Hercules with Lou Ferrigno (1983)

It's like if Clash of the Titans puked up a Stretch Armstrong doll.

Recently a friend brought up Menahem Golan, of The Cannon Group and Golan-Globus fame, because that’s the kind of friends I have (it’s fine, I’m not looking for pity, it is what it is). Anyway, Golan passed away in 2014, yet his name remains a collective noun for a certain kind of Eighties movie. And while my enjoyment of his films was somewhat impaired by how much I didn't enjoy them, I did admire the guy's work ethic. He produced 200 movies, directed 44, and undeniably left a mark on film history; one might even say a bruise.

So I thought, "attention must be paid to such a person"—especially in a book like this—and plunged headfirst into Mr. Golan's delirious 1983 epic, Hercules, starring Lou Ferrigno:

Hercules (1983)
Directed by Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)
Written by Luigi Cozzi

The screen is black. Sadly, it doesn’t stay that way.

A string of Black Cat firecrackers explode, representing the Big Bang, and leaving some flakes of charred paper stuck to the camera lens.

“From the primordial explosion,” our deep-voiced narrator explains, “Emerged the Fire of Chaos.” At this performance, the Fire of Chaos will be played by a flaming Kingsford Charcoal Briquette, confirming Stephen Hawking’s theory that while the Universe has no boundary in space-time, its edges light quickly.

“Chaos merged with Darkness, and from this union were born the elements: Night, Day, Matter, and Air.”

I think you’re missing a couple elements there—Fire, Water—and according to the periodic table, Night and Day is actually just a Cole Porter tune from The Gay Divorcee.

Due to layoffs and budget cutbacks, the Greek pantheon has been reduced to just three gods. This understaffed celestial call center is ruled by Zeus, father of deities and men, lord of creation, and judging by his wig and beard, an off-season Salvation Army Santa with one of those crowns you get when you taste Imperial margarine.

The gods live on the moon, in a temple which recalls the majestic architecture of Classical Greece; except the columns look like giant plaster dildos and are covered with melted wax like Chianti bottles, so it’s like ancient Athens if the Parthenon were a gayer, more fetish-oriented Shakeys.

Zeus creates a champion “who is stronger and more intelligent than all other men,” a process which involves watching Lou Ferrigno go through his Mr. Universe pose-down routine in the middle of a planetarium show. Ordinarily this would just be horrifying, but Hercules goes the extra mile by having Lou wear a flesh-toned G-string to simulate nudity. And for those who’ve wondered whether steroids actually shrink genitalia, check out the contrast between Lou’s bloated musculature and flat-front thong, because “smooth” doesn’t begin to describe it. His groin is like a freshly Zamboni’d ice rink.

Zeus plays flashlight tag with the earth, before depositing a glowing glob into a baby, in a scene about which the less said, the better.

Sybil Danning, who is dressed like one of King Tut’s molls from the old Batman TV show, conspires to kill “little Hercules,” (apparently she saw the flesh-toned jockstrap too), and she’s brought along some fabulous troops to do the job. Their traditional accoutrements—Illyrian helmets, Boeotian shields bronze spears—have been Bedazzled with rhinestones, suggesting there’s a previously unnoticed footnote to the Iliad which reads, “Fashions by Bob Mackie.”

A maid snatches up “Poor Little Prince Hercules” and flees into the forest, although the Foley guy seems convinced she’s jogging through corn flakes with a goat in her arms.

She puts Baby Hercules in a boat and sends him floating down the river, where he bumps into Moses going the other way. The boat drifts past some View-Master slides, then goes over a waterfall, but the infant is saved when his boat is caught in mid air by the giant cartoon hand from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Hera is one of the three remaining gods and is pissed that she has to work a double shift, so she sends two snakes to kill Hercules. And when I say “snakes,” I mean “two yard-long turds that have been flocked like Christmas trees and spray-painted the color of split-pea soup, then given two bicycle reflectors for eyes.” It doesn’t really work, which offers the first of this film’s life lessons: don’t get your animal assassins from Hobby Lobby.

Herc is plucked from the river by two Greek peasants who live in the Flintstone’s house for some reason (possibly Fred was laid off from the quarry after the transition from stone to bronze, and he and Wilma just walked away from their mortgage. Or maybe Dino matured into a velociraptor and learned how to open the front door).

Herc’s foster mother is barren, but likes to press the infant to her dry breast just to mess with him. Nevertheless, he grows up into big ‘n’ tall Lou Ferrigno, who mercifully trades in his invisible G-string for a Naugahyde diaper.

