Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Hercules in the Haunted World

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb and we have a fun one here for you. This one originally aired last year seven twenty six, twenty twenty four. This is our look at the oh so colorful nineteen sixty one Mario Baba film Hercules in the Haunted World, starring REDG. Park, Christopher Lee, and Leonardo Rufo. It's a lot of fun and certainly has a lot of visual style. Let's jump right in.

00:00:38
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

00:00:47
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

00:00:49
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be talking about the nineteen sixty one Italian sword and sandal movie her Achilles in the Haunted World, directed by show favorite Mario Bava, starring English bodybuilder REDG. Park as her Achilles and also starring show favorite Christopher Lee as the evil King Leco in what I must say is one of the most underwhelming Christopher Lee performances of all time, but otherwise really really fun, great if low budget fantasy movie.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: That's right, I mean, with a Mario Bava film as well, no doubt be discussing most of this episode. There are certain expectations in place, and this film meets those expectations. You know that it is going to look glorious. You know that you are going to be entering a phantasmagorical world of color and smoke and strange surreal landscapes.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, whatever the genre, whatever the budget, you pretty much always know a Mario Bava movie is going to look fascinating and you will feel the mood with your eyes. They tend to be have very well composed shots. Each shot is kind of like a like a painting in some way. It's always kind of interestingly staged or framed. And he's a big fan of things like mist and fog and colored lights. So in scenes that in other movies might just be lit with what comes off as realistic lighting to the audience, in abov a movie, yeah, you'll have red lights coming from one side of the room, green and blue coming from the other, and pink lights on the on the subject, and it just infuses everything even more realistic scenes with a sense of magic.

00:02:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there they are almost always going to be sequences that feel kind of hypnotic, and this film is no exception. There are there are some sequences that have a hypnotic vibe to them.

00:02:45
Speaker 3: So Hercules in the Haunted World has been known by other names, as many Italian movies have lots of names. It's been known as Hercules at the Center of the Earth and also some variations on Hercules versus the Vampires. I don't think that really describes the movie at all.

00:03:02
Speaker 1: I was reading about the various titles for this film in Robert A. Rushings descended from Hercules, a book that I'll refer back to, and he mentions that, like the literal translation of the original Italian title is essentially Hercules in the Center of the Earth. But yeah, mostly it's known as Hercules in the Haunted World, which I think is a pretty great title. There's at least one title for the film that is with Hercules to the Center of the Earth, which is a little more confusing, but fair enough if you get the basic idea Hercules is going inside the planet.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: As you might guess from some of the titles for this film, such as Hercules versus the Vampires, even though there aren't really any vampires in it. This is a somewhat rare genre crossover that might be called peplam horror. Peplam is of course an originally derisive I think term for the sword and sandal genre. So that's your standard genre of movies about figures like Hercules, these you know, like strong figures from ancient Greece, a rome that run around doing heroic deeds. So that's peplam and Hercules in the Haunted World is one of a small number of films that have been said to be an attempt to cross that stream with the trappings of gothic or supernatural horror. So your prototype example might be a story set in an archaic time period about an immense gentleman of beef who wields a magic saber to defeat an army of the blood drinking undead.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in the case of this film, like obviously they're bringing in Christopher Lee, who as a major player in a gothic horror of the time period, so you know, it's it's rather obvious what they're doing here.

00:04:42
Speaker 3: That said, I was kind of expecting there to be more horror in this movie. There are definitely scenes that are horror, and the final showdown involves hercules fighting in an army of zombies. So I think that definitely gets you there. But for a lot of the film, it's much more like a tradition, an old sword and sandal movie where there aren't really any monsters. I don't think anything really counts as a vampire. Probably the closest you get is that Christopher Lee is in it, and he plays a vampire in other movies.

00:05:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, he kind of wants to become a vampire, but that's about it, really. Yeah, you know that they're maybe we're going to cash in on some of that that that vampire fame. Yeah, there's there are whole sections of the movie that you might not even recognize as Bava that you basically before they enter the surreal world beneath the Earth, and and to your point, yeah, there's there's not much in the film that you might identify as horror outside of like the visual trappings of Bava's style.

00:05:41
Speaker 3: Right, right, I mean, I think I would identify this as Bava throughout because of the way it looks, but maybe not so much because of plot elements earlier on. So I was trying to think if I had ever before seen a movie that would be considered peplham horror. And while I don't think I've seen any of the ones that usually get highlighted from like the late fifth these early sixties, we have seen on weird house cinema Luccio Fulci's Conquest, which certainly has a sword chopping muscle man. It's set in an archaic time period, and it has zombies and were wolves and other straight supernatural horror elements. But I was wondering does this count is Conquest peplam or is it too post Conan to count as peplam, Like I don't really know what film historians would usually consider the cutoff there. Does peplam only refer to these earlier movies about ancient Greece and Rome and stuff, or does it also include the more often gory, somewhat sleazy, r rated Barbarian fantasy films that came after, like Millius's adaptation of Conan.

00:06:45
Speaker 1: Well, I turned to Rushing for this because this is the book to find the answer, And Rushing does identify barbarian films as the third wave of peplam, so he breaks everything down into five waves. So the first wave consists pretty much entirely of the Machiste cycle, the Machiste films from nineteen fourteen through nineteen twenty six, all starring Bartolomeo Pagano as the titular Roman strong man Macheste. And I believe you were actually looking at one of these the other day. You were in the mood for a sword and Sandals film and you were looking at a silent film. I believe this is one of the Pagano films.

00:07:24
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's right. And in fact, I came across a movie from this era that has the same one line plot summary as the movie we're covering today. So Hercules in the Haunted World, you know, the elevator pitch is Hercules goes to Hell. And fun fact, there is actually a word in Greek for stories in which the hero goes to the underworld. It's called katabasis. This is a common enough type of story, and there are of course scenes from the big Greek and Roman epics where characters go into the underworld. Happens in the Odyssey. There's a katabasis where Odysseus goes to the underworld and talks to talk to you know, dead people. There's a passage in the Aeneid where I think the heroes go to the underworld, which just talked about recently on the show. Actually, so there's a long tradition of stories in which the epic hero takes a journey to Hell for some reason. But this, this Bava movie from sixty one that we're talking about today is not even the first Hercules goes to Hell film in the twentieth century. I came across a nineteen twenty five Italian silent film called Meshista in Hell, which looks awesome, Rob. I've attached the poster for you to look at here. It has some kind of I don't know, some like bride of Hell kind of figure on it who's wearing like a dress with a golden calf theme.

00:08:41
Speaker 1: Oh wow, very art deco.

00:08:43
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but she looks like she will indeed invite you straight into Hell. And I think the basic premise of Mashista in Hell is that, you know, he's not only strong, he's the most virtuous man on earth, and the demons of Hell are like, okay, we got to trick him into sinning so that he'll come to Hell. And I think they have a difficult time trying to get him to sin. I haven't seen this movie in full, but it looks like it would be worth a watch if you want to sit through a full length silent film.

00:09:11
Speaker 1: All right, So first Wave nineteen fourteen through the nineteen twenty six then, according to Rushing, interestingly, there's kind of a break here, So Peplam popularity dies out during the fascist and post war period in Italy, which initially I was kind of confused by, and I'm still very interested in how this occurs because you think of what a Hercules movie or Peplam movie is, and it centers around a literal strong man. Yeah, and then what is fascism is It is just, in very simple terms, someone at least putting on the act of being a strong man, you know that is going to you know, lead you and solve all your problems for you. And on one level, I would think, well, wouldn't they just go hand in hand? But I'm not going to get into all the points that are the explorers in the book, But he basically highlights that there's kind of some back and forth here, Like, on one hand, yes, there is there are some fascist elements to the idea of a Hercules or Samson or any of these other figures that are explored in these films. But on the other hand too, there are certain anti fascism elements to it, like, for example, Hercules. Even in this film, Hercules is not saying put the crown on me. Hercules doesn't want rewards. He's in it out of the goodness of his heart.

00:10:32
Speaker 3: Yes, he explicitly is not power seeking in the film, and when I think at certain points has sort of given the chance to assume power and he sort of shies away from it. All right.

00:10:43
Speaker 1: The next wave we have of Peplam, according to Rushing, is the mid century Peplam, that's nineteen fifty eight through nineteen sixty five, and this period star is almost exclusively bodybuilders such as Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott and Reg Park. This, of course is the period that we're discussing here with Hercules in the Haunted World. And according to the extras on the Kinoclassics disc which i'll mention again here in a bit, this film and Mario Bava in particular, had had a very important role in the resurgence of peplam during this period and also the cementing of Hercules's place at the center of it instead of mitchi ste or the biblical Samson or any other character. So like, this is where things become more like Hercules movies as opposed to various figures that fit the mold.

00:11:34
Speaker 3: Okay, now, I think that the grimier peplam comes in the eighties, right, sort of in the wake of Conan, which was what like nineteen eighty one.

00:11:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. He highlights the third wave as eighties Barbarian movies, a broad category that includes everything from Conan the Barbarian itself, to the Attor films to Fulgi's Conquest, which he discusses in This wave is also notable for featuring more sex, more violence, at least compared to everything that had come before. Now, the fourth wave that he highlights is the nineteen nineties TV wave, typified by Hercules, the Legendary Journeys, and various other shows of that sort. I guess this leads into Zena. If you watched any TV in the nineties, you know exactly this whole realm of shows we're talking about.

00:12:24
Speaker 3: You know, I haven't really gone back and revisited these, but I do remember watching both Hercules and Zena on TV when I was a kid, and they had a great feeling there was such a pleasing corniness about them.

00:12:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean. I never I never really religiously watched them, but I would catch them on and you know sometimes.

00:12:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, I'd have to go back and check them out as an adult. But I think these shows did have a pretty strong sense of irony about them, Like they didn't They have like Bruce Campbell as a recurring guest character, and he was hamming it up real good.

00:12:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had a number of either talented actors of the time or actors that would go on to become more prominent on those shows.

00:13:08
Speaker 3: All right.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: Then finally, fifth wave peplam according to Rushing here, contemporary peplam concerning pretty much everything that comes in the wake of Ridley Scott's two thousand film Gladiator. So that includes the two thousand and six film three hundred, it includes the Spartacus TV show. And I do want to note that the book in question here came out in twenty sixteen, so I'm not sure where Rushing would consider us now, Like we have Gladiator two coming out this year for Midley Scott, so I don't know if that is going to cap off this period of Peplam, or is it going to birth a new period, or how we might figure out where we are in this legacy of sword and sandals cinema.

00:13:52
Speaker 3: I'm having a hard time believing that they're actually making a Gladiator two.

00:13:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the first one I had all the money in the world, so I mean that's also a really scott film. But anyway, you catch.

00:14:05
Speaker 3: My meeting what we do in life franchise is in eternity.

00:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a quick overview. If you want a deeper look at Peplum, do pick up that book.

00:14:14
Speaker 3: It sounds interesting and I'm sure there is a lot to excavate in terms of the sort of the historical context and the social and psychological connotations that are flowing through this oiled up genre. Now, to situate the movie we're looking at today within the history, we're saying it's in that middle period during sort of a Peplam revival, Like there had been a Peplam low tide for several decades, and now this is early sixties, late fifties, early sixties. Peplam's coming back, and it's coming back by mixing with other genres like horror.

00:14:48
Speaker 1: That's right, and eventually there's going to be some sci fi peplums as well, Yeah, which we might come back to on the show.

00:15:02
Speaker 3: So, from what I've read, Hercules and the Haunted World was a relatively low budget picture, but like most Mario Bob movies, it you know, it looks a lot better than what it cost. Apparently. Would I do want to single out a genuine crime in the creative choices of this movie, which is that they cast Christopher Lee as the villain and then, as best I can tell, did not use his actual voice at all, like he is dubbed by another actor. I don't I couldn't confirm this, Rob. Maybe you have more insight into whether that's the case for sure, but it does not sound like him on the Italian track I heard, and I from what I understand, it's not his voice in English either.

00:15:46
Speaker 1: That's my understanding. I think there chrispher Lee did some international pictures in which his voice was dubbed, and I think there's maybe one German production where he did his own voice acting for the German language version. I'm not one hundred percent on that, but I think it's the case as far as I can tell, there's just no audio of at least surviving of Lee's lines here. In all likelihood he did his lines in English, but yeah, they're dubbed by an Italian speaking actor for the Italian version, dubbed by a non Christopher Lee actor for the English dub, and on from there. You know, it was common practice in a lot of these lower budget European films that they wouldn't even have live sound. Everything would be dubbed anyway, and that sometimes meant international cast members were just doing their lines in their own language and they just work it all out in the dub later on. I think I've mentioned before that Spanish be cinema legend, Paul Nashy almost never did his own vocal performance, even for the Spanish, it would be somebody else. But I agree, it's a shame we don't get to hear Christopher Lee here.

00:16:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it seems like it's probably not a you know, a particular choice of this movie, but it's just how movies in this time and place were done. You just have live sound, and a lot of times it was not the original actor recording the audio.

00:17:04
Speaker 1: But it's a shame that they had decades to write this wrong and Christopher Lee lived a long time and was active for the rest of his life. Even if you'd gone in and gotten a much older Christopher Lee to come in and do a little voice work for this, it would have been I think it would have been worth it. I don't know if it was actually worth it to anyone who's going to put the money down for it, But there you go.

00:17:25
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, if you're going to hire Christopher Lee, you better go out of your way to get his voice on tape.

00:17:30
Speaker 1: Agreed.

00:17:31
Speaker 3: Another thing I want to address before we actually get into the cast and the plot, which is did you notice that hercules solution to nearly every puzzle and problem in this film was to lift a large object over his head and throw it. Yes, most often the large object is a rock. At least like four or five major problems in the movie are solved by throwing a rock. But sometimes it is a wooden cart, or sometimes it is a monster made out of rocks. So it's like the moral of Hercules in the Haunted world is that there's almost no problem which cannot be solved by guerrilla pressing and throwing an object of sufficient mass.

00:18:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, this film is one hundred percent herk chunking objects at his problems. And yet I have to say that these scenes are also well crafted, the lighting, the physical acting, the props and effects that I buy it in ways that I rarely buy a boulder eating scene in a motion picture.

00:18:30
Speaker 3: I never wanted to stop. Was like, yeah, throw rocks at that too, Throw some more rocks.

00:18:35
Speaker 1: I mean, if we were gonna get picky, we might say, well, in the actual you know tales of Hercules, he's he's not only using rocks to solve problems. He's not only throwing things he gets. He can be rather devious at times in the way that he overcomes his various challenges, but in this it's mostly throwing stuff.

00:18:55
Speaker 3: Well, it's supposed to be the character that Hercules is not only strong, but he is clever. He comes up with ingenious solutions to unsolvable problems. You know, how does he How does he clean the stables that have accumulated the filth from all the years, like he he can't even with all his strength, He can't do it with a shovel, but he diverts a river, so you know, so he comes up with clever solutions like that. And I think the movie is trying to show him doing that. At times, he like faces a problem and he has to come up with some outside the box solution, but it's always throwing a rock.

00:19:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. He's like, all right, I need another approach to this problem. Should I throw a rock at it?

00:19:34
Speaker 3: Yes?

00:19:34
Speaker 1: I should throw a rock at it?

00:19:36
Speaker 3: Okay, the elevator pitch. I've already given one version, which is Hercules goes to Hell. You could shorten that even to just Helcules nice, but I guess the longer version is that the only way the noble Hercules can save his beloved Danira is to retrieve a magic stone from the underworld of the dead. But a dubbed Christopher Lee with a Prince Valiant haircut has a plans.

00:20:01
Speaker 1: All right, So where can you watch Hercules in the haunted world? Well, it's out there. And this is another one of those films where I feel like you got to be a little picky about where you get it. I initially did the lazy thing, and I was like, Okay, I don't really want to get up. I'm just going to rent this on Prime. And then I rented it and the quality was not optimal. It even featured a watermark. So I did what I should have done to begin with. I drove over to Atlanta's own Videodrome video rental store and I rented the two disc Kino Classics Blu Ray release. It is excellent. It features multiple cuts of the film, you know, the UK cut, Italian cut, US cut, as well as some extras, and so, you know, we generally encourage everyone to watch these films and the best quality available, and this is especially true of Mario Bava. I don't think my wife really understood why I was leaving the house to go rent a movie that I just rented. But it's like, you just can't watch a Mario Bava film unless it is in just as high of quality as is possibly available.

