Skip to main content

Maciste In Hell (1926) - Guido Brignone

Maciste is a classic tale that had been borrowed from the pages of the classic Inferno by Dante. The film deals with heavy amounts of religious content while strangely remaining removed from the religious aspect of hell and dealing with the conventional, physical hell. God is rarely brought up. The version that I could get my hands on was horrible, but under that I witnessed a movie with a great deal of potential. I was watching Guido Brignone, laying the brickwork for Italian directors that would come after him.

This is a movie about the Devil trying to corrupt the world's strongest man, Maciste. He brings him to hell and offers him all of the usual fare: pleasure, fortune, power. The film follows Maciste as he wonders this horrible world. The visuals are fantastic. You can literally see the influence that George Melies has had on this director. Some of the shots are too fantastic. They actually get aerial footage, and a couple shots where you can spot a zeppelin in the background. It is very well made--it's a wonder that it was so hard to find. 

Bravo to the direction of this movie. It is a shame that there isn't more people that know about it. As of 2012, you can get this movie on Internet Archive for free. Check it out if you can. Spread the word. This is a good movie. Not really creepy, but really fun and well made. 

S!D
  • The visual of some scenes in Hell, as a demon buried to the waist in ground, are from the published illustrated novel book by famous French illustrator Gustave Doré.
  • Bartolomeo Pagano had the role of Maciste in over a dozen films. Apparently he had his name changed to Maciste before his retirement. 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t...
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »

Humanoids From the Deep (1980) - Barbara Peeters and Jimmy T. Murakami

This is your standard old drive-in Creature Feature that has tons of gore and boobs. It's great if your in for a cheap thrill. This film goes right up along side any Roger Corman produced picture from the eighties. It's rumored that Joe Dante was approached to direct this movie but he turned it down. Humanoids from the Deep, also known as Monster, is a strange but forgettable piece of exploitation that failed to make it's notch in history. Don't let that detour you though. This is a really fun little film that doesn't fail to be entertaining.  A small sea town in California is terrorized by some mutated creatures from the deep. They look like some sort of mutated fish, merman-thing. They seem to have one goal in mind and that is raping and impregnating the females of the town. Also the town is being taken for a ride by a shifty businessman and his new corporate cannery. Could this evil cannery corporation be responsible for the Extreme Creatures of the B...
2 comments
Not scared yet? »

Escape From Tomorrow (2013) - Randy Moore

This review may contain spoilers. An American independent horror movie from filmmaker Randy Moore. It stars Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton, Annet Mahendru, and Alison Lees-Taylor. It premiered at the official selection of Roger Ebert, at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18th, 2013. Synopsis Jim is a depressed middle-aged man that despises his family life but wants to try to hold it together for a vacation to the Walt Disney World Resort. Jim receives a call before they leave and, unfortunately, Jim has lost his job as well. It proves too much to handle as this trip to the Magic Kingdom becomes a hellish nightmare. Jim’s mind cracks as we watch him deal with Disney’s seedy underbelly. Complete with elaborate corporate conspiracy, undercover sex workers, and demons. Oh and two very young French girls that Jim lusts over. It’s gross. Analysis The acting is amateurish. It’s nothing that’s going to win any awards or anything. The wri...
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »