This is a film that hates its audience.
But before I extrapolate on that, some background:
In the original Italian, this is NOT a Herakles film — it’s a “Maciste” film. I discovered this because, before I went into it, I looked it up on Wikipedia. In the review for 1958′s Hercules starring Steve Reeves, I mentioned that the original title of this one was Maciste e la regina di Samar, and assumed that since this was an Italo-French joint production, that “Maciste” was some convoluted French-Gaulish syncretic name for Herakles. I was wrong.
It seems “Maciste” is an Italian cinema character, and possibly the longest-running character created especially for cinema. Now, Maciste’s name comes from an epithet for Herakles, which may be evidence of a local deity merged into the Heraklean mythos, and the writer of the original Maciste film had renamed the character from “Ercole” (the modern Italian form of “Hercules”), but Maciste of the movies is technically not Herakles, but also in this weird technically kinda-sorta-maybe the same area. Though most of the Maciste films are set in ancient Hellas, the Roman Empire, or a similar and far vaguer time and place, some are (as a still on his Wikipedia article indicates) obviously set in a modern era. Basically, Maciste is a time-travelling, globe-trotting, strongman, “champion of the people” type; his films kinda peter out by the end of the 1920s, but her gets revived during the peplum/sword-n-sandal fad of 1959-1965-ish. His plots seem pretty stock — city or other large group of people are in trouble, a pretty girl is sent to fetch Maciste, as he is a renowned muscle-man who can help them, pretty girl and Maciste fall in love, maybe a plot twist happens to temporarily slow him down, and the people are saved — maybe he and the pretty girl will ride off into the sunset to save other people in other lands, but the rest of that is the general gist of of these films, at least if the plot summaries for a handful i looked up at random can be believed. The reason Maciste got re-dubbed into English as Hercules (and also, sometimes, Samson, Atlas, and “Colossus”) was because the importers were afraid that an English-speaking audience would be uninterested in seeing films about a character they’d never heard of (you know, despite the fact that people do that all the time — I’d really like to know how many people had heard of Spartacus before the film, and that’s become a film damned near everybody has seen at this point).
This knowledge helped buffer the big Mediterranean mythological mish-mash throughout the film, most of which I cannot point out (Wikipedia assures me that some elements are from Egyptian mythology, but damned if I can figure out what), but at least I knew it wasn’t Hellenic.
First off, this film’s plot and writing was stupid. Not painfully stupid, just kinda hackneyed and silly, like the Twilight series; it probably seems like a “good” story if you’re twelve or simply have the mentality of one, and it can pass for “good enough” if you can power-down your brain for about an hour and continue to remind yourself that it was probably never intended to be more than a popcorn matinee flick for bored teens. The writing team very obviously understood the basics of plot execution and such, but they only threw darts at any sort of character development; the classic Disney “golden age” films, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty feel better-developed than these characters, but intriguing characters with a meandering plot is kind of why Truman Capote’s work had to be re-worked to the point that he all but disowned it to make for good film, this is why you can do far more intriguing things with plot and character in novels than you can with films — films rely on visuals and pace more than literature does (though that’s not to say that pacing and “visuals” are completely unnecessary for a good read — nay, they are, indeed, necessary, just in different ways, but that’s another story for another time). Hell, Steve Reeves’ two Hercules films had better character development than this one does.
Boil down Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty to her most basic elements, add aliens instead of magic (no shit), and you’ve got Queen Samara. She’s just kind of power-hungry, occasionally spies on characters through a lackey or technology, and she doesn’t care if she destroys everybody in her path. And she has aliens to do it with.
Agar, the pretty girl? Yeah, she’s pretty much just there to be pretty and occasionally aid Hercules/Maciste, but she’s no-where near as capable as Iole from the first Steve Reeves film.
Hercules/Maciste himself? He’s, just, well… A big strong champion-of-the-people type, he’s a tiny bit smarter and better informed than Queen Samara realises, but these sorts of films rely on that, so it’s not very interesting, unless your taste in films is kind of naïve.