00:21:05
Speaker 3: I agree, and specifically because some of the streaming options I came across it seemed to me that they were not only like lower resolution kind of grainy, but also they were desaturated in terms of color, and I want all the color. Yeah. So yeah, so you want to get the good version of this one? Yeah.

00:21:23
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying don't use Prime, but I'm just saying be choosy about where you get this film, because I don't think all the streams are equal here. All right, let's get into the folks involved in the making of this film. Well, we've been talking about him already, but Mariobava is credited as the director, one of the writers, the cinematographer of course, and also has sound effects credit. Sound effects, we should also mention, are often a real hallmark of Mariobava films as well, especially with the film like Planet of the Vampires.

00:21:54
Speaker 3: I wonder have we done more Mariobava movies than any other director on Weird House, because we did Planet of the Empires, we did Danger Diabolic, we did Black Sabbath.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it was Sabbath. I put Sunday in the notes, but yeah, it would be that the color when not the black and white one.

00:22:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe another one or I don't know.

00:22:12
Speaker 1: I think that's all the Bava we've directly done on the show thus far, but we'll probably come back. I know there are a couple other Bava films that are on my radar, all.

00:22:20
Speaker 3: Of them incredibly strong. I think today's movie might be the one out of all the Bava movies we've done that I liked the least. But I loved all of them.

00:22:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean unmistakable obsessive emphasis on visual composition. He lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen eighty. You mentioned the films. We've've already mentioned the films we've covered already. But so far we've covered a Bava Gothic carr, a space ar a sixty super criminal movie, and it feels right that we're dealing with a Peplham film.

00:22:48
Speaker 3: Now, did he do every genre? Did he do Westerns? I think he did.

00:22:53
Speaker 1: I think he did. Interestingly, this wasn't his only outing with Hercules. He had served as cinematoga and special effects artist on the previous nineteen fifty eight Hercules movie, as well as the nineteen fifty nine sequel to that film, Hercules Unchained. All right, the writing credits on this. First of all, we have Sandro Continenza, who lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety six, Italian screenwriter, best known for such films as sixty one's Valley of the Lions, seventy eight's The Inglorious Bastards, and really just a long list of thrillers, action movies, horror movies, comedies, and more. We previously mentioned this writer on the show because they were one of the screenwriters on let Sleeping Corpses Lie aka The Living Dead at Manchester More.

00:23:37
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that was fun. I don't think this. I don't think the screenplay is the strongest suit of this movie. It's a it's partially by numbers, but it gets the job done.

00:23:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other two. In addition to Baba as well, we have Francesco Prosperi, who lived nineteen twenty six through two thousand and four, Italian film director and screenwriter active between the mid nineteen sixties and the early nineteen eighties, perhaps best known for nineteen sixty six is The Hired Killer, in nineteen sixty three is The Evil Eye. And then we have Duccio Tassari nineteen twenty six through nineteen ninety four, Italian director and writer who work on a number of sixties peplam films and as a director he directed such movies as eighty five's Texts and The Lord of the Deep. That's a Western of some sort, and nineteen seventy one's The Bloodstained Butterfly.

00:24:28
Speaker 3: Texts and the Lord of the Deep.

00:24:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe it was based on an Italian comic. Okay, now getting into the actors here, we have to start at the top, of course, with Hercules himself. Reg Park, who lived nineteen twenty eight through two thousand and seven aka Reg the Ledge.

00:24:46
Speaker 3: Spelled like Reg the Leg, but it's Reg the Ledge, so incredibly confusing. Yeah.

00:24:53
Speaker 1: Anyway. He was a Leeds born British football player turned professional bodybuilder, one time Mister Britton in forty six and three time Mister Universe So fifty one to fifty eight and sixty five, among many other titles. At this point in his life, he I believe he'd already moved to South Africa with his wife, but he received this offer to temporarily move to Rome to star in at least a couple of Hercules movies. He accepted and that gave us this film and Hercules and the Captive Women, both released in sixty one. In sixty four he returned for Hercules Prisoner of Evil, and he also fit in Mitchieste movie mitcheste In King Solomon's Minds, and then nineteen sixty five would mark his final film and his final appearance as Hercules. Hercules the Avenger.

00:25:40
Speaker 3: Now he is huge in this movie. His muscles are massive and one thing I noticed, Strob I don't know if you'd agree here, but it seemed to me that his physique was almost identical to the other big twentieth century movie muscleman, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's like you could swap their heads and you wouldn't realize there was a difference there. I don't know, their bodies just look incredibly similar.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know much about the specifics of bodybuilding, but like apparently redg was one of Arnold's heroes, and they knew each other to some extent, and Arnold really admired him. But yeah, I don't know if you can like really sculpture body to look like someone else's body, but certainly, certainly there is a physical resemblance in it, like the way that they're built.

00:26:24
Speaker 3: But you know what, I like this muscle man Reg does not. He does not portray a very complicated Hercules. He portrays Hercules as a quite simple and surface level man. But I think it.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: Works absolutely five out of five stars for this Hercules from me. I do not want an overly charismatic actor in these roles. I don't want to see the wheels turning. I think a Hercules role befits a greener actor, which typically lines up with the fact that filmmakers are casting bodybuilders in these roles, thus greatly narrowing the talent fear. But yeah, in this film, I can't speak to the others, but I feel like reg feels a little stiff, but never too stiff. He's outwitted by a cerebral villain at times, sure, but not to a agree that it tarnishes his hero status, Like he doesn't. He doesn't seem you know, like a like a dufus out there, and uh, and he he just kind of has like a he feels comfortable in the scenes. You know.

00:27:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's charming, but not in a way that could possibly imply any kind of scheming or machiavellianism. Like he is just so he comes off as so simple and straightforward, and his likability you just don't suspect there's anything under it.

00:27:43
Speaker 1: Right. In the extras on that Chino Classics disc, there's an older interview with an actor I'll get into here in just a second, George Artisan. He remarks that while Regg wasn't as handsome as Steve Reeves, I mean, I don't know, it seems like he's has it had handsome and or at least in the same like handsomeness orbit as as Steve Reeves.

00:28:04
Speaker 3: I don't know.

00:28:05
Speaker 1: He says that Reg was really laid back and easy to work with. He also stresses that he didn't just look strong, he was strong. There's a there's a scene that we'll get to where they have to traverse this rope hanging over a lava pit in Hell, and of course they're not. You know, they didn't actually film it over lava, but they really did have to hang from a rope. And Artisan is like, I only lasted like a minute and my arms were killing me. But Reg was hanging from that thing for like eight to ten minutes at a time and didn't seem particularly phased.

00:28:39
Speaker 3: Wow.

00:28:40
Speaker 1: But then again, in this interview, an elderly Artisan also insisted that Reg was picking up and throwing real rocks, a real bombers.

00:28:49
Speaker 3: No, So I don't know.

00:28:51
Speaker 1: I mean, this film makes them feel like real boulders, but surely not. No, I can't I can't accept that.

00:28:58
Speaker 3: No, those are props, obviously. H So I was digging up old muscle magazine covers that have redg Park on them, and I found some really fun, funny ones. My favorite was the one it's called it's from a magazine called Muscle Builder, and it's got a picture of him standing there, flexing, pushing his chest out, and the article title that it's promoting is get big husky muscles fast. I've never heard muscles described as husky before. That's good.

00:29:28
Speaker 1: But he's weird seeing him on these covers because he doesn't have the beard like in the movie he has the Hercules beard. Here he is clean shaven and in one of the images looks kind of like Don Draper.

00:29:37
Speaker 3: Oh, I can see that. Yeah. Also, how fast are you going to get them? You're gonna get big husky muscles, like, I don't know.

00:29:44
Speaker 1: You don't want to get him too fast? All right? Moving on to the rest of the cast. We have already mentioned. Christopher Lee, who lived nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen, plays the villain King Leko. This film was made during his Hammer years, one of five films of his release in sixty one, and one of numerous mainland European films that he did over the years, which also encompassed German, Spanish, and Italian productions and co productions. To position this film between his better known works, consider that Hammers the Mummy had come out earlier in fifty nine, and he'd go on to act in sixty six's Dracula Prince of Darkness. Though to be clear, he was working quite a bit during this period, so there are no real breaks here for him. He's just doing picture after picture.

00:30:30
Speaker 3: He plays the Mummy in Hammers the Mummy.

