The Witch's Curse (1963)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I can only recommend this gladiator horror film as a chance to visit Hades for the massively muscular Kirk Morris who hides little to the imagination after strolling in after the burning of a witch at the stake, then his heading into hell to prevent an ancestor of hers from being burnt thanks to a curse she put. It's obvious from the moment that Morris goes to the underground world here that he's entered Dante's Inferno, a superb rendering of what hell would look like, and it's up to the imagination to guess what's going on as he looks in on the tortured withering around in the rocky abyss. After aiding Greek king Sisyphus from the falling rock he has been condemned to eternity to push up the hill, Morris locates the location of the damned witch and heads through several dangers to get to her. Along the way, he has flashbacks of previous adventures and helps a bound man escape from a deadly vulture. Another demon tries to prevent him from crossing a canyon on a tree bridge, and other dangers including a fiery gate keep him from reaching his goal as well. But where there's a muscular hero, there's always a victory, and frankly, it isn't too interesting as to how he achieves his goal of reversing the curse. Without the hellish setting, this would have just been another dull and pointless sword and sandals movie. With it, though, it becomes almost artistic, even if made cheaply and featuring a print that is creaky and badly dubbed.

Riccardo Freda's Mucleman great success is compellingly directed with startling visual content . Martha Gunt (Vira Silenti) is accused of witchery by a nasty judge (Andrea Bosic) and Maciste (Kirk Morris) attempts to free her and demonstrate her innocence . As Maciste travels to Hell to find a witch and make her undo a curse she put on the surface world . After the fires of Hades and frenzied attacks by ferocious beasts , there remained only the venom of 'The Witch's Curse' .This classic Sword and Sandals movie gets an atmospheric and stunning direction from genre master Riccardo Freda . This is one of the many muscle men of Peplum who dominated Italian sword-and-sandal epics in the early 60s, it results to be a crossover of Greek Mythology , Peplum , witchery and necromancy , ordinary bare-chested bondage scenes , epic with adventures , struggles , bizarre scenarios and being quite entertaining . Here appears several mythological characters such as Prometheus , Cyclope , Sysifo , a demoniac serpent and several others . ¨Maciste all'inferno¨(1962) resulted in this film being one of the few in which the hero's name, Maciste, was used in the English dubbed version . for other films involving Maciste, when the English language track was recorded in the US, his name would usually be changed to a more familiar name such as "Goliath" or "Samson" . This movie , also known as "Maciste all'Inferno" or "The Witch's Curse" inspired a wave of Italian Peplum films blending mythological/fantastic/horror elements . The film belongs to sub-genre blending fantastic , horror and Peplum , like are : ¨Hercules in the core of earth¨ (Mario Bava) , ¨The conquest of Atlántida¨ (Vittorio Cottafavi , 1961) and ¨Maciste against the vampire¨ (Giacomo Gentilomo,1961) . Once the genre had lost its audience in the mid-60s, producers and filmmakers maintained for a few more years in war stories and westerns . The picture was well starred by Kirk Morris , he often dyed his pompadour-styled hair blond and he had a slight, sulky resemblance to Elvis Presley. Italian Kirk Morris -born Adriano Bellini- was born in the late 1930s and plucked from the canals of Venice for his go at moviedom . A gondolier when discovered by an Italian movie producer, he was deemed a perfect speciman to showcase their spectacles and a fitting hero to help offset the silly special effects and ridiculously dubbed dialogue and he was one of the very few Italian bodybuilders to achieve stardom in the sword and sandal/mythological . This also made him one of the few leading performers who was able to speak the Italian dialog from the script. Morris eventually migrated to the United States where he went into the advertising field . Years later he returned to Italy and the movies , this time as a producer . If one must try to distinguish Kirk from the rest of the mythical bodybuilders such as Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott , Alan Steel or Sergio Ciani , Richard Harrison , Dan Vadis, Reg Park , Rock Stevens , Brad Harris , among others . Other than that his stoic posing of Hercules, Samson, Maciste and the others were no better or worse . Besides , appearing famous Eurotrash babes such as Helene Chanel and Vira Silenti and notorious Italian secondary as Andrea Bosic . Colorful cinematography in Mario Bava-Style by cameraman Ricardo Pallottini in gaudy colours and groundbreaking atmospheres . Being shot in the marvelous caves of Castellana Grotte, Bari, Apulia . Appropriate and eerie music score by Carlo Franci , including creepy chores . The motion picture was well directed by Riccardo Freda who used a number of aliases during his career, including Robert Hampton or George Lincoln and as screenwriter Riccardo Fedra . Riccardo Freda (¨Secret of Dr. Hitchcock¨ , ¨The ghost¨) along with Mario Bava (¨Planet of vampires¨, ¨House of exorcism¨) are the fundamental creators of Giallio genre . Freda worked in many popular genres, including viking films, Peplum, spaghetti westerns, action, and even Softcore, but it is his horror films and Giallo mystery films which stand out and for which he is best remembered . His artistic spirit led him to a strong belief in the importance of visual composition in filmmaking . Freda along with Vittorio Cottafavi continued to realize films in the historical-spectacular style , at which he developed a considerable skill and mastery . From the mid-50s Freda's liking make for atmospheric and colorful scenes of shock began to itself apparent , especially in such Musclemen epics as ¨Teodora¨ , ¨Spartacus¨ , ¨Giants of Thessaly¨ , ¨The seventh sword¨ , ¨Maciste all's inferno ¨, the latter a gripping/horror Peplum and of course ¨Maciste in the court of the Great Khan¨, one of his best films . In the early 60s , he was a pioneer in Italy of horror-fantasy films frightening audiences the world over , especially with ¨I Vampiri¨ and ¨L'Orrible Segreto del Doctor Hitchcock¨ as he combined with that wide-staring of actress , the British-born Barbara Steele . He also made adventures as ¨Black Eagle¨ , ¨The son of Black Eagle¨ , ¨White devil¨ , ¨Son of D'Artagnan¨ , and uncredited ¨Daughter of D'Artagnan¨ ¨. From there he went to melodrama and spy films as ¨¨Mexican Slayride¨and ¨Coplan FX18¨ and even made some western as ¨No killing without dollars¨ with Mark Damon and signed under pseudonym as George Lincoln . Freda's movies had popular appeal , and were usually commercial hits . Several were French/Spanish/Italian or other European co-productions . He has been called a filmmaker "who brings some style to exploitation pictures", and has something of a cult following . Rating : 6.5/10 , better than average Muscleman movie .

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.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

There's no way I could NOT like a combination Italian horror film (of the traditional kind) AND Italian "spear and sandal" film, including this one, which I never saw till two years ago. The "hell" scenes were worthy of "Hercules in the Haunted World," which I also never saw till recently. It seems to be a direct sequel to another "peplum" film (I don't know which), because of flashbacks and little references. As much as I like these movies AS movies, instead of as "camp," even I found it funny when the "Maciste" character arrived in this 17th (?) century Scottish town (and yes, in his loincloth), without anyone wondering anything about him.