So I ended up with 100 crappy movies for around $30. The bad news is I'm out $30, but the good news is I have 100 crappy movies to review at my leisure, so let's get this party started. I'm even taking my own screen grabs this time! These movies ain't gonna make fun of themselves! CRAPSTRAVAGANZA begins here!
If a title like Hercules Against the Moon Men doesn't make you want to watch a movie, I don't know what will. It's an Italian movie from the 60's starring a big burly dude called ALAN STEEL. I use all caps there because you can't type a name like ALAN STEEL with lower case letters. I tried, and my keyboard physically is not capable.
For some reason, I was really jazzed to see this movie. Probably because you're usually in for a good time if you're watching an Italian movie from the 60's or 70's. They pretty much owned the market on Westerns, cheap zombie movies, and, apparently, adventure movies based on Greek mythology. Hercules Against the Moon Men is crazy for a lot of reasons, though, probably because it was made by a bunch of Italians who I guess never read a thing about ancient Greece in their life.
First of all, in case you can't guess by the title, it has Moon Men. Maybe I'm behind on my Greek myths, but I don't remember anything about people from the moon living inside a mountain, taking virgin sacrifices to revive their hibernating queen. Unless I just forgot about that part of The Odyssey, the Italians basically pulled it out of their ass so they had an excuse for Hercules to fight rock monsters. That's fine by me, though, because if "Hercules fighting rock monsters" doesn't sound awesome to you, you have no soul.
Now, I like Hercules, but he hasn't been treated so well in the last decade or two. First poor Hercules, once the standard for all that was big and manly and strong, got turned into a Disney cartoon. Then there was that lame-ass Kevin Sorbo show that just would not go away. I think they even had some Young Hercules shit on too, which turned Hercules into some Gap model with styled hair.
Back in the day, man, Hercules was not a dude to mess with.
That is a picture of ALAN STEEL as Hercules. Notice he does not have long, flowing Fabio hair. He has a manly beard, and manly muscles, and a manly loincloth. This is not your nansy-pansy syndicated cable TV Hercules, this is old school bodybuilder Hercules. He's kicking ass and taking names, and the first name on the list? Moon Men.
Actually, as the movie opens, Hercules doesn't even know about the Moon Men. I guess that's because they're hiding inside a mountain, like a bunch of pussies, because they know Hercules can kick their ass. Anyways, some evil queen is sacrificing her villagers to some "Mountain of Death" (which is where the Moon Men are hiding, by the way). The villagers aren't really too happy about that, but I can't blame them, because if someone came knocking on my door in the middle of the night to drag me up to some mountain and throw me into a weird glowing death hole, I'd be pissed off too.
So finally, after what is apparently years of sacrificing (one wonders how the queen hasn't run out of villagers yet), some underground movement decides they should stand up and fight for their lives. Actually, they decide to call Hercules and have him fight for their lives, because they're all a bunch of cowards.
What is with this movie? We have Moon Men hiding inside a mountain and a bunch of villagers too scared to do their own fighting? Is Hercules the only person in Greece with a spine?
The evil queen is pissed off that Hercules is coming to beat up the Mountain of Death or something, so she dispatches a bunch of soldiers to ambush him on the road. They trip up Hercules' horse, which looks really painful for the horse, as it lands headfirst in the dirt, and then like twenty guys with weapons all jump out and start attacking Hercules. The result?
HERCULES TRIUMPHANT
Hercules stomps their asses in with all the subtlety of a nuclear bomb. The beat down is so severe that the Moon Men are shakin' in their boots, so they show up in the queen's bedroom to tell her she's really gotta do something about this Hercules guy.
The title of the movie is kind of misleading, because as far as I can tell there aren't really any Moon Men so much as there is a single Moon Man. The only other bad guys are the queen's disposable soldiers and some cool as hell rock men, but we'll get to the rock men later.
Honestly, when the Moon Man first appeared, I thought it was that fucking mechanical owl thing from Clash of the Titans, but upon closer inspection the Moon Man was much less freaky. He kind of has this Darth Vader voice going, though, so I guess that's cool. Plus he can appear and disappear whenever he wants, which is probably why he shows up in the queen's bedroom. He probably didn't even go there to tell her anything, he was probably just trying to catch a glimpse of her undressing or going to the bathroom or whatever Moon Men are into. Then she sees him, so he's all like "UH, I HAVE COME HERE BECAUSE YOU MUST DESTROY HERCULES", and leaves really quick because he's got a moon boner and he hopes she doesn't notice.
Anyways... The leader of the villagers' anti-sacrifice movement is some feeble old man who looks like he's seconds away from a stroke. The old man and his daughter, who is hot and in love with Hercules of course, decide to take Hercules through some caves as a short cut for some reason I can't remember.
The old man seems to know exactly where he's going, and doesn't really give any reason to be careful, but then the evil queen starts talking about how "nobody has ever left the catacombs alive" and I start wondering if this old guy is all there in the head. I'm thinking maybe the old dude got the wrong cave, like instead of going inside the short cut cave he took the death trap cave instead.
Then all of a sudden BAM, the old man gets impaled by spikes in what is honestly the most brutal death in the whole movie. It doesn't cut away or anything, these spikes just fly out of the wall and kill him. It's totally awesome because the stupid old guy didn't even see it coming, and really didn't deserve anything that nasty, but now he's dead and the movie is better off for it. I still don't know how he could have gone through those caves so many times and never stumbled across those spikes before, though.
