The Witch's Curse

It's impossible not to compare the highly entertaining THE WITCH'S CURSE aka MACISTE IN HELL to the superior HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD. First, they're both Hercules (Maciste) movies in which our hero descends into the Underworld ... and second, it's a face off between arguably the two greatest Italian pulp directors of the 1960's, Riccardo Freda (HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK, THE GHOST) and the undisputed champion, Mario Bava (BLACK Sunday, KILL BABY KILL, LISA & THE DEVIL.) By any definition, THE WITCH'S CURSE is a very entertaining fantasy film: it opens with a prologue about witches in 18th century Scotland ... and then a bare- chested Hercules rides in. No explanation of how or why he's in Scotland -- WITH NO CLOTHES ON, and about twenty centuries late. That's what we really dig about mythological fantasy films -- they Never Have to Say They're Sorry. Or explain Anything. The Something Weird DVD is sadly not letter-boxed, and pretty fuzzy -- but still this comes across as one of the top 5 Hercules movies. Once Kirk Morris (juvenile, not a great Herc -- but who really cares?) gets into the Underworld, it's non-stop flaming brimstone nonsense. Even with a great transfer, this still wouldn't hold a candle to Bava's HAUNTED WORLD -- and in the end, that's the real difference between Freda and his pupil Bava, who far surpassed his master.

Maciste in Hell (1962)

** (out of 4)

As our movie begins, a witch is being burned to death but before she croaks she puts a curse on the town. A hundred years later a tree grows from that very spot and Maciste (Kirk Morris) must travel to Hell to find the witch and make her break the curse.

If you're expecting anything like the 1925 silent film then you're going to be disappointed as this Italian production is pretty much in the same vein as their Hercules pictures. In fact, you've basically got that same type of character doing the same type of things but the only difference here is that they throw in the Hell setting for some entertainment value.

Is this a good film? Well, I guess that'll depend on your feelings towards the genre. I'm not the biggest fan of the genre but I must admit that I found there to be some slightly entertaining things here including that Hell setting. There are some good scenes where the hero must battle a variety of things including a large snake and some bulls.

Performances are pretty much what you'd expect out of a film like this but I honestly didn't care too much for Kirk Morris in the lead. The film at least looks very good with some nice set design and director Riccardo Freda at least manages to keep the film moving at a nice pace.

In the 16th century, a witch is burned at Scotland, not forgetting to leave a curse behind. A hundred years later, the curse drives people mad - some kill themselves, some see ghosts in the shadows, some suffer from ridiculous overacting (don't miss the fat woman yelling „The witch is back again! It's the end for all of us!"). Suddenly Maciste rides into town, he looks like he came to the set of the wrong movie. It wasn't the only case of Maciste in the wrong millennium (see „Zorro Contro Maciste" by Umberto Lenzi), but if he is in Scotland, he should get a proper costume instead of the stone-age loincloth that was outdated in ancient Greece already. He tries to put an end to hysteria and terror by going down to hell and find the witch! „He can strangle the lion, but there's no man alive who can conquer the devil", they say, but where there's muscles, there's always a way. Director Freda knew what the public wanted, he made enough other movies including Maciste flicks - there even is a flashback to previous adventures -, so you get the fires, the beasts, the drama and all. My only regret is I had to watch this as a full screen copy with poor colors, because in the original wide screen format, it must be quite a show.

(Edit 2017) Nine years after my review above, I got the opportunity to watch a restored version in original scope format, running 88 minutes instead of 75 minutes (among the scenes cut from the old American DVD were a fight against a snake, Maciste crossing the rain of fire, and a flashback showing him in Ancient Egypt). I was right, it's quite a show in proper quality.

Kirk Morris as Maciste in the underworld

Director Riccardo Fredda just couldn't help it. And again he had to send Maciste on a journey through time and space. This time we even went to Scotland and the 17th century. It's unbelievable what the ancient muscle man was forced to do! It would definitely have been less rainy in Carthage! But whatever!

Our hero actually climbs through a witch tree into the underworld to remove the curse of a burned witch. Oh well!

The cast is interesting: Behind the name Kirk Morris is the Italian Adriano Bellini, born in 1942. The strapping Adriano was actually a gondolier in Venice and was discovered by chance for the sword and sandal film. What a story! The French actress Helene Chanel (born in Deauville in 1941) is also there.

In West German cinemas in 1962f. At least 340,000 tickets were sold. Only recommended for friends of the Hexenhammer!

As far as the genre goes, that pretty must got invented by the Italians in the first place, this movie is actually not being the worst or silliest. But this doesn't mean that this movie is pretty bad and silly on its own though unfortunately.

This is one of the many Maciste movies, that got made over the decades. The character was an heroic strong-man, like for instance the Hercules and Samson characters were in Italian movies. However the character never really got known internationally, so must of the movies featuring him got released under different titles and his character also got named differently.

This time the main character is being played by the muscle man Kirk Morris, who actually played the character a whole bunch of times, as well as some other strong-man in many different Italian sword-and-sandal productions. Can't really say I was much impressed with him. Of course nothing wrong with his physics but he was really lacking the right charisma and definitely the right acting skills. To be honest, he looked quite silly with his boyish haircut and pearly white teeth.

It's not really a remake of the 1925 movie with the same title, since the movie pretty much follows a totally different story. The only thing the two have in common is that it features the Maciste character who has to descent to hell itself.

And in hell Maciste has to endure a whole bunch of silly ordeals. Watch Maciste dramatically opening a large door with his bare hands, lifts large phony looking rocks, or dance with a whole bunch of animals, such as a snake, a lion and a vulture. He's just holding and moving some puppets around, pretending that it are some real life animals attacking him. Really this is all that this movie is. But yes, there are actually far worse and far more silly genre examples to watch out there. This movie is actually pretty much alright for must part, which makes it all the more a shame that the story did not got worked out just a tiny bit better and also had some more exciting and original moments in it.

It's a predictable, campy, sword-and-sandal, adventure movie, that you at times still can have some fun with but unfortunately is far from a great movie.

4/10

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