A witch-burning opens a slew of weirdness.
Loch Laird, Scotland, 1550: Witch Martha Gaunt is sentenced by the cruel Judge Paris (Andrea
Bosić) to be burned at the stake because she would not grant her favors to the magistrate when she was young and pretty. Now that she is an aged hag, Gaunt is an easy target for Paris to avenge his rejection upon, but as the flames lick higher, the witch calls out the judge's vindictiveness and places an eternal curse upon Loch Laird.
A hundred years later, the village remains under the curse, and many of its young women languish in the local dungeon as they await trial for witchery. Yes, the town is in the throes of full-blown Salem-style witch paranoia, engendered by Gaunt's curse, and many innocent women and girls have been unjustly put to death. It is at this point that a newlywed bride (Vira Silenti), whose name just so happens to be Martha Gaunt, is honeymooning at a nearby castle with her groom, the locals get it into their heads that she is the original witch now returned, so in no time the rabble whips themselves into a frenzy, grab torches, and storm the castle, beating the husband unconscious and dragging the innocent Gaunt off to be unceremoniously hanged. However, the law does exist and the accused must receive what amounts to the era's idea of a fair trial by the local magistrates. The spirit of the witch can be heard cackling at this situation, and when Gaunt must touch the Bible as proof of her innocence, the vengeful sorceress causes the Good Book to burst into flames, thus ensuring Gaunt's demise.
You, milady, are screwed.
But just as the townsfolk are about to string the poor girl up, who should arrive from out of nowhere but Maciste (Kirk Morris, nee Adriano Bellini, 1961's Mr. Italia), the hunky, shirtless beefcake hero who wears nothing but a short peplum skirt and boots.
All-purpose superhero and bronzer spokesman Maciste (Kirk Morris).
Looking like he hails from either biblical times or ancient Greece, Maciste (pronounced "mah-kee-stay") is the world's strongest man and is apparently able to travel anywhere to help the oppressed and those in need, regardless of the obstacles of geographical location and era in history.
Upon rescuing Gaunt from the lynch mob, Maciste is informed of the curse that has blighted the village for the past century, so he steels himself to venture into the depths of Hell itself to persuade the witch to rescind her malediction. Maciste uproots the tree where the witch was burned and from which her curse emanates, thus exposing the entrance to the underworld, and off goes our buff champion on a daunting quest that brings him through the writhing souls of the eternally damned and pits him against a lion, a vulture, a giant snake, showers of molten rock, tons of falling (styrofoam) boulders, and even the biblical Goliath, while the spirits of the witch and the also-damned Judge Paris lurk in the shadows, plotting to thwart Maciste's mission. Meanwhile, the innocent bride's date with the stake looms nearer with each passing hour...
Maciste contends with a snake.
MACISTE IN HELL, released in the U.S. as THE WITCH'S CURSE, was the third of star Kirk Morris's six Maciste outings, and it's a weird gene-splicing of "folk horror" with the 1960's glut of Italian peplum/muscleman flicks (aka "tits & togas" movies). As many of you already know, there was an avalanche of cheap Italian-made mythic muscleman flicks released between the late 1950's through the mid-late 1960's, more often than not featuring a hero who is renamed Hercules for the international dub, and that wave was the perfect time to bring back all-purpose superhero Maciste from the realm of cinematic limbo. First appearing in the 1914 silent film CABIRIA, superman Maciste was originally depicted as a north African slave, though played by an actor in blackface, but the character proved popular and was granted a long-running series of movies in which he was reimagined as a white guy. There were 27 (!!!) Maciste flicks during the silent era, and 25 more once the musclemen boom kicked off three decades later. Several actors portrayed the character and there was little or no continuity between his adventures. All one needed to know was that Maciste was the strongest man in the world and that his role in the universe was to appear anywhere and anywhen, with zero explanation, to be the champion of those in need. He has no personality to speak of and all that matters are his righteous feats of strength and courage against cruel warlords, witches, sorcerers, and an endless assortment of monsters.
When the film opens, it looks and feels like a color knockoff of Mario Bava's landmark 1960 witchcraft shocker, THE MASK OF SATAN (better known as BLACK SUNDAY) crossed with the aesthetics of any given Hammer gothic, but then nearly naked Maciste arrives on horseback to save the day and the case of tonal whiplash is staggering. The sight of this Hercules movie escapee thrust into the environment of witch hunt fever in 17th century Scotland is ludicrous, to say the very least, as he is attired like Tarzan while interacting with characters who look like puritans and rustic rabble straight out of central casting.
The unintentionally hilarious visual incongruity of Maciste in 17th cnetury Scotland.
The disconnect only becomes more pronounced when Maciste enters Hell and randomly encounters Greek mythological figures in the forms of Sisyphus (the guy who's damned to futilely push a huge boulder uphill for eternity) and Prometheus, who is of course enduring having his regenerating liver devoured every day by an eagle. All of this results in a mildly diverting head-on collision of disparate genres that do not necessarily go together like peanut butter and chocolate. It's worth seeing for witchcraft and peplum completists simply because it's so damned odd, but everyone else is likely to be left in a state of utter confusion.
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