00:30:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so this is prime period for Lee for sure. Now it's worth highlighting that this was the first off I believe two Mario Baba films that he did, the other being the sixty three gothic horror film The Whip and the Body. But in neither film do we actually get to hear Lee's voice. I believe both of those are the same, and that the English dub makes use of a different actor.

00:30:55
Speaker 3: That is really inexplicable. And I do stand by I think I said this earlier, but this may be the most underused Christpher Lee has ever felt in a film.

00:31:05
Speaker 1: To me, yeah, I would agree.

00:31:07
Speaker 3: I mean, he's not bad, he's fine, but you could have imagined doing so much more with him as this sort of evil wizard king. Yeah.

00:31:14
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the sidekicks. We have not one, but two of them.

00:31:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, multiple sidekicks. We got the handsome guy and we got the the I don't know, scaredy cat guy.

00:31:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have yeah, the first of all, we have Theseus. I think he's also at Tessio. It depends on what what thread you're looking.

00:31:35
Speaker 3: At in the Italian hercules is Ercole and theseus is they say you or something? Yeah?

00:31:43
Speaker 1: And this is the character played by George Artisan. He's also Georgio Artisan, Italian actor who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty fourteen. So this character is Hirk's lady chasing blonde sidekick. Classically handsome and by all reasonable measures, in really good shape. But you know, good luck to anyone who has to stand opposite Redge in these scenes.

00:32:06
Speaker 3: Right. Uh, Theseus is a fan of dating.

00:32:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, he likes the ladies. The ladies like him, I would say that Artisan definitely. He gets in in on a lot of the action. He has stunts and action sequences throughout, but as the obviously more seasoned actor, he gets to do all of the heroic emotional heavy lifting while reg gets to actually lift stones and throw them at villains.

00:32:36
Speaker 3: That's right, So basically all of the emotional conflict that it might usually fall on a hero to have in a story like this, goes to theseus, he gets to be he gets to be the one who's like conflicted over you know, his relationship and all that. And you know, Hercules just stands there and says, you should you should do good? Yes.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: So artisan was a mainstay in various Italians Jordon sandals and adventure films, including Mario Bob's nineteen sixty one Swashbuckler. You know, throw another genre on the barbie there Eric the Conqueror alongside Cameron Mitchell. So I was reading a little bit about about this, this movie in particular, but also like in general, Hercules movies in that Robert A. Rushing Book descended from Hercules, and the author points out that a lot of Peppola movies in general give the central muscle character a quote moody, morose or lethargic sidekick in order to emphasize the strong man's optimism and energy. And that's we do see that with this character.

00:33:40
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I guess he doesn't come off as moody or morose early on. That's only when he has his love conflict later in the movie. Earlier, I was thinking, like is there enough distinction between these two guys. It's just like two handsome, muscley guys who are good friends and they you know, they like hanging out.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: But they work it in.

00:33:57
Speaker 3: You know.

00:33:58
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, we get into the details of their love life, you'll see this division, and it apparently just follows like some traditional tropes of peplam. Rushing points out that in mid century peplam movies like this, when the sidekick usually has an impossible love that Hercules either helps him obtain or dissuades him from. And he also stresses that sometimes the sidekick is purely for comic relief, and that his physique may serve to contrast Hercules' muscular perfection.

00:34:30
Speaker 3: Okay, so this movie took that took that sidekick character and broke him into two different parts. So we get the muscly happy sidekick here, but we also are going to get a weak, cowardly comic relief sidekick.

00:34:42
Speaker 1: That's right, and that's where Telemachus comes in, played by Franco Guillocabini who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen. So this is just a straight comic relief character and his guy ultimately a sidekick to both Herk and Theseus and also gives us like a baseline human body in there alongside these other two. So this actor often played comedic roles for Italian TV and film had but he had a long career on stage, apparently in both comedic and dramatic roles. This was his second time working in a film with Christopher Lee, though I don't think they have any scenes together in this, but he had been in the nineteen fifty nine movie Uncle Was a Vampire, and he also pops up in Bava's Eric the Conqueror. He'd work in a Lee film again for nineteen sixty two Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace that was an international co production directed by Terrence Fisher. Oh and the actor here also was in nineteen sixty seven's Ok Connery aka Operation Kid Brother. That was the Bond knockoff film starring Neil Connery.

00:35:49
Speaker 3: Subject of a mystery science theater episode.

00:35:51
Speaker 1: Believe okay, we have to mention the ladies the love interests here as well. There's the Princess Bianira played by Lee and Aa Rufo. She lived nineteen thirty six through two thousand and seven. Again hurts love interest, but she has some issues with her blood and or her mortality. Rufo was an Italian leading lady of the fifties and sixties. Her films include nineteen sixty one's Goliath and the Vampires and the stylish sci fi film Star Pilot from nineteen sixty six. I was actually looking at this one just a few weeks ago when I was eyeing some various like euro sci fi films. This one is supposed to be rather stylish and sort of like a post two thousand and one, since.

00:36:36
Speaker 3: You know, a scene where I think Rufo really stands out in the movie is early on when when Hercules first comes to meet her after being away on an adventure, and there, of course they're you know, they're in love and there betrothed to be married. I guess he's been away for a while and he returns and finds that she has fallen ill. There's some kind of madness or illness that has that has overtaken her, and Hercules goes to meet her out in the garden of the palace, and she's wandering around like she's sleepwalking or in a dream, but with her eyes open, and she's kind of muttering these slowly muttering these lines that are expressing her thoughts. But it's like she's speaking from within, within a dream. And so you know, Hercules goes up to her and says, oh, you know, now we're reunited, but she doesn't believe it's really him. She says something like, I see my love, but it is only an illusion. He is dead deep within the sea, never to see my love again, Never to see my love again. And the way she mutters the lines is so spooky. I think it's a fantastic scene.

00:37:40
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, and it's a testament to this film because otherwise, I mean, she is a princess in danger that must be rescued by Hercules, and that that's that's pretty much her role in the picture. But she does get to have these moments where she stands out. So that's hurts love interest. But then Theseus's love interest is this mysterious character that he meets, and where he meets there should be a red flag.

00:38:05
Speaker 3: I just want to flag he has more than one loving.

00:38:07
Speaker 1: Well, yes, yes he does. It just depends on what day it is. But to no one's surprised, he develops a new love interest during their journey through Hell, right.

00:38:18
Speaker 3: So he's got a girlfriend back home, which is the witch Jacosta, who she seems really cool. But he's like, no, I'm going on vacation. We're you know, we're going to Hell and I'm gonna I'll probably meet some women there, so you know, we'll see if we're still together when I'm back. And the woman he meets in Hell, yes, is how do you say your name miositodi or something?

00:38:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of these names. Really. I watched it in the Italian with the with the English subtitles, and so some of the names kind of flew past me. But she is a seems to be a denizen of the underworld, but seems like a nice gal. Played by Ida Golli born nineteen thirty nine, Italian actress. Her other credits include six Threes, The Whip in the Body, sixty four's Wore the Zombies, sixty six is Django Shoots First, seventy five, Footsteps on the Moon, and Luccio Fulci's nineteen seventy seven thriller The Psychic.

00:39:11
Speaker 3: I would characterize her performance as quite muted. She doesn't display like her Her character is written as one that has like a great longing but she plays it in a way that's very restrained.

00:39:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially some of the revelations that we end up having about the true nature of her character. It seems like there were more opportunities here. Maybe those opportunities weren't in the script, you know, but so it shouldn't you know, shouldn't really blame her for it, but character wise, I feel like there could have been more here as well, all right, And then a quick note about the music. The score is by Armando Traviajoli, who lived nineteen seventeen through twenty thirteen. This is kind of what you'd expect from a Hercules movie of this period. It's epic, it's sweeping to Treviadoli was an Italian composer and sometimes actor. His scores include seventy seven's A Special Day, seventy two's The Italian Connection, and he also scored Uncle was a Vampire.

00:40:10
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I'm understanding Uncle was a vampire. Is that like Papa was a rolling Stone?

00:40:15
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I'm not sure. All I know is that I think it's like a comedy they got Christopher Lee somehow involves a vampire. I don't know. I didn't look into it too closely.

00:40:25
Speaker 3: Well, for the moment we're on the music, I'm gonna say I thought it was actually pretty good, especially in some of the darker, moodier scenes, like well, like the garden scene that I was just talking about with Leonora Rufo, you know, giving that kind of that dreamy, cursed muttering performance there. There is a spooky, haunting music that flows through that scene that I think is quite good.

