“Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom” (1961)

“Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom” (1961), directed by Mario Bava, 2.5 stars

"Have you the courage to venture beyond the gates of Hades?" –  Medea (the Sibyl)

After hearing Sam Raimi on the commentary for the DVD for “Ju-on (The Grudge)” praise Mario Bava as a major influence, I decided I ought to check out some of that director’s films on Netflix.  I’ve tried to stay away from the low-budget Italian horror genre because the films look so cheesy and the plots are always pretty mindless.  But as I’ve grown older, I've tried to put away my younger if not completely childish thoughts and now give films I once considered unworthy a second chance.

I thought I’d watch Bava's films in date order, and though “Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom” was the earliest of his films that I could find. it’s probably not the one an avid fan would recommend starting with.  It’s badly acted, poorly written, and very cheaply done.  It follows Hercules (Reg Park) as he descends into Hades with his handsome, oversexed, friend Theseus (George Ardisson) and comic sidekick Telemachus (Franco Giacobini) to seek the stone of forgetfulness which will, according to the Sibyl, restore the mental state of his lover, Daianara (Leonora Ruffo).  She, it seems, is under a spell cast by the evil Lico (Christopher Lee), who Hercules erroneously believes is his ally and winds up fighting during the film’s climax.  But well before then, Hercules discovers that to enter Hades, he must first retrieve the golden apple of the Hesperides, which he does by hurling a huge boulder at it, loosening the apple from the top of an enormous vine from whence it drops a vast distance to the earth unharmed.  He also manages to span a massive, seething mud pool by tying a vine to another boulder, hurling it across the abyss where it lodges on the far side, and then swing across the vine arm across arm as a fierce wind kicks up around him.  Hercules hurls many more massive objects with equal effect before restoring Daianara's memory, getting rid of Lico, and otherwise bringing about a happy ending.

The highlight of the film for me was the sequence just after which skeletal corpses oh so slowly emerge from their tombs and then go after Hercules, suddenly taking wing and launching themselves through the air in his direction.  Their movements are nicely done, and they’re especially effective because the creatures launch themselves somewhat subjectively; that is, they take aim at the camera, presumably representing Hercules’ perspective.  Since I was more interested in Bava for his reputation as a director of horror films rather than mythic hero sagas, and this sequence, I imagine, is a precursor of things to come in his later films.

Bava is not the first director of Italian horror films that I’ve encountered, and I’ve actually run into him before, though I didn’t know it at the time.  About a year ago, I watched several films by Dario Argento, including “Suspiria” (1977), and just this past week, “Inferno” (1980).  He  worked with Argento on both of these films, and the latter was Bava's last effort (though for some reason he received no screen credit for it).  He died that same year.  No doubt, Argento was very much influenced by the elder filmmaker.

One last thing specific to the Netflix offering of “Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom." The print is awful.  It's scratched, the sound is poor, it's clearly a badly made dupe, and there are even some digital artifacts.  Also, the film was shot in widescreen (2.35:1) but the Netflix version looks to have been cropped from television print (1.33:1).  This is noticeable throughout, but most obvious during the closing credit sequence during which the names and titles do not fit on the screen.  This didn't add one whit to my appreciation of the film.  Netflix can (and should) do better than this.

Next up, Bava’s “Black Sabbath” (1963).