Hercules in the Haunted World

Director: Mario Bava

1961 / 84min / 35mm

Brit bodybuilder Reg Park straps on the sandals and exomis to play Zeus’s swole love child in Bava’s deliciously delirious peplum, co-written by Mondo Cane’s Franco Prosperi, which follows our hulking hero—as well as Theseus and Telemachus—on a perilous mission to save Herc’s lover Princess Deianira, stricken senseless by illness, endeavoring to procure for her a sacred stone from the depths of Hades, home court of Christopher Lee’s sinister Lyco and his zombie hordes. A triumph of resourcefulness over limited resources, rich with Gothic atmosphere, swirling with nigh-psychedelic colors, and offering at every turn ample evidence of cinematographer-turned-director Bava’s consummate mastery of the motion picture apparatus.

Distributor: Kino Lorber

Part of Classical Cinema