Just as a warning, I'm going to tell you this movie is death trap crazy. Like, really, there's a whole lotta death traps. Hercules is dropped into a pit that starts filling up with water, I guess to drown him. That might work if Hercules can't swim, but really, if he can swim can't he just tread water or float until the water gets high enough for him to climb out of the top? Well Hercules isn't waiting that long, and he punches a hole straight through the pit instead. On the other side is a big furry monster with big sharp teeth, which would scare the shit out of most people, but Hercules just starts punching it in the face until it dies.
Like, I'm all jazzed because here's a fuckin' monster for Hercules to fight with, right? It's all hairy and ugly and it's got sharp fangs and it's growling, and you'd think this would be some long-ass battle to the death. Well, our hero just punched a hole through solid rock with his fists, so a monster's face isn't going to do too well against strength like that. The monster gets the element of surprise on his side, but guess what, monster, Hercules has the element of punching you to death in the face on his side, and guess which one ends up winning?
With the monster disposed of, we get to the final death trap in our Death Trap Trifecta. What can top a water pit and a monster?
Steel bars? Are you shitting me? How are steel bars going to stop fucking Hercules? The guy practically grew up bending steel bars. Hercules probably ties steel bars into animal shapes like clowns do with balloons. And if he's any kind of hero, he probably ties clowns into animal shapes too, because there's no way a manly guy like Hercules likes clowns.
So anyways there's some stupid shit with the queen's sister, who's getting married to some douchebag that Hercules has to save by beating up ten more guys, and then the queen gives her sister to the Moon Men because the sister looks just like their comatose Moon Queen, and they need the queen's sister's blood, plus all the blood from the people that were sacrificed to revive her and conquer the world.
Got all that? Well, it doesn't matter, because all this movie is good for is watching Hercules beat people up. And don't think the people who made it, smart Italians that they are, aren't aware of that. There's all sorts of Hercules beat-down action going on. He's picking guys up and throwing them at other guys, he's punching five guys at the same time, and he's not even breaking a sweat. His body might be glistening, but he's just well oiled.
Eventually Hercules lets the evil queen capture him, because he thinks that's the only way to figure out her plan. I didn't really know there was that much to figure out - she's feeding people to a mountain. Not really a mystery. But whatever, Hercules is a fighter, not a thinker. The queen, now that she has Hercules at her mercy, decides she's gonna get one of these death traps to work if it's the last thing she does, and tries to crush Hercules in... more spikes. She probably spends a lot of money building these death traps, which is why she's so determined to use them.
This one turns in to a real test of strength for Hercules, and it takes him like ten minutes to get out. And the movie shows you the whole ten minutes. It's basically that picture above, but with lots of grunting and awkwardly framed close-ups of ALAN STEEL'S well oiled arms and chest. Or maybe it is sweat this time, I don't know. The end result is the same as always, and once again Hercules defeats the stupid queen's death trap. This time, though, she gets to witness it herself, and I guess she gets pretty turned on by the whole thing, because the next thing you know she's inviting Hercules to her bedroom and striking seductive poses.
Hercules is all into it too, and tricks the queen into thinking he's on her side. On the surface, this is because he still wants to figure out her plan, but really it's because he just wants to have sex with her. And he does. Because he's Hercules, and no woman can resist him. Even if they tried.
Eventually, Hercules figures out the whole deal. Good job, Hercules! It only took you the majority of the movie's running time to work out what the audience has known since the first five minutes! As soon as the queen tells him the whole "sister's blood for the Moon Queen" plot, Hercules laughs in her face and starts punching her soldiers. This part is awesome, because at one point like five guys all rush Hercules at the same time, and he just pushes them all down, like they were a bunch of uppity kindergartners.
The Moon Man is pissed off at the queen now, because Hercules is coming to get him. Also, I'm sure there's some jealousy involved too, because Hercules succeeded where the Moon Man failed - he banged her royal highness right in her own bed. How you like them apples, Moon Man? He doesn't like them apples at all, and in his rage he unleashes the dreaded and awesome fucking ROCK MEN!
Okay, so maybe they don't look very threatening, but man, these guys are really... Well, I guess they're not really fast, because they just kind of blindly stumble around... and they're not all that strong, because they can't kill Hercules... but they look awesome.
What do rock men do to a woman that has betrayed their Moon Man master? Rip her limb from limb? Pummel her into paste? Uh, no, not really any of those things. They just kind of walk towards her very slowly while she runs in circles screaming. I don't know, maybe I'd go insane from fear at the sight of a group of rock men stumbling at me like a bunch of granite drunks, but it seems like the queen has plenty of chances to escape while the rock men slowly and awkwardly descend upon her.
Eventually, though, they all group together and crush the queen to death between their bodies. She gets jostled and bumped around like a human pinball while the rock men rub up against her and squish against her body. It kind of resembles some kind of fucked up gang bang, actually.
Eventually, mercifully, Hercules makes it to the Mountain of Doom, where there is nary a death trap to be found (huzzah!). Now Hercules has to defeat the rock men, which is going to be a lot more difficult than bending some bars or killing a monster. Hercules usually employs two strategies when taking on his foes - punching and throwing. He tries punching the rock men, but doesn't really get anywhere, so that leaves plan B.
He picks up rock men and starts throwing them at other rock men. Now that's ingenuity.
So that just leaves the Moon Man between Hercules and saving the world. You might think this all leads to a dramatic one-on-one showdown between Hercules and the Moon Man, but you'd be wrong again. The Moon Man is standing on this really high staircase, and as Hercules runs at him he yells "STOP!" and then Hercules pushes the Moon Man out of the way. That's it. That's Hercules Against the Moon Men. The whole movie builds up to Hercules pushing some bobble-headed alien down a flight of stairs.
Somehow, though, it's totally worth it.
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