Le géant de la vallée des rois

Maciste is in Egypt where an evil queen is out to seduce him into her villainous ways, to get what she wants.

The name Samson appears in the title but this has no relationship to the biblical Samson. The film was distributed to English-speaking countries as Son of Samson but in all of the original films Maciste has no relationship to anyone named Samson. Italian titles translate into English as "Maciste in the Valley of the Kings" and it's aka "Maciste the Mighty" It's a film that barely kept me interested in it at times, other times was looking up more information on the internet about the film which was more interesting than the film itself.

2/10

Evil Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso) controls Persian-occupied Egypt while keeping her stepson-rightful ruler Kenamun (Angelo Zanolli)-under the influence of a mind-numbing medallion. Now, it's up to the mighty Maciste (Mark Forest) to lead a daring revolt in order to overthrow Smedes and restore Kenamun to the throne

Son of Samson is quite an atmospheric peplum with the desolate scenery adding to the feeling of helplessness and oppression the Egyptians feel. You actually feel like you're there - the scenery is quite vivid. Surprisingly, it's a bit bloody and brutal, for its time anyway. It has a good story, however, and the narrative unravels leisurely. Maybe it's a little laborious in pace. But it's intriguing and involving enough.

Mark Forest stars as Samson (or Maciste), a strongman figure with a keen sense of justice, a vast contrast to Chelo Alonso, who plays the evil Queen and steals the scene with her wicked ways. Does she get her just dessert? You'll have to watch to find out!

Ancient Egypt is being ravaged by Persia. The men are killed while the women are sent into slavery. Pharaoh Armiteo I gets betrayed by his Queen Smedes and murdered. His son Kenamun becomes the new Pharaoh, but the Queen brainwashes him with a magic amulet. While on his desert journeys, Kenamun had saved the life of strong man Maciste (Mark Forest). Maciste is dismayed by Kenamun's apparent turn against the people and intends to sneak into the palace to talk to the new Pharaoh.

This is an Italian sword and sandal flick. The production is pretty big and they did film a few scenes in Egypt. Surprisingly, muscle man Mark Forest is not necessarily the worst actor. He's not good, but he's not the worst. The problem is that there is plenty bad acting all over the place. This is safely secured in B-movie territory.

Mark Forest (bodybuilder Lou Degni) provides the beef in this relatively lavish Egyptian-style muscleman movie, whose production design is quite good for a low-budget, Italian potboiler. But for those who enjoy the genre, the highlight is the voluptuous Chelo Alonso, whose elegantly stiff performance as the evil empress is supplanted by the delightful belly dance she performs to seduce our lifeless hero midway through the picture. Adolescent kitsch working extraordinarily well as a fetishistic flesh fantasy. Terrific.

Well for the first half of this entry the acting is very wooden but somewhere down the line the cast start to look interested, I feared the worst when I bought this on DVD but was surprised just how good it is (in parts!), our hero saves a bunch of babes...sorry slaves from capture and unites with the people against the tyrants...well you should get the idea by now if you watch these kind of movies,as always Mark Forest looks superb as Machiste son of Samson and his muscular frame has the ladies in question in a spin, one word of warning though, some battle scenes are incredibly brutal and gory, this surprised me greatly as I don't think this would have been passed by British censors but as these epics come and go a good entry into the genre.