00:40:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I may not be given enough credit. It kind of comes back to the fact that I guess if a score is doing what it's supposed to, sometimes it is invisible, and if you're in an engage in a film like this, it's so you know, hyperly visual. You know, sometimes you can you can forget that it's there at all. So yeah, yeah, it does nothing wrong. It does a does a does a good job. It's just not maybe not something I would seek out in isolation. All right, Well, let's go ahead and get into the plot of Hercules in the Haunted World.

00:41:27
Speaker 3: All right. Well, I understand there are different cuts of the movie and that affects which opening you get, But the version I saw, I believe is the Italian cut. So I'm going to start there, So we opened on a mound of earth surrounded by blue green fog and dead gray trees, and on the mound there is a circle of large stone figures that look only kind of vaguely human shaped, kind of like big wizards with beards, But we get to see them again later, and I'm not sure that's what they are. They might just be sort of like, you know, bubbly rippling stones. There is a stone slab bench at the center of the green on top of this mound, and we get lightning flashing without sound and instead there's just this eerie dissonant cord and reverby drum beats and the camera pans and we see a woman lying down in the dirt on the edge of the mound, wearing a sort of ancient Greek dress, and she has blood on the side of her neck and she's sort of writhing in the dirt as if she's in pain. Then we pan up to see standing over her, christpher Lee, dressed like the way I was thinking of this. He's dressed like kind of like a Mennonite Darth Vader, like it's Vader but no helmet and no electronic parts and so and the prince valiant haircut, and he's got the dark cloak and the studded black leather belt. This is not chrispher Lee's best look ever. I think it is certainly not his best haircut. But he begins to address a mass of figures. It's almost like he's talking to a crowd of a symbol. The zombie that are on this hillside above, who are mostly hidden in shadow, and the bits of their bodies that are illuminated are in like dark blue and green light. They're covered in these cloaks. Some of them look like they might be kind of like old long Beard type figures. And Chris really says in Italian with the subtitles, the time shall come when days shall turn to night, and night shall rule our lives. Their cries shall sound like music. The wailing and screaming we hear now shall be songs that soothe us. The time shall come when the moon devoured by the great dragon, shall bring eternal darkness. Eye shall be the master of darkness and light. When the sun ravages the earth and the rivers run dry, and every mortal soul freezes in death, then shall evil triumph the absolute master that shall dominate the Earth.

00:43:50
Speaker 1: All right, So we get a taste of it here and we learn a little bit more later on. But basically, Christopher Lee's character serves dark, nameless gods that may even exist outside the Greco Roman pantheon, I'm not sure. Yeah, And he has powers over the undead and or alliances with the undead.

00:44:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost as if the setting is Greek mythology. Otherwise, but Christopher Lee is a devotee of Satan.

00:44:19
Speaker 1: Really, like he walked out. This character walked out of a Gothic horror filmy and into a Hercules movie.

00:44:27
Speaker 3: Out He's from Hammer horror and he stepped into the peplum. Yeah. And so we see black smoke pouring across a blue sky, and then there are these stone boxes that have these lids on them. We'll see them several times in the movie. And like the lids lift up and they have these slime soaked cobwebs that stretch like bubble gum between the lid and the boxes. It's a very gross looking, cool physical effect. And these clawed, bony hands like reaching out and touching the spider silk that holds the box lids to the boxes. And then we get the credits and come back on the action over like a rushing river and a waterfall, and here's Hercules standing over the waterfall cleaning his body. But the strigil, just a brief historical note. The strigil is a real historical artifact. It looks kind of like a hooked metal shoehorn. It was used for hygiene in the ancient world. So if you go into a Roman bath, you might rub oil on your skin and then you would scrape the oil along with any accompanying dirt off of your skin with a stridgel. It's kind of like a squeegee for the body.

00:45:35
Speaker 1: I should also note I forget the name of these waterfalls, but this is this is like a noted filming location in Italian cinema, and I think even today a lot of people get their like wedding photos taken here.

00:45:48
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny, wedding photos at the Herk fall. So Hercules is when we first see him. He's like shown from below with the camera tilting up toward him, and it's like climbing up the stream of the waterfall, and this does give him a very epic postured, a good way to first meet him. He is, of course shirtless and his muscles are gigantic, and he calls out to his friend Theseus, and we cut to the loft of some kind of open sided barn structure. It's like this open wooden loft covered in hay where Theseus is making out with a gorgeous witch named Jocosta, and she is really into Theseus. She says, every time I kiss you, I feel the earth trembling, the sky changes its color, taking on the color of your kisses. So I think she likes him. And then meanwhile, just over the hill there is a gang of nasty bandits and they are organizing an attack on Theseus and Hercules. But they don't know that the people they're supposed to attack are Theseus and Hercules. They explain that a king has offered them a lot of gold to kill two men, whoever they are. Their names are not important, So they go and they say they're going to attack them one at a time. They attack Theseus and Theseus begins to fight them off, and it's a very breezy, lighthearted, swashbuckling fighting styles kind of robin Hood, you know, swinging from the rafters to kick them out of the barn and Jocosta helps by tossing theseus a log to use as a club. But then finally to end the fight, Hercules arrives on the scene and he lifts an entire wagon over his head and throws it into the barn, making the barn collapse. The effect looks very good. I watched this a couple of times and I'm still not quite sure how they accomplished it.

00:47:31
Speaker 1: There are a lot of effects like this in this movie where I'm not sure how they pulled it off, but it looks really good as a you know, tremendous job to hear by Bava and his crew. Everything that throws looks believable to my eyes.

00:47:47
Speaker 3: Yeah. After this, of course, the bandits realized that their targets are Theseus and Hercules. If they had known that, they never would have taken the job, so they run away in fear. I did notice some funny continuity errors here, like, for example, a Jocasta to escape the fighting, she jumps into a river, and then as soon as the bad guys run away, she comes out of the water, and then in the next shot she's bone dry, like completely, her hair and her clothes are totally dry.

00:48:14
Speaker 1: She's a witch.

00:48:16
Speaker 3: Oh, I guess it's magic. Yeah. So Theseus and Jocosta speculate that the attackers were probably hired by a wannabe suitor of Hercules' beloved dan Era, who's jealous of their upcoming marriage. And speaking of Hercules, who's just come off some other adventure, he's ready to go to the palace and reunite with dan Era, his beloved, And so then we get a view of the city, and oh, man, what an establishing shot. So when we first see the city they're going to, I think it's called Acalea, it is a very moody and foreboding vision. It's Greek architecture with columns and marble buildings nestled into the contours of these rocky hills, but instead of the sunny Mediterranean web that you would usually see in in like an ancient Greek movie, the buildings are surrounded by dark, swirling clouds, and the light from the sky is this mix of colors. It's blood red from the west, royal blue from the east, and they're mixing so that the light over the palace is pink and purple. Uh. And it's it's beautiful and unsettling, and I love the way that the just the use of color like this bold, sort of unashamed use of color just fills the movie with emotions.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and it's a it's a great sign of things to come. While the previous action scene was very much set, you know, outside in the real world, we are going to progressively be dealing with surreal landscapes and interiors and more to the point, from the filmmaking standpoint, sets that Baba has one control over.

00:49:53
Speaker 3: That's right. So inside the palace we once again meet Christopher Lee. Now he is seated on a kingly throne on a raised red pedestal, surrounded by hop lights with spears and shields, and down below the king, groveling on his knees, is the leader of the bandits who we saw attacking our heroes earlier, and Christopher Lee is chewing him out real good. He failed in his mission. He's no good and the guy tries to explain, but the king orders him to be quiet, and then he leads the bandit chief back into another chamber and locks the door behind them. And then the king is like, even though he was just chewing him out for failing, he's like, you deserve a reward. Look over there, that suspicious pile of gold, treasures and trinkets surrounded by green light. Go and get your wages from that stash while I stand back over here. And so the guy's like, oh goodie, I'm gonna get some gold. And so he goes up to the pile, and then Christopher Lee presses a button that triggers a spear trap that gets the guy, and the bandit chief just kind of spits out blood and slumps over. He doesn't really scream or anything.

00:50:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good trap. It kills instantly, there's no time for the scream.

00:50:59
Speaker 3: Then we follow King Leco as he goes down a secret passage into an underground cavern which seems full of evil occult magic, and he stands in front of a bunch of those stone boxes we saw earlier, and he says dan Era, that's, of course, the name of the woman who's going to marry Hercules. And slowly one of the stone boxes opens and a blonde woman in a white gown rises out of it like Dracula, Like her body is rigid, it straight as a plank, and it sort of levers up from this otherworldly slumber. And then she approaches King Leko like she's sleepwalking, but her eyes are open. She's in some kind of trance. In the next scene, Hercules comes into the city and he's greeted by adoring fans. He's like the beatles of ancient Greece. Everybody's swarming around him, screaming, happy to see him. And he meets this old guy. I think the guy's name is Caros. I think he's some friend of his, and Karros explains the situation. He says, dan Era, the princess, should have become queen and ascended to the throne, but she hasn't because there's something wrong with her. No one can see her, and she's confined to a secluded wing of the palace, and so Hercules has to go figure out what's going on. He goes into the palace and meets with King Leko, who is Danira's uncle, who has been raining while she is not capable. And it's a very awesome looking throne room scene. By the way, it's sort of like open to this blue, pink purple sky, has these red columns and flaming braziers everywhere, and it's like a long, deep room. Very cool.

00:52:29
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, so many of the stills from this movie, like other bob Of stills, Like it looks like you could lick them and get the various candy flavors out of it.

00:52:39
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, So Leko explains the situation and says, you know, she's there's something wrong with her, she's been ill, and I've been protecting her. I've been keeping her away from public view until she is healed. So Hercules goes to the garden to see her, and this is the creepy scene I was talking about earlier, where she's standing there staring at a fountain and looking like she's in a trance, muttering about how she will never see the man she loves again, and Hercules is standing right there, but she's talking in a dreamy voice that saying she must be imagining him he no longer exists, and she says, my love is dead in the deep sea, and never again, while I see my love, Never to see my love again and again. The spaced out performance is really great here, very spooky, and it's sort of shot from a distance as she wanders away repeating these melancholy lines.

00:53:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty great and I have to say. The previous scene is one of multiple scenes in the film where Hercules interacts with Leco and is like and afterwards it's like, yep, that checks out, you know, obvious villain. Christopher Lee. Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. I'm glad you're on it, sir. I'm gonna go onto my next mission.

00:53:49
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee in the Prince Valiant haircut, within the dark Cloak, surrounded by the soldiers. He's the stand up guy. I believe everything he just said. So Hercules me. It's again with his friend of Karros, who says something is wrong in the land. It's not just Danira. Evil mists have come down from the mountains and poisoned the air. People hide in their homes and feel that a terror is upon them. And Danira's madness is not ordinary. There is some wicked force behind it, and it's the same force that is oppressing Achala, and he more or less hays like your mission, Hercules, should you choose to accept it as to save Danira and Achalea from this evil force?

00:54:28
Speaker 1: And of course he's gonna accept He's that's the kind of stand up guy Hercules is, of course.

00:54:32
Speaker 3: Oh and then this feels kind of, uh, I don't know, kind of superfluous. But then Hercules goes back to this same guy's room later that night and oh, there he is. He's been murdered. Who did this?

00:54:42
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he was gonna get more details, right, He's like, I can't talk to you too much here, but come back to my place where it's safe. He shows up and of course dude is.

00:54:51
Speaker 3: Dead, right, and Chrisopher Lee is there, but.

00:54:54
Speaker 1: He like walk He's like in the hallway behind.

00:54:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's lurking. And then Hercules is like, oh good, yes, yeah, so he comes in and starts explaining things to Hercules. He's like, you know, long ago, before dan ears father took the throne, the forces of evil reigned in this land. But dan Eur's father or maybe her grandfather, I don't remember, which banished those evil spirits to Hades, the land of the dead, and now they have put the spirits have put a curse over the land. The curse will only be lifted once the royal line is destroyed. And Hercules is like, there must be some way to fight them, and Leko is like, are there ways of fighting against shadows, against wind, against bolts of lightning can one fight the raging storms that batter the earth. And Hercules says, I know what to do. I'm gonna ask the gods for a weapon to fight the evil. Thanks, Leco, you've been a big help. So he's gonna go consult the sibyl, the who you know, the oracle who can send who can get messages from the gods to him. Now, this is another wonderful set and composition. Here, the Sybil I think the character is named Medea, is sitting at the end of a clear, still reflecting pool, surrounded by fires and braziers, with a kaleidoscope of colored lights falling over her. She's got green, red, and blue lights on her. She's in this spider like posture that's very creepy, and she's wearing a white mask over her face with a frowning mouth and closed eyes. And the Sybil tells him that the forces of evil have bound her to silence and she cannot speak of this subject. But Hercules is like, you gotta help me, and so he ends up praying to Zeus. Remember Zeus is Hercules' father. He's like, Dad, help me, and so he says he will offer up his immortality in exchange for help with this quest my life for Dan Eirez. Let the Sybil speak, and it seems like this works. The Sybil asks if he is willing to go into the underworld, and you can almost kind of hear Hercules gulp here. He says, no man has ever gone there and come back. But she says, a stone is shining in the depths of the earth, far beyond the garden of the Hesperides, A stone hidden in the river sticks only there where death dwells can be found. Life for your woman, And then lightning flashes and she says, thus has Zeus spoken through me, So it seems like we have our quest.

00:57:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to go to the underworld, get a special stone and bring it back out again.

00:57:23
Speaker 3: Not the most earthshakingly new type of story. He's got to go get a magical item from the underworld. We may have heard one like this before, but you know what, it's a classic for a reason is a classic. Yeah, So now it's time for Hercules to gather allies. Of course, he's going to take his hunky best friend theseus along, maybe in case they need to win any beauty contests along the way. But he also ends up taking a weird, cowardly little guy named Telemachus for comic relief purpose. If Hercules is El Santo, Telemachus is his perry co.

00:58:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Telemachus is legitimately funny throughout most of the picture, Like, I am glad he came along on this adventure. He's It's an over the top performance, but not not too over the top. I don't know if it felt like the right balance for me.

00:58:19
Speaker 3: I can easily imagine a similar Italian movie like this going way overboard with the silliness of this character.

00:58:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, the actor here, I think, has he reminded me a little bit of Rowan Atkinson.

00:58:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's mister Bean.

00:58:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a little bit of mister Bean to the performance.

00:58:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some slight bullying by Herk, but it's kind of good natured and he like. At one point, Telemachus is like, I'm guarding the bridge. I can't let you go see theseus because he and he and Jocosta are making out, and Hercules is like, I'm his friend, and Telemachus won't move, so Hercules kind of lifts him up by his hair to get him out of the way. But it's it seems to be good natured like he he also protects tell Maccus later.

00:59:01
Speaker 1: And I guess Telemachus helps out like he basically comes around a lot because he wants to come along and you know, more importantly to be comic relief for the film.

00:59:10
Speaker 3: So yeah, Theseus is busy kissing Jocosta when herk shows up, and Herk is like, hey, get your weapons, it's time for an adventure, and Theseus is like, oh great, I was getting bored, and Jocosta only looks a little bit offended, and so you know they're they're gonna they decide they need to get a ship because they're gonna have to travel across the sea. They have to get a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, which is the only way they can get to the underworld alive. And the Garden of the Hesperites is at the edge of the Kingdom of Eternal Night, where the sun never rises. And then Theseus is like, oh, the Hesperites they're all women, aren't they. I should not have any trouble getting them to give us what we need. And then we cut to Jocosta looking skeptical, but Telemachus tells Herk and theseus that, oh, I know, so this guy Sonnis who can let us borrow a ship, I'll convince him to let us borrow his ship, And then cut immediately to that not working out so well is like a he's like a big guy in red with an axe, and he's like, got Telemachus tied up to these teams of horses.

01:00:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, about to pull him in half. It's legitimately hilarious cut here because he's like, I got it taken care of. Oh I'm about to be pulled in half.

01:00:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like the horses, I don't. He explains like, I'll let you borrow my ship if you survived the test of my horses.

