Had an absolute BALL of a "bad movie night" with friends a few hours ago, watching the 1983 Lou Ferrigno version of "Hercules." Exactly why this film, which was regarded as a fairly-notorious "what the hell happened here!?" trainwreck in at the time, hasn't become an ironic cult-classic like "Troll 2" I don't know, but it ought to be. Check it out:
Yes, that is a Rainbow Flaming Sword the bad guy is using at 1:14.
The trailer doesn't even do justice to how GONZO this thing is, a bizzare hybrid of "classic" Italian swords & sandals muscleman epic juiced-up with some weak "Chariots of The Gods" scifi reimagining to justify the awkward inclusion of "Star Wars"-style space scenes and giant robots. A lot of the visual logic appears cribbed from Kirby/Ditko-style Marvel Comics renderings of the esoteric, i.e. every "magical" place appears as a floating chunk of expressionist art hovering somewhere in an unidentified starfield - regardless of where it's "supposed" to be.
It's also garaunteed to drive anyone with even a cursory familiarity with classical Greek Mythology into a psychotic episode. Just as a sample: Hercules' chief enemy is King Minos (!), who rules the futuristic city of Atlantis (!!) and commands robot monsters built by his minion Daedalus (!!!) - appearing as a beautiful female space-being in "Barbarella"-style costuming (!!!!) Oh, and you get an endless prologue in which the Universe is formed from the exploding fragments of Pandora's Jar.
For whatever reason, you can actually see this on Netflix Instant - I very much reccomend that you do, preferably with as many unsuspecting fellow viewers onhand as possible.
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