic ship
isn't technically theirs, so they have to get some dude to lend it to them.
Now, sometime during all this Herc and Theseus acquire a sidekick, whose name
escapes me, but he's a skinny runt that is always having his woman stolen by
Theseus. He says he knows the guy with the magic boat and that it won't be any
problem to get it. Since he knows the guy because he knows the guy's wife (in
the biblical sense), this dude is less than jacked to loan out the magic boat.
Before he can get this runty guy (I'll call him Runtus Guyus) drawn and
quartered, Herc and Theseus step in and save Runtus and take the magic ship.
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. Herc's
trip to Hades isn't just some deal where you can take I-95 until you hit the
toll road. He's got to get the golden apple, which will allow him to safely go
to and fro in Hades. Even though this is one of those movies where Herc
encounters obstacle after obstacle, he meets them all with gritty
determination. I'm playing it off like 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 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. Chris Lee
being dubbed by someone that surely wasn't Chris Lee, 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 Theseus wussing out and falling into
a lava pit to his death, only to reappear unharmed moments later with his new
girlfriend Persephone (this movie sure spends a lot time and energy trying to
convince us that these two sweaty hunks in leather like girls), 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, tall, evil trees and the next thing I
know, I'm watching this demi-god take a header toward the ground below!
Luckily he grabbed a branch and saved his well-oiled bacon, but I think you'd
have to mark that down as a bit of a Hercules blooper if you ask me. Undeterred
by this embarrassment, Herc asks Zeus for some back up and slings a big,
papery-looking rock up into the tree and knocks the apple down with it. Thanks
for the assist Pops! Now it's time for me and my all-male posse to go down to
that oh so very hot den of evil and sin, Hades! The girls who were watching the
apple tell him good job, but while you were flopping down the hunky tree and
hitting every branch (meow!) your two boys were hooked up with a rock guy
named Procustus. Pro likes to cut and stretch everyone to fit in his beds
(Ooo-la-la!) so too bad about your friends. Hercules runs over to the club
where Pro hangs out 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 this
Herc guy 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 Chris Lee and
and Chris Lee tries to use her blood in his own body so that something
diabolical will happen. It all involves a curse that Pluto has dumped on this
place because Theseus has hooked up with Persephone, who is Pluto's favorite
daughter. These people obviously have a lot more issues than we have space to
deal with here, but suffice it to say, it all works out in the end with
Hercules laughing about how Runtus is okay as long he just tries to
steal Theseus' women and not his own or something along those lines.
Mario 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
that manage to give things an eerie, otherworldy feel (this could probably
serve as part of nice double-feature with his sci-fi horror epic Planet of the Vampires ). Especially impressive were the final scenes where Hercules goes
after Chris Lee in his underground hideout and all these people start rising
from the dead. You've got coffins opening up, bony hands popping out of the
dirt floor, and dead people flying around at Hercules, who has to keep
shrugging them off as he tries to save his girlfriend. It was probably more
exciting than a good percentage of those cruddy zombie movies. With the dark
lighting (blacks and blues) alternately bathing things in a spirit world glow
and obscuring much of the cheap sets, the quick editing and the speed that
these things showed, it came off as very much the nightmarish feel you would
hope to get from a battle with the undead. Mario may not have been too good at
having this plot make lots of sense as it charged pell-mell 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 he never got 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. Maybe
Chris Lee knew what he was doing when signed on for this one - it is probably
about the best of the sandal-clad bunch (I haven't seen that many, but I can't
believe that they're going to be getting any better). Maybe with the DVD
release, it will bring back the leather skirt fad for guys (well hopefully just
for the guys who are beefy hunks with good calves). Go ahead and get it (the
DVD version), it'll make your pecs quiver with ancient gladiator excitement!
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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