01:00:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:00:35
Speaker 3: But then his muscly friends come to the rescue. Hercules comes in and like grabs hold of the ropes that are holding the horses, and so like he just with his muscles holds them together until they can free Telemachus. Meanwhile, theseus goes and fights Soonis on the beach. Our heroes prevail and they they take the ship, while Soonis runs off after his horses. So our three adventurers journey across the ocean to the domain of the Hesperides, and the lighting on this sea voyage is once again insane. There's like swirling mist in the sky, black clouds, a red sky. The heroes somehow all become magically sedated, and they fall irresistibly into sleep while they're traveling over the ocean, and this dark cloud comes up over them, and the ocean opens up and reveals a deep passage and realms below. And when they wake up, they are somehow transported off their ship into a cave where mist sits over the floor, and these shadowy women are watching them while they sleep. So they wake up and they're greeted by an agent of the Hesperites who says that they're Queen Arethusa wants to meet with them. I like the Hysparites costumes. They're like just sashes upon sashes, like you made if you made a whole dress out of like fifty silk scarves.

01:01:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. This, by the way, is Marisa Belly, who lived nineteen thirty three through twenty seventeen.

01:01:57
Speaker 3: Queen Arthusa. Yes, yeah, and so Hercules greets her courteously. He's he's a gentleman and a gracious guest. But Queen Arthusa already knows of him and knows why he has come. She says she's willing to help, but she issues a warning. He can attempt to claim the apple, but it's all or nothing. If he goes after the fruit and fails, he will die. And of course, you know, her accepts he's not afraid, so she tells him where to find it. It's in a sacred tree, far from the eyes of any greedy soul. So we go there, and our heroes are sort of separated here that the Hesperites tell Telemachus and theseus that like, oh, here are some beds for you to sleep on while Hercules is getting the apple. You just stay here on these beds, and they're like okay. And then Hercules goes to this tangled, tangled tree with these big exposed roots, this bathed in blue light. The set is very eerie, and the music matches with these low wobbling woodwinds. And the queen goes with him to the base of the tree and you know, tells him good luck, and Hercules climbs and but he encounters trouble. They're like tangled branches, thorns, and then when he gets very high, there's lightning and thunder and wind whipping at him, and at one point he falls, but he catches hold of a lower branch. There's like fire pouring out of the upper branches at him, Like, I guess maybe they were struck by lightning.

01:03:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So it's quickly becoming obvious that this tree is just inaccessible to climbing.

01:03:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, he can't get up to the apple by climbing it, but he's going to think outside the box. So he comes back down to the base of the tree and he gets a boulder. He puts it in a sling made out of the ropes that are tying some horses, and he like throws the boulder at the tree and a branch falls and it has the apple on it. He claims the apple clutches. The apple great solution. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Theseus and Telemachus are sleeping in their designated cave on the on the iron beds that the Hesperides led them to, and uh oh, a monster that looks like it's made out of iron rail spikes and filthy rags comes out. And then Theseus wakes up and tries to hit it with a sword, but it's clear that that's not doing anything. This monster is hard as a rock, or maybe even made of rocks. I think maybe made of rocks.

01:04:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like it's kind of like a stone golumn or something.

01:04:14
Speaker 3: I love this monster design. He looks like he's having a bad day, like his mouth is hanging open in anguish.

01:04:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, who's sleeping on my slabs?

01:04:24
Speaker 3: So we cut away from that to Herk and Arthusa, now in a happy, sunny garden instead of a gloomy, cursed one, and Arthusa explains that the Hesperites were cursed by Pluto to live in darkness, but they were originally daughters of the Sun, and now that they've been freed from the curse by Herk's retrieval of the apple, they can return to the sun. And she also reveals that all this time, while they've been cursed by Pluto, they have been forced to kill. You see, they have been slaves of Procrustes. Procrustes was a figure who was like, I think, a bandit in Greek mythology. Who's the story is that he had these like iron beds, and he if you weren't the same size as the iron bed that he puts you on, he would either crush you or stretch you to make you fit on the iron bed.

01:05:12
Speaker 1: Oh well, that that explains the scene that's about to happen here.

01:05:15
Speaker 3: Yes, so Arethusa apologizes to her. She's like, I'm sorry your friends, Theseus and Telemachus, they had to be the last sacrifices we were giving to Procrestes. But she says, if you destroy Procrustes, the gates of the underworld will open for you. And herk of course, rushes to protect his friends. We see the monster like explaining to theseus that he needs to stretch him out until he's the exact size of his iron bed. He says, you will be as thin as the ropes that bind you. Then I will tie you in a knot that no one can untie. But then Hercules runs in and he's I think. He says, of stone. You are made only by stone? Can you be unmade? And he lifts him up and throws him into the wall, and like every like all these rocks just crumble, so like for crusties breaks apart into pieces, and the wall crumbles and it reveals the gate to the underworld. Very funny, by.

01:06:12
Speaker 1: The way, yeah, but also really like really cool, Like it is like the gates of the underworld are opening, and in descended from Hercules, the author points out that, like there's a lot of like rock imagery with Hercules in these films. Like Hercules is of course always throwing rocks, He's always being strapped to rocks. He's battling creatures made of rocks, and like his physiology is very rock like as well.

01:06:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think they leave Telemachus behind. But Hercules and theseus they go on through the underworld. They encounter some illusions as they go. There's like a vision of a beautiful woman chain to a rock, and she's not real. It's like an illusion to trick them. And there's a vision of like a valley of flames and that's not real, it's actually just And then there are all these vines that they have to cut their way through, and when they cut the vines, they hear these screams and the vines bleed blood, so they're like human vines.

01:07:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

01:07:11
Speaker 3: But eventually they come across a shining stone in the distance, and Herk says that is the stone that could save dayan Ear his life. It seems you could just reach out and take it. But the boiling lava makes it difficult. So they've got to get over the lava somehow. How are they going to do that? Well, they come up with an idea. We're gonna throw a rock yep Hercules. He ties some of the vines, the screaming vines by the way, which are like screaming as he cuts more of them to the rock, and then he throws the rock and this creates like a I don't know what you call this. I was one to say zipline, but they're not ziplining, like like a rope across the chasm over the lava that they can climb to cross it.

01:07:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're gonna have to sort of like monkey across it, I guess, you know.

01:07:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's a long climbing over the lava scene and then oh theseus falls and he sinks into the lava, our beloved hunk. You think he's dead for a moment.

01:08:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, my jaw dropped. I was like, oh my goodness, we lost him, you know.

01:08:06
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it.

01:08:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it becomes then I'm like, he's probably coming back. Right, this is a place full of illusion.

01:08:13
Speaker 3: Right, this is not the end for theseus. He suddenly appears elsewhere, unconscious in a cave with a woman we have previously not met, caressing his face, and she introduces herself as one of the shadows of the underworld. There's some ambiguity like are she and Theseus dead or alive? But anyway, within about five lines of dialogue, Theseus is legit like you're the love of my life. I will never leave you.

01:08:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's uncertain, at least at first, whether this is magic or this is like literally every relationship he has with a woman, like one minute in head over heels in love.

01:08:50
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Herk is getting the magic stone. He sort of has to like bash it out of an incrustation, and then he's just wandering back to the ship with the magic stone that he got. He runs into Telemachus and he's like, Theseus is dead. The lava of Hades swallowed him. And then Theseus jumps out from behind a rock and he's he says, actually I'm fine, and Herk's like, oh cool.

01:09:11
Speaker 1: I thought this was going to be an illusion at first, because I thought Telemachus was back on the ship and wasn't coming in, and I wasn't sure what was going on with theseus and I was like, oh goodness, he's about to be led astray and have to kill another monster. But no, they were just legitimately like it's time to go, hrk, let's go, and they do.

01:09:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little bit lucy goosey plotting at this part, but so they all go back to the ship and they're sailing home and Theseus has brought along a stowaway. It's his dream woman from Hell. She is riding in the cargo hold of the ship. Even though they talk about how she knows that Hercules would have said, no, you can't take someone from Hades with you back with you, but Theseus hides it from Hercules. So a storm comes up and Theseus goes down to talk to this woman Hades, and she says Pluto is angry and he's trying to stop them from leaving the underworld, and she begs Theseus to throw the golden Apple into the sea, so he does, and when Hercules sees this, he is furious that that was their ticket out of Hades. But suddenly the sky clears, sun comes out. Seems like it worked, but something isn't quite right. So they get to shore and Herky is returning to Akalea on horseback, and he's passing smoldering fields of smoke and bleached cattle bones and people are trudging around hopelessly, and one man explains to him that someone must have offended the gods because things have been bad here Heavenly fire and disease descended and the people have been ruined. So Hercules arrives back at the city and people here are blaming him for the calamity. It must be his fault because he went to the underworld and he returned. And meanwhile, at the palace, we get a scene alone with Theseus and his dream woman from Hell and she reveals her true identity. She is a may Zotide, the daughter of Pluto. So woo, this is a this is a goddess and she wasn't supposed to leave Hades.

