Hercules in the Haunted World (1961)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Blistering performances.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The success of Ben Hur led to a whole cycle of Italo knock-offs over the next few years. Reg Park has now taken over from Steve Reeves, but he comes from the same acting school. Wooden. Christopher Lee provided the villainy and most of the acting chops, and handled the expository dialogue for the audience' benefit, as Reg mostly stood around looking impressively pumped up. To be fair, he certainly looked Herculean, and despite his acting inexperience, Reg handled the sword action scenes with a certain panache, while projecting a certain heroic grit. Then first time director Mario Bava pulled out the stops to give the thing as lurid a look as possible - out-Hammering Hammer House in this regard, no small feat. Some of the dark fantasy imagery takes on a nightmarish quality and proves quite effective, setting Bava clearly on his long career path. However, once again, most of the entertainment value of the item comes from its cheese factor. The interiors look cheap and stagebound, and some of the 'epic' battles appeared to have no more than about six people in the scene. The wooden dialogue had a rubbery English-dubbed-into-English look as most supporting actors did their lines in Italian and these were over-dubbed into English, while Par k and Lee worked in English but without synched sound. The result is a D- list action fantasy with some decent stuntwork amidst the sweating and flexing.

The mythological character of Hercules was among the most popular heroes of the peplum (sword-and-sandal) genre within Italian cinema; in fact, its heyday was largely heralded by the unprecedented success of HERCULES (1957), with Steve Reeves – on which the director of this one had actually served as cinematographer! Having watched (and suffered through) quite a few of these low-brow entries over the years, it transpires that only a handful were truly worthy of attention; the film under review being certainly one of them, with another being Vittorio Cottafavi's HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1961), both of which just happened to feature the same leading man (Reg Park). At his best an unparalleled purveyor of atmosphere, Bava was ideal for helming the muscle-bound demi-God's adventures in the Netherworld, letting rip his imagination to conceive a color scheme and special effects that would transcend budgetary constraints – and, at the same time, make up for narrative shortcomings (notably such obligatory conventions as youthful romance and comedy relief); however, another definitive trump-card here is the presence of an imposing villain in Christopher Lee (his first of two satisfying collaborations with Bava). To get back to the film's fantasy elements, Hercules consults with a masked clairvoyant throughout (to determine the fate of his beloved, held for the longest time under the spell of Lee's malevolent influence) and combats a flying legion of the undead at the climax (their 'costume' would actually be borrowed by Bava himself for a later sci-fi effort, the equally fine PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES [1965]!); as expected, the action is plentiful, if a bit overly vigorous and obviously artificial: however, instead of destroying the illusion, this rather lends the whole added charm (at one point, Hercules amusingly disarms a throng of pursuers by effortlessly hurling a cart at them - just as he would dispatch the undead with an array of flying boulders)! Despite being best-known in the English-speaking world with the title at the top of this review, the opening credits of the print I watched (presumably culled from the Fantoma DVD) sports a literal translation of the original Italian one i.e. HERCULES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH!

Fantoma has done an incredible job of bringing this film to light and I look forward to their Kenneth Anger compilation that is supposed to be coming out this summer. I have read on and off over the years that this Hercules film by Mario Bava was supposedly the best one of all and after finally getting a copy, sat down to watch it and was truly knocked out by the visuals. I've never really been interested in the Herc. series, I've tried watching a few of them but they are soooo boring! Mario Bava lovingly designed this film and it has all of his special touches. Fantastic set pieces are shown during the treks through Hades and a very creepy atmosphere that goes beyond smoke and mirrors draws you in. Film obsessives who appreciate interesting cinematography and lighting will definitely want to own a copy of this. I understand why in various genre film magazines, articles, etc. this film has been rated as the better of the Hercules films. Without ruining it for anyone, I'd like to mention some of the most beautiful scenes include the visits Hercules makes to The Oracle, just breathtaking in its composition, lighting, and framing and when the zombies rise to battle Hercules (Truly Creepy! and these Zombies run! which surprised me especially since the film was made in the early sixties.) My advice to viewers is to watch the film in Italian with English subtitles. The dialogue just sounds more intense and the film in English just sounds incredibly stiff and cheesy and really distracts you. This release by Fantoma is definitely worth having in your film library.

Definitely one of the better Hercules films with British born bodybuilder Reg Park (the man who trained Arnold Schwarzenegger) a better Hercules than most. Another thing that puts this one above most of the rest is the presence of British villain Christopher Lee, who's about three inches taller than Reg Park.In this one Hercules literally goes to Hell so that he can retrieve a magical rock thing that will save his girlfriend. From there he battles the usual assortment of monsters against a backdrop of atmospheric sets. This one's good for Halloween or any dark, misty night by the fireplace.