Hercules Against the Moonmen

While some films boast wild titles, then fail to deliver on the premise, Hercules Against the Moon Men does indeed come through, so we get to watch as Hercules clashes with some outlandish alien enemies. The concept is fun and while the movie is inconsistent, there is some fun stuff here and some cool set pieces. The story is of course ridiculous and over the top, which is only made more outlandish by the film’s special effects. I love this kind of low-fi effects work, it looks cheap, but creative and just has a certain artistry that I appreciate. The trap scene where Hercules has to fend off the collapsing jaws of a lethal snare is an example of this, as the visuals look low rent, but fun, especially the trap itself. But the real draw effects wise has to be the aliens and other creatures, all of which look so cool and campy, with the aliens as a highlight. The finale is frantic and convoluted, but overall, this was a fun, silly romp with some real b movie charm.Our hero Hercules is played by Alan Steel, aka Sergio Ciani, who was a veteran of these sword & sandal movies and had been Hercules a number of times previous to this. He has the look for sure, as he is ripped and is a more than convincing strongman. The action scenes are a breeze and even when he is doing something like picking up living rock men to hurl, his strong presence ensures that is seems almost believable. The look alone is enough to buy into Steel as Hercules, but he has good screen presence too and some charisma. If you’re looking for other sword & sandal b movies to check out, Steel’s resume is a good place to start, as he was in some quite fun ones. The cast also includes Jany Clair, Nando Tamberlani, and Goffredo Unger.

After a lengthy search, and countless unimpressive copies later, this widescreen DVD finally brings Hercules Against the Moon Men back to viewers and fans alike in a big, bold, beautiful way. An all but unique blend of Sword & Sandal, Horror, and Sci-Fi (the producers were hedging their bets, clearly), the film is at times muddled and episodic, even laughable. Still, I have to applaud their ambition, and the end result (thanks to some memorable Mario Bava-esque photography) is nevertheless wild, eerie and surreal, if you don't take it too seriously. This new transfer really highlights the good qualities and makes it easier to forgive the bad.

Good ole Alan Steel is Hercules. He looks the part and by gosh, like other Hercules on the screen, he doesn't act the part either. None of them do, but then they weren't hired for their thespian talents. This movie has a lot of lines like "With you, my sister and queen, I know that my road to happiness with Andromedeus (or whoever)is assured." Right away you know the girl is gonna have problems. Hercules, too, is no shrinking violet in letting people know the score. He's apt to come up with something along the lines of "Tho it cost me my life, Perculaneus, this I promise you: nothing shall come between your daughter Sophronia's inheriting the throne that is rightfully hers and traveling to Thebes via Macedonia and Atlantis to marry the prince of Samarkand. (This to a man he has just met.) I love this movie, even when I have to watch it without MST3000 asides. There are a lot of brawls with grunting and tempting almost-glances under the brief gladiator-type outfits. Of course Hercules has his share of make-out scenes with the evil queen who listens to stone men. Yes, stone men. Oh yes, the dubbing is the usual what you would expect job from the Italian gladiator movies from the 60s.Take this version over the 1970s one. More popcorn! faywray

Of all of the Italian sword-and-sandals movies, this has perhaps the silliest premise--in fact, the whole notion of Hercules fighting "moon men" only appeared in the English-dubbed version (the Italian original is about "Maciste," a strongman character in Italian movies back to the 1914 *Cabiria*, and there was nothing about aliens from the moon). It is moderately entertaining, and very low budget, as was typical for these movies. I say moderately entertaining, but only if you like this sort of thing, i.e., cheesy genre movies--if you're looking for another *Casablanca*, this isn't it. Most of the sword and sandals DVDs have very low-quality transfers: they chop up the original widescreen movies with pan-and-scan, and often look like they are using a video camera pointed at a TV screen showing a very faded and scratched print to make the transfer. This particular movie, however, has the worst transfer I have seen yet: few colors besides blue have survived, and there is no sharpness in the image at all. I am checking out the "special edition" DVD of *Moon Men* from somethingweird.com (Something Weird Video), which specializes in this sort of thing--they promise widescreen at least, and a "digitally remastered" version.I've looked at the Something Weird version, and it is incomparably better (well, the visual quality is, at any rate!)--this is the double feature entitled "Hercules Against the Moon Men/The Witch's Curse" (a mere $17.99 here at amazon.com).

I have watched both the original and the MST3K versions and I agree with the other reviews about the all around poor quality. To really appreciate this movie you have to watch the MST3K treatment with Herc's talking horse sidekick and the presence of "airbags" in ancient times and let us not forget the horror of "SANDSTORM"!

There was a claim on Amazon that this dvd was manufactured by Retromedia who do high quality remasterings of peplum movies. Unfortunately when I received it, from England of all places it was a crappy Alpha Video rock bottom budget release. Not what I was expecting. It did not cost enough for me to go through the process of demanding a refund.

The picture quality was terrible there was some kind of crazy plot. Not sure what it was..If you're really stoned you love this movie.You can stop watching it at any point come back 10 minutes later and never miss a thing.I love the movie then again I love a lot of bad movies.

La série des Maciste est ce qu'il se faisait de mieux dans le genre du film populaire en Italie dans les années 60 ..un cinéma divertissant souvent à petit budget avec des femmes sexy et des héros musclés et des décors en carton pâte ! Génial !

Wieder einer der Perlen von früher! ( Leider gibt es keine Deutsche Fassung )

sa ma rappelle ma jeunesse bon moment passé a le revoir

Pour les vrais accros de la Mythologie qui n'ont rien contre les films des années soixante, c'est bien. Évidemment, il ne faut pas chercher les effets spéciaux que l'on voit de nos jours, mais simplement garder son âme d'enfant pour apprécier ce film déjà ancien.

J'adore ces vieux films ne pas juger sur la qualité des tournages de l'époque à prendre avec humour.J'ai juste eu envie de prendre du plaisir à visionner et surtout avoir la possibilité de les montrer à mes petits enfants et les enfants suivants.