Hercules Against The Moon Men

Written by Joe D on August 29th, 2019

I just happened to catch this flick on Channels, the cheap archive of Wierd Movies you can subscribe to on Apple TV for a couple of bucks. It was OK, an evil Queen, an Italian Hercules, a cene where Hercules is caught in these giant Jaws of Death for what seems like an eternity.

I left it on while I was brushing my teeth and putting on my socks. I’ve always had a soft spot for Hercules type movies, made in Rome in the 60’s, usually some crazy monster appears. Anyway I was sort of watching it when a sequence began, it took place in a huge cavern in the Mountain of Death, A Moon Man, looking like a futuristic Tin Woodsman crossed with an owl, was coducting a ceremony to bring the evil Queen back to life with the blodd of an innocent girl.

Suddenly there was an image of incomparable beauty, a throbbing purple orb slowly turning above their heards, then the moon appears in an opening in the roof of the cavern, it’s obscured by clouds but it comes closer through the mist. I immediately thought of Mario Bava, it had his fingerprints all over it. The film was made at Cinecitta, Bava’s hangout. I heard Bava would work on the Special Effects of other peoples films when he wasn’t busy on his own films, along with his father, a talented sculptor. Then I read that Tim Lucas, the Bava guru said he thought Bava worked on this film as well. So watch it for yourself and decide. The sequence I’m referring to is towards the end of the film.