Hercules Unleashed!

I spent a rather interesting day yesterday watching Hercules movies. Many months ago I picked the nicely priced Hercules Collection. I got it mostly for the classic Hercules starring Steve Reeves, but it also included a host of other pepla stars such as Reg Park, Gordon Scott, and others. I watched the Herc movie yet again, but the first time on dvd and the first time in widescreen and later I snatched up the sequel Hercules Unchained and finished the Reeves Herc specific canon. I didn't know that another movie on this collection, Hercules and the Captive Women was a sequel to the first two.


Now that varies according to sources, but whether it's the third "real" Hercules movie or not, it's still a spectacle. Again in widescreen this one offers Reg Park as Herc and he's not half bad. His beard doesn't sell as well as the one on Reeves, but nonetheless he finds quite a bit of trouble when he's shanghied by his friend to check out some indistinct trouble that threatens the kingdom. He doesn't know his grown son is part of the plan too. After some mishaps he ends up saving a chick from Proteus a shape-changing monster but despite her turning out to be a princess the kingdom of Atlantis ain't happy she's back, especially her mom. More stuff happens and eventually Herc ends up saving the princess and his friends but the island is of course destroyed. One thing this movie had were some neat villains, especially the "super soldiers" who all look alike (Stormtroopers of the ancient world perhaps) and form an "unbeatable" army.


This is followed by Hercules and the Prisoner of Evil which pits Hercules (Park again) against a witch and "werewolves". These monsters are pretty scary actually in some scenes. I won't say much about this one as it has some neat twists in it. But it's pretty clear this is a Hercules picture in name only. The setting seems to be more like Transylvania than Greece and all the men wear pants. This is in fact an "Ursus" movie which got retitled for American distribution.

The third Reg Park offering was Hercules the Avenger and it was largely a compilation of footage from Park's first two movies, the aforementioned Hercules and the Captive Women and one directed by Mario Brava Hercules in the Haunted World. It has Herc go to Hades to rescue his son's soul where he fights zombies and whatnot in some pretty moody stuff. Meanwhile Antaeus, the son of Mother Earth impersonates Herc and hooks up with another misguided queen to kill and steal from the people. Hercules returns in time to fight him and send him back to momma.


The final flick I enjoyed was Gordon Scott in Hercules and the Princess of Troy which was a TV pilot. This one is not dubbed and despite some odd effects on the film negative still delivers a sharp adventure in a short order running just under fifty minutes. There's a pretty neat monster in this one and some surprisingly robust action sequences.

Rip Off