From start to finish, the film follows a pretty basic story formula:
It opens with a quick few scenes and a narrator giving the story of how Samar was once hit by a meteor, and this brought The Monsters of the Mountain, who demanded a human sacrifice of the town’s children every full moon. Then it cuts to the queen of Samar (inventively named “Samara”, which I misheard as “Tamara” through most of the film) getting news from her… royal adviser? His position in the palace is never made clear, but his name is Claudius, and he’s telling Samara that the people are fed up with the Monsters and they wish to send for a man who may stop them. She quickly becomes incensed and sends him away, then one of her guards tells her that Claudius withheld from her, the people have already sent for (wait for it) HERCULES!
Herc is then seen riding into town, but he’s held up by a mob that might be trying to kill him, but it’s poorly choreographed, so maybe they’re just trying to teach him to dance?
Then we seen Samara’s bedroom, which fills with a green glow, and then an alien with a face like a cross between a robot and a luchadore mask vaporises in, and tells her the trap for Herc has failed, and that she still needs to kill Hercules, so that they can sacrifice Princess Billis, so they can revive Selene and Samara can be the most powerful woman in the world.
Then we get a scene of Billis and Prince Darix lamenting how Samara won’t let them marry, and it’s revealed that Samara is listening in on them through a sort of primitive speaker in a giant Bastet in the garden that has its other end coming through something in her own room that looks like a cross between Pan and a garden gnome.
Then Agar, most unconvincingly “disguised as a boy” (and she’s only wearing a hooded cape, but apparently that’s supposed to make her look like a boy), well, she’s Claudius’ daughter, and she’s sent to fetch Hercules and sneak him into the palace. That’s when Claudius tells Herc that the “bandits” that wanted to frot with him on the way into town? Oh, see, those were the Queen’s guards… He tells Hercules some stuff to advance the plot, and then they sneak off through a secret panel, and that’s when Agar notices that Samara has been spying on them through a hold in the opposite wall. One thing that really hits me about the rest of this speech of Claudius’ is that he’s establishing everything for Hercules that has been previously established for the audience, except he claims that these sacrifices happen “every third New Moon”, even though every other description from every other character states they are “every Full Moon”. Claudius is then assassinated as the two make their way through the apparent labyrinth of caves beneath the palace, and Herc is dropped through a trap door in the floor, and the pit he drops into immediately starts to fill with water.
By the way, drowning? Unless you’re holding the dude’s head below the surface with your hands and he himself is handcuffed — really ineffective murder attempt, the human body will just naturally try to save itself, which is why even drowning accidents are always accompanied with something like a weakened state or a storm.
…so yeah, in the most inefficient booby-trap ever, Hercules manages to break free cos of some loose bricks that sets him right in front of some kind of monster with an overbite. When Agar catches up with him, she’s in tears over her assassinated father and informs Hercules that Samara was spying on them. Still, he goes off to join the resistance and Samara, who has overheard this, tells her guard to go stop Hercules.
Herc meets up with the resistance, stuff is said, but it’s largely unmemorable and only serves to establish more stuff to advance the plot. Agar then returns to her father’s room, and Samara is there; some catty stuff is said and Agar coyly suggests Samara had Claudius assassinated.
Then Darix and Billis say good-bye as Darix leaves for a mission for Samara, but it’s a trap set up by Samara, so Hercules goes to rescue Darix, which he does, and this scene is choreographed a bit better. While this is happening, Samara has Billis taken from the palace and then Hercules goes to the tavern he was at before with Darix, and the tavern keeper warns Hercules that Samara keeps a magic powder that makes me fall in love with her in a locket around her neck.
Next is a scene of citizens, all women aged maybe 16-22, rounded up for the sacrifice by palace guards (which kind of makes you wonder how this has been going on for several generations, as has been established by the introductory narration and by other characters, but I guess that didn’t occur to the writers). Hercules beats the guards off from taking the tavern keeper’s daughter, and goes off to save Billis, and we get three minutes of watching the women being led up the mountain before Hercules catches up and realises the woman he was led to believe is Billis really isn’t, and he’s trapped.
Then we see Selene lying on an altar and Tamara and Billis standing before it, and the alien from before explains that Billis was needed because she looks so strikingly like Selene, and Billis is outraged that her own sister would sacrifice her like this, but this outrage is short-lived, as the Moon Man sends his rock golems to… surround her very closely, which I guess has the power to subdue people. Then the Moon Man explains the sacrifice to Samara and tells her that she has to kill Hercules to bask in all the power and glory she was promised.
