Are any of the Hercules Movies worth watching?

Bmeansgood · July 04, 2008, 11:20:41 PM

A couple years back I bought 4 of those 50 movie packs (sci fi, horror, western, gunfighter) and I think I stopped after about 25 movies. I was thinking about chipping away at them again. Are any of the Hercules movies worth watching or should I skip them. Here are the ones listed in the set:

Hercules Against the Moonmen starring Alan Steel
Hercules and the Captive Women starring Reg Park
Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon starring Peter Lupus
Hercules Unchained starring Steve Reeves
Son of Hercules: The Land of Darkness starring Dan Vadis
Devil of the Desert vs. Son of Hercules starring Kirk Morris

As long as there is decent action, I can tolerate a lot of garbage. Thanks for the help.

AnubisVonMojo · July 05, 2008, 12:23:26 AM

Quote from: Bmeansgood on July 04, 2008, 11:20:41 PM
Hercules Against the Moonmen starring Alan Steel
Hercules Unchained starring Steve Reeves

Moon Men is a decent enough bad movie with plenty of goofy "what the f*ck just happened?!" moments, including Herc fighting a random cave Yeti and the completely nonthreatening advances of the giant Moon Men golems who just kinda waddle slowly toward their victims. Recommended if you're in the mood for some stupid fun.

Unchained isn't nearly as fantastic with its subject matter and therefore not as goofy. Both movies have been on MST3K and both contain a lot of scenes of Hercules pretending to be brainwashed by sinister evil sorceresses while he watches his friends and allies getting tortured or killed.

peter johnson · July 05, 2008, 12:38:33 AM

All of them.
Alll of them, especially if it's an especially cheap transfer and you get all that grand bad dubbing --
In Virginia, when I was a wee one, the local stations showed these things non-stop.
Must've been a no-copywright/no-royalty situation.
In any case, I saw them all -- They all SUCK, are ALL predictable as rain, and are thus ALL worth watching, for different reasons in every individual case.
Big Muscle Guys Beat Up Horrible Monster Suits and Each Other in Glorious Black and White and Sometimes Colour. Hideous acting and dialogue! Bad Monster Suits!!
. . .um . . Sorry, I guess I don't get the question: They are ALL crap and therein lies their VALUE!!
. . . please give my regards to the rubber snakes and visible strings on the jaws of the giant spider . . .
Seriously: Why even ask this on a site titled "badmovies.org"?
peter lovit/denny oh gawd not that again

RCMerchant · July 05, 2008, 07:27:17 AM

Ditto to what Peter Superman/Denny Bizzaro sez....their all weird and wild enuff to grant hours of BAD movie fun.

trekgeezer · July 05, 2008, 11:28:08 AM

Hey, in that Devil in the Desert one they throw him in a pen a rhino!

Patient7 · July 05, 2008, 11:35:43 AM

Get the Disney one, there's a good movie right there.

Raffine · July 05, 2008, 02:04:34 PM

I agree these are worth their weight in huge Styrofoam boulders.

Almost twenty years after these Lou Ferrigno starred in a couple of more Hercules movies that have to be seen to be believed. Sybil Danning is in the first one. One of my favorite scenes has little Lou and Sybil dolls flying around in a chariot.

AnubisVonMojo · July 05, 2008, 02:50:02 PM

Quote from: Raffine on July 05, 2008, 02:04:34 PM
Almost twenty years after these Lou Ferrigno starred in a couple of more Hercules movies that have to be seen to be believed. Sybil Danning is in the first one. One of my favorite scenes has little Lou and Sybil dolls flying around in a chariot.

Those things were amazing. Greek mythology meets The Old Testament meets Xanadu...

Kester Pelagius · July 05, 2008, 04:58:07 PM

While my review of Hercules and the Moon Men sums up my feelings on that film I don't believe I've any reviews of the others floating around in cyberspace anywhere at the moment. So, keeping in mind the video quality of all the titles on this set are the equivalent of smearing excrement on your TV screen, I'd say. . .

Hercules Unchained is a fun movie if you can endure it. IIRC this is the flick that kicked off the Italian peplum trend so I'd suggest starting with this one then moving on to Colossus and the Amazon Queen (terrible print but worth it to see Rod Taylor in his only peplum comedy) or Hercules and the Captive Women; which is rather a fun watch if only for the dubbing.

Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon - A dull and tedious flick made even worse by a horrid tranfer.

Son of Hercules: The Land of Darkness - For some odd reason I am drawing a blank on this one. I'm fairly certain it's campy and silly but, well, it must have been meh.

Devil of the Desert vs. Son of Hercules - This one has to be seen to be beleived. I'd save it for last as it's probably got the worst video of 'em all. (Washed out poorly framed FS taken from what looks like a VHS of a 16mm source projected onto a wall and recorded on a 80s era camcorder in tight soft focus.)

trekgeezer · July 05, 2008, 05:29:44 PM

You should also thow in Hercules vs. The Mongols. No they don't explain the apparent time travel that had to occur for this one.

You know in actuality, most of these things started out as Maciste films and were retitled in America.

If you are really interested check out these wikipedia articles on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_and_sandal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maciste

Bmeansgood · July 05, 2008, 10:38:17 PM

Thanks Kester. Your review helped bring things into perspective. I watched Moon men today. It suffers from long drawn out scenes of people doing nothing, but there are some entertaining moments. I bet a cleaner transfer would make the movie much better.