Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964) + The Witch's Curse (1962)

Original title: Maciste e la Regina di Samar

Peplum. Italy/France. Starring Alan Steel, Jany Clair & Anna Maria Polani. Directed by Giacomo Gentilomo.

DVD: Something Weird (USA). English dubbed. Widescreen. Good quality. This DVD also includes a low quality, fullscreen, shortened US version of Freda's fantastic horror-peplum The Witch's Curse.

Wonderful, mega-cheezy sci-fi/peplum classic! Leave all your pretentions at the door and enjoy the silly ride! (it would take almost 20 years before someone managed to top this one in good-natured, naive silly fun: that one being sci-fi-nerd-turned-director Luigi Cozzi and his adorable little films Starcrash and Hercules I & II) 4/5

The Witch's Curse (1962)

Original title: Maciste All'inferno

Peplum/Horror. Italy. Starring Kirk Morris, Hélène Chanel & Andrea Bosic. Directed by Riccardo Freda.

EVC (Holland). English dubbed. Letterboxed (slightly). The picture is a little stretched out so if you change the aspect ratio on your TV to 1:85:1 you get a pretty good widescreen.

This is one of the most horror influenced and bizarre peplas I have seen, and one of my personal favorites. Our hero Maciste rides in to 17th century Scotland (!), wearing nothing but underwear, to save a maiden from being burned at the stake due to a nasty curse cast by her long dead relative who was a witch. To save the poor girl Maciste has to enter Hell to seek out the witch and make her undo the curse. There he encounters a lion, the magic well of "Kirk Morris-movie flashbacks", monsters and the pittied souls of Hell. A Kirk Morris classic! 4/5

The Invincible Masked Rider (1963)

Original title: L'invincibile Cavaliere Mascherato

Zorro adventure. Italy/France. Starring Pierre Brice, Daniele Vargas, Hélène Chanel & Massimo Serato. Directed by Umberto Lenzi.

DVD: KSM (Germany). German dubbed. Widescreen.