Cut to Agar trying to rescure Hercules, but to no avail, cos he tells her to protect Billis. Then we jump to Tamara with Hercules in this bear-trap-like device shown in the film poster. Again, she’s a fan of inefficient executions — cos this one also fails, and she decides to take Hercules back to her room, presumably to slip him some powder and yep — that’s exactly what happens, but Herc is prepared and dumps his water out when her back is turned. When she finally leaves, she banished Agar (in hopes of locating where Darix is being protected), and yep, that works, so the two are sent to Samara where she asks Hercules what to do and, in order to gain her trust, suggests putting them to a starvation execution.
Hercules finally gets Samara alone and finds out where Billis is, then reveals his betrayal and goes to save Agara, Derix, and Princess Billis. After a big fight scene with the soldiers, we encounter:
SANDSTORM!
What is “SANDSTORM!” you may ask? It’s basically thirteen minutes with few interruptions (a hair under ten minutes without interruptions — I took timestamps) of… characters, fighting their way through a sandstorm. The interruptions don’t really advance the plot, either. Seriously, before this, the plot was insipid, but it was well-paced — then the film decided to remind you that you were sitting there for an hour and fifteen minutes.
When SANDSTORM! is finally over, Billis and Darix have reunited, Samara and the Moon Men have been defeated, and Hercules and Agar ride off into the sunset.
Mystery Science Theatre 3000: Hercules Against the Moon Men is part of MST3K box Vol 7, along with Hercules Unchained.
The MST3K cut opens with Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank telling Joel that their “invention exchange” for this week is “SANDSTORM!” and is the first instalment of a new brand of experiment they call “DEEP HURTING!” Joel’s invention exchange is the Super Freak Out kit, which is largely unnotable, but it segues nicely into Forrester’s like “Rock Climbing [from the film Lost Continent] was a cool groove compared to Sandstorm!”
The jokes through the film are mostly about the hokey costuming and Hercules’ pecs, but the sketches are consistently about elements of the film — from Claudius’ execution via spikes that sprang out from the wall, to Hercules’ short loincloth that inspired “The Pants Song”.
Was this film as bad as its inclusion on MST3K may lead one to believe?
The good points of this film are that the costuming is gorgeous, the sets are pretty well detailed, and for the first hour-and-fifteen, it’s fast-paced enough that you almost forget that it’s kind of stupid. You know how Star Wars: A New Hope was fast-paced enough that you didn’t realise you sat on your hinder for two hours and pennies? This film’s pacing isn’t quite that good, but it’s about as good as something without Star Wars‘ vision, talent, or budget can hope for. It’s also not so awful for the first hour-and-change that the fast pacing feels like torture-via-speeddating or something; it’s watchable for the first hour, not necessarily good, but watchable — but after they plop you down in SANDSTORM, it feels like the infamous driving scene from “Manos”: The Hands of Fate. I felt like I was slowly becoming stupider just by watching that scene in its entirety without commentary from Joel and the Bots.
It’s one of the better MST3K episodes, but only barely watchable otherwise. It’s formulaic and predictable, but well-paced until it becomes gratuitously padded. I can’t even fathom what mythologies most of this story comes from, but I liked the novel approach of the villain being minions of Selene — which feels like an almost welcome change since, at some point in the mid-1980s when some big-wig executive decided that any film based on Hellenic mythology had to have Hades as the villain because I guess “Hades = Satan”, even though there are Hellenic deities who were bigger dicks than Hades; this is why I can sit through the Harryhausen Clash of the Titans, despite its ridiculous re-imaginings of Perseus mythology, because its villain is Tethys who, in classic Hellenic mythology fashion, is just kind of annoyed.
Hercules Against the Moon Men deserved everything that the MST3K team threw at it; it starts, and through most of the film, is, a fast-paced formulaic peplum action flick that’s… just kiund of stupid. And then the film throws you into a sandstorm for absolutely no reason, only to just kind of end it with possibly the most formulaic ending imaginable. This film gave me a newfound appreciation for Hercules Unchained, which at least has the train-wreck quality to keep your eyes glued to the screen.
