Perseu, O Invencível

MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES is a pretty standard Sword & Sandal: though the story is simple enough, the direction (or lack thereof) makes the story look more convoluted than need be and it probably didn't make much sense to kids who saw this in theaters back in 1963. There are good guys and bad guys who fight for power. You know, the usual stuff. But there are some really good things in this meandering mini-epic: this first good thing is Richard Harrison. Harrison is one of the best actor to appear in S&S films. He's handsome, in good shape (but he's no Steve Reeves) and he can actually act. Every Peplum I've seen with Richard Harrison, he always stood out and gave believable performances even if the material was anything close to being believable.

The second and the most remarkable thing about MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES is the Medusa itself. The Medusa in this film is a tentacled monster instead of a woman with vipers for hair. When I saw it for the first time my jaw was on the floor. It's by far the coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie. A truly one of a kind creation. The Medusa, totally in black, looks like an evil tree and moves around with spidery roots and has a uber thick nest of tentacles for hair, and it freezes men into statues of stone with its single huge glowing white eye. We see it walk around in a misty landscape which is strewn with marbled soldiers. Some might find it cheesy but I thought the effect was amazing. The Medusa appears from head to toe, for several seconds, in full frame. No CGI here. Very evocative. Like a 1960s pulpy science fiction cover come to life. Carlo Rambaldi is a genius. I wish the (uninspired) direction was at the level of Rambaldi's imagination and it knew how to utilize the remarkable creation to the max.

There's also a full-sized dragon designed by Rambaldi which is also cool but it's pretty obvious it's mechanical after being on screen for a few minutes. It never leaves the beach and only the head moves. It doesn't compare to the Medusa though, which is, along with Richard Harrison, the main reason(s) to watch this film. Even with all its weaknesses, certainly with the weak script and workman-like direction, MEDUSA VS TE SON OF HERCULES is an overlooked fantasy film. It preceded almost every fantasy film of its type, including JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. I give 5 stars for the film but a full 10 stars for the Medusa, so an average of 7 stars.

Passable low-brow mythological hokum: Richard Harrison is Perseus – who, rather than the offspring of Zeus, here is the adopted son of Hercules (and an unwitting deposed monarch to boot!). The film provides two villains in Arturo Dominici, an ambitious man who usurps the throne by killing the current ruler and marrying his wife (the scriptwriters must have read "Hamlet"), and Leo Anchoriz as his equally despicable son – who also acts as a rival to Harrison for the heroine's hand; the latter, then, is the usual lovely sovereign of a rival harassed empire (but who, at least, demonstrates a prowess with bow and arrow).

In this outing, Perseus fights a couple of monsters: a man-eating dragon residing in a lake(!) and the titular paralyzing creature (which, instead of sporting writhing snakes in its hair-do, is a vine-like Cyclops that would better fit the atmosphere of a science-fiction movie, in the vein of the shapeless one-eyed alien seen in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE [1953], than a sword-and-sandal flick); nevertheless, the latter confrontation anticipates the Ray Harryhausen opus CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). With respect to the human end of the scale, the ongoing dispute is resolved over a long-running duel between Harrison and Anchoriz taking place at the heart of a tournament organized by Dominici.

Director De Martino made a few peplums before going on to other "Euro-Cult" genres (Spaghetti Western, war, horror, giallo, etc). Eugenio Bava – father of cult film-maker Mario – served as technical adviser here, presumably contributing the matte work involved in the creation of the special effects. The film's score is highlighted by a catchy but corny title tune heard over the opening and closing credits.

This movie is not a literary dramatization of classical mythology. Instead it's a melodramatic action movie. The plot takes some long divergences away from the mythological sources, and has a few bits that don't quite make sense, but it does the job of carrying the characters from one action scene to another. The introduction tells us that Perseus is an honorary Son of Hercules, for no apparent reason except maybe to link it with the many Italian Hercules movies.

The acting is only occasionally good, but it's never terrible either. The costumes are pretty basic, but set the mood well. The sets are mostly simple too, but also get the idea across. There are plenty of extras in scenes that need them. The fights are sometimes well-choreographed and performed, but sometimes look dumb.

The lighting is almost always bright sunshine; even night scenes look sunlit, just slightly underexposed. The pan-and-scan was sloppy, and sometimes shows obvious losses, like people split vertically while they're talking. The cinematography probably looks better in widescreen versions.

The worst part was the monsters. The dragon looks decent, if low-budget, but doesn't move well in scenes it shares with actors. It's also a bit on the small side, but it's big enough to threaten a warrior in leather and bronze armor. It looked like a model of some sort, rather than a person in a dragon suit. In contrast to the dragon, Medusa is terrible, even though she's the title character in some of this movie's many titles. She looks like a leafless tree walking around on exposed roots, with a single glowing eye. Myths described her as a woman with snakes for hair, and looks so hideous her gaze turned people to stone.

The music sometimes took itself too seriously, but it kept the mood going pretty well. During the Medusa scenes, the score turned squeaky, as if the musicians were laughing at what they could see were dumbest scenes in the movie. Often it sounded better-suited to a Western than an ancient myth setting.

In parts where the movie is good, it's quite entertaining. When it's bad, it's still entertaining in a "so bad it's good" sense. As long as you don't set your expectations too high, you should be satisfactorily entertained.

Yes, this old italian peplum is probably more fun and better acted than the major blockbuster Troy. At least the story is more plausible, even with a sort of medieval tournament for the hand of the princess and a medieval siege with catapults and boiling oil. Anyway, you have a couple of stop motion creatures (Medusa and a sort of aquatic dragon) made by Carlo Rambaldi, father of Spielberg's E.T., a lot of cinematic battle scenes without computer graphics, love, heroic adventures, swords and sandals. Exactly as Troy, but 40 years before and on a very low budget.

American actor/bodybuilder Richard Harrison stars in this peplum epic about the legend of Perseus who wins princess Andromeda and her kingdom by slaying all kinds of foes, human and monster. Since he's the illegitimate son of Zeus it's only fitting as he has the heroic lineage.

This story was remade much better with a name cast and special effects by master Ray Harryhausen in 1981 as Clash Of The Titans. Perseus is also the son of a queen who married and a real son who grew up to be as nasty a piece of work as his old man. Andromeda is princess in the next kingdom over and her bit of real estate is in the grip of the bad king and his Snidely Whiplash like son. And we always know what Snidely Whiplash villains have uppermost in their minds.

Anyway the bad guys have both the Medusa and a lake dragon, cousin of the Loch Ness monster working for them. I wonder how the dragon knows only to eat the enemies of the bad king?

It's his mission to get the bad monsters and as for Medusa there's a bit of license taken from Greek mythology.

Harrison is a bit of a sculpted Greek God himself. But the acting and the dubbing is real bad in this Italian peplum epic.

I'd see Clash Of The Titans first.