Mummies, Monsters, Muscles

Of the 1,000 movies starring the strongest human this side of Popeye, Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) stands out because it has flying ghost mummies, a talking rock monster, damned women, and feats of physical strength unseen since I managed to get that really tight lid off a jar of peanut butter last week…with my bare hands!

Hercules and his stylish facial hair is back from dicking around on a bunch of adventures and wants to hook up with Princess Dianara. But she doesn’t recognize him as she’s in a trance. Or on drugs. Same diff. Her only hope is for Hercules to go to Hell and bring back the Living Stone to get her to snap out of it so they can get down to getting down.

Hercules flex battles an army of flying grease mummies, throws stone pillars around like they were made of Styrofoam and punches the smirk off Lyco, the main evil dude.

I ask you — how could anyone not like a movie with all these entertaining elements, as if seeing muscle men running around in alarmingly small togas wasn’t enough?