01:11:07
Speaker 1: Oops yep.

01:11:10
Speaker 3: She says, you and your people are gonna be punished for bringing me here. Our love is doomed, but Theseus won't accept it. He says he'll do anything to protect their love, even if he has to kill Hercules, and then the kiss. Uh. Meanwhile, back to like dian Era for the first time, she awakes and she has sort of a conscious reunion with Hercules. She's back to herself, now healed by the power of the magic stone from Hades. But the curse on the land continues and Hercules and Danira's love is blamed, so Hercules has to go back to the Sibyl to learn how to stop it. Meanwhile, he's like, Uncle Leco, you know you're you would be great to keep watch over dan Era and make sure she's safe while I do this.

01:11:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolute faith in Uncle Leco here.

01:11:54
Speaker 3: Yes. Perfect. So Herk goes to the Sibil once again, and she reveals they have angered the gods and Theseus has to renounce his love, and Herk balks. He's like, uh, oh, no, you're never going to get a man to renounce his love for a woman. But the Sybil says, when you learn who she truly is, you will bid him renounce her. Meanwhile, back at the palace, Leco's doing Leco stuff. He like he reveals that he was the one behind Danira's illness, and he murders her lady in waiting and she like runs away from her from from him, screaming.

01:12:27
Speaker 1: Oh, now, is this the scene where we get the blood pool on the floor and she looks down and we see Uncle Leco's we see Christopher Lee's reflection in the blood puddle.

01:12:38
Speaker 3: Yes, oh beautiful, excellent. Yeah, and now she knows, now, she knows it was him all along. Meanwhile, we got Hercules confronting Theseus. You know. Theseus confesses to Hercules about who his lover is. Yep, she's a goddess. Yeah, Pluto's really mad at us, and we're going to be cursed until she goes back. But I will not give up my love for her. She's staying here with me. And they argue, and Theseus draws his sword. He's like, I will fight you to the death over this, and they fight, but Hercules refuses to kill him. Of course, Hercules is going to win the fight. So Theseus is kind of knocked unconscious, and then the goddess comes to him and she says, Hercules, this was all a bad idea. I'm gonna peace out.

01:13:21
Speaker 1: Wow, isn't it like the gods and goddesses. They're just kind of like waltzing through human affairs, causing absolute chaos, and then they're just like I'm done, I'm out.

01:13:32
Speaker 3: Yes, But she also does do a kindness to Hercules before she leaves, she fills him in. She's like, by the way, that the king Leco, who you think is really great, who's like watching your fiance right now, he's bad. He's the one behind the curse.

01:13:46
Speaker 1: Not Leco, like he's shocked through his course.

01:13:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Herk is like, oh wow, thanks for the info. So this leads to the final showdown. Herk has got to go rescue Danira from Leco. He goes down into Leo's secret passageways. I think Leko's getting ready to do some kind of ritual sacrifice of Danira to usher in a great age of evil and darkness.

01:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, his dark masters told him that he needs to drink her blood, and his blood needs to be in her like some sort of like you know, typical vampire shenanigans need to take place, and then he'll get to live forever and rule over a world of darkness.

01:14:23
Speaker 3: Right. But when Hercules goes down into the catacombs, he gets attacked by zombies. And here's where it really becomes peplam horror for a while. I love these zombies. They're not super we don't really get a close look at their flesh. They're kind of coming in and out and kind of obscured. But I really like their design anyway. I think they look great. It's implied that they're gross. They're covered in these rags, and they're actually pretty scary, and some of them can fly. They're like zombies that without legs, that are just upper bodies that fly through the air.

01:14:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, they look great. We don't get a close enough look at them to really tell, like, his this a grave shroud or is this like some sort of a weird birth call over them? Like everything is like, you know, lit to the nines. It looks amazing. I was. I was totally in on all of these Bava zombies.

01:15:13
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, absolutely. And then there's this one sequence that's so strange. I don't know what to make of this, but it's great. It's like Herk is fighting the zombies inside a stone trash compactor.

01:15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the walls start closing in and he's and and he's moving towards us, towards the camera with the you know, the walls closing zombies in inside that tunnel with him trying to slow him down and cause him to be crushed by the rocks. But of course it's Hercules. He manages to get out, but just just in the nick of time.

01:15:47
Speaker 3: Right just in time to stop Leko from from stabbing dayani Era with this like bone hand dagger. It's like a skeleton's hand as a dagger.

01:15:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's pretty gnarly.

01:16:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. So Herk comes to the rescue, and then this kind of surprised me. It's a physical fight, and Leko is sort of able to hold his own for a while in physically fighting Hercules.

01:16:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, without any obvious nods to him having some sort of enhanced supernatural powers here, it's just more of like a straight up brawl. I mean, the end's not really in question, but.

01:16:22
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, of course Herk wins. Hey, do you want to guess how Hercules defeats the evil Wizard King in the end.

01:16:29
Speaker 1: Oh, let's give everyone out there a second to consider the possibilities.

01:16:47
Speaker 3: It's a good old rock toss, perhaps one of the standing stones, and it's just he's hirk smash. He smashes him with the rock. Oh, it's so good. Oh. And then after that, do you want to guess how he defeats the waves of zombies that continue rushing in the altar he throws another boulder, and then he throws another boulder, and then another boulder.

01:17:04
Speaker 1: He uproots all of the stones one by one at this ancient but probably on holy site. Yeah, and just keeps yeating them into the zombies, one after the other, just smashing them.

01:17:16
Speaker 3: And then the eclipse ends. Oh there's all this talk about like a great dragon devouring the sun or the moon, maybe devouring the moon. I think this is imagery of an eclipse. It ends, and then Leco catches on fire and disappears.

01:17:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, simply like to by modern standards, I guess, a simple effect, but perfectly executed right. Like so many things in this movie, and I think other Bava films, it's like it's just like everything is carried off, carried out seamlessly.

01:17:44
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. And then we get a very happy ending for everybody. So Danira is say she and herk are reunited and happy. I guess they're married at the end, or they're gonna get married, and so they're happy. Hercules also makes up with his friend. He goes to Theseus, and Theseus only vaguely remembers his time with the woman from Hell. He remembers it as if it's a dream and he's finally back together with Jocasta, which is great beause they're a great couple. I feel kind of bad for Jocasta just being left behind all this time, and oh they see they seem great together.

01:18:13
Speaker 1: But she initially shows up with Telemachus and he's like, hey, I'm gonna marry her. And then she's like like, actually, no, now I see theseus. I'm gonna go to him.

01:18:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. So they're back together, and then and then we get some some platitudes about love to play us out.

01:18:27
Speaker 1: That's right. Love is passionate, says Hercules, but often inconsistent.

01:18:32
Speaker 3: Hmm, think on that one. Yeah. Anyway, Hercules and the Haunted World a thumbs up from me six six bowlders up.

01:18:40
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, this one was a lot of fun. I've watched a lot of Hercules movies and Hercules adjacent movies over the years, and I think this one may be the most visually appealing, though. I also really liked the visual flare of the Lufarigno Hercules movie that we watched earlier on Weird House Cinema.

01:18:58
Speaker 3: Mm. Yeah, that one felt less like the product of a single director's artistic vision.

01:19:02
Speaker 1: I would oh, absolutely. I remember it having some very yanky stop motion effects in it, but also some very like spacey lights at times.

01:19:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, but was very fun.

01:19:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one is definitely more like structurally complete. Yeah, all right, Hercules in the Hunted World. Hey, everyone out there, if you've seen this movie, or if you have thoughts about various other Pepplam movies, we've talked about here Hercules movies and their many derivatives right in. We would love to hear what you have to say will remind you that Weird House Cinema. This is the Friday episode in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed are core science and culture episodes acre on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film. If you want to see a long list of the movies that we have done over the years for Weird House Cinema, go to letterbox dot com. It's L E T T E R B O x D dot com. You'll find our username there it's weird House, and on our profile page there's the to check it out see what we've been up to, and sometimes there'll be a hint or more than a hint, I guess just there's the post. Here there's a listing of the movie that we're covering next.

01:20:10
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

01:20:30
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.