Herc is out in the forest, harvesting Styrofoam trees, when his father is mauled by stock footage of a grizzly. Hercules is so enraged that he screams and punches the camera, then throws a Build-A-Bear into orbit. It stages a brief Laser Floyd show before eventually becoming the constellation Ursa Major (better known by its common name, "Explosive Decompression").

Meanwhile, Minos has abandoned Crete and is also now living on the Moon, where he has been crowned king of an old Star Trek set. He uses the transporter to summon the legendary artificer Dedalus, who in this version is an alien woman dressed in a unitard and a shower curtain cape with a cellophane Dracula collar, an infielder’s groin cup (worn outside the pants, Superman-style), cowboy boots, and a golden leather football helmet with fish fins.

Minos believes in Science!, so he commands Dedalus to create some mechanical monsters which can destroy Hercules. She responds with a couple of Mexican Day of the Dead figurines and a Millennium Falcon model someone assembled while on acid, then burned in the driveway.

Back on Earth, Hercules is plowing a field by dragging some rocks behind him. Weaker men might have preferred to plow using something with an edge on it—like a plow—but Herc likes to flaunt his demi-godly strength, and frequently uses boulders in place of ordinary household items, like egg whisks, or toilet paper.

Suddenly, Hercules’s friend Mulletus gallops over the hill and screams, “Your mother is in danger!” Then he turns and trots off. Herc’s expression is rather blank, but he undoubtedly appreciates Mullutus telling him that his mom is about to be killed. He probably would have appreciated a ride even more.

By the time Hercules jogs home, his foster mother has been murdered by Dedalus’ machine (it’s supposed to recall Bubo, the mechanical owl from Clash of the Titans grown to Brobdingnagian proportions, but more closely resembles a Norelco shaver made out of Legos and despair).

After an implied fight with the Tinker Toy monster, Herc cremates his mother, then torches the Flintstone place. Mulletus asks why he’s burning down his own house, and Herc replies, “I don’t have a house anymore.”

Well, no, now that you’ve set it on fire. Burns good for a big granite mushroom, though.

Hercules goes off to audition for some king who’s looking for bodybuilders with a reasonable amount of stage combat training. Our hero doesn’t qualify, but his Fairy Godeditor helps out by enchanting Herc’s sword, so that whenever he smacks someone it farts out a crappy video effect.

Next, Hercules must fight twenty men at once. Unfortunately, he never learned the complicated rules of Greco-Roman wrestling, so he just picks up a giant log and crushes everybody. Then, in keeping with his No Littering policy, he hurls the log into deep space, where it becomes the Duraflame constellation.

The king’s daughter Cassiopea wears a veil, because it is foretold that she will marry the first man who sees her face, or maybe because she just hasn’t waxed her mustache lately (she’s Greek, after all). The king subcontracts Hercules to escort Casio to Athens, but first he has to clean all the horseshit out of the stable, then see what he can do about rinsing some of it out of the script.

Herc tosses a rock into the Grand Canyon, which somehow makes the Colorado River ride an elevator to the top and drown all the horses. It also turns the stable into a sparkling gay bathhouse.

The mildew-free tile and wet, dead horses arouse Calliope, and she removes her veil in slow motion. She and Herc kiss, but a badly superimposed Zeus appears and tazes them with a lightning bolt from his forehead (my dad used to do this too, but at least he’d usually wait until I got to second base).

Sybil kidnaps Cassowary and Herc washes ashore on that island where H.R. Puffnstuf is mayor, and is immediately molested by Witchiepoo. She takes him to the Cave Room at the Madonna Inn and tests him for steroids and diabetes, then drinks his blood sample and transforms from a hideous crone into a beautiful maiden! Or at least into a pleasant-looking MILF with only the usual amount of dried rubber cement on her face.

The woman, Circe, takes Hercules to the Los Angeles County Arboretum, where they gawk at a waterfall.

“This,” Herc exclaims, “is a Garden of Eden!” Which is an odd thing for a Greek demigod to say—particularly before the Old Testament was written—but maybe Hercules was an early adopter. He probably backed Monotheism’s Kickstarter and one of the premiums was an advance peek at the Pentateuch.

Meanwhile, Casserole is imprisoned in one of those cardboard jails where people pay “fines” to get bailed out at Rotary Club fundraisers.

Circe leads Herc across the “Rainbow Bridge,” which leads to “the Gates of Hell.” They don’t find his missing girlfriend, but they are greeted by lots of dead pets.

Charon, the skull-faced boatman ferries them across the Styx (at this performance the role of the River Styx will be played by a cement floor and a fog machine), then Circe transports them to a Beach Party movie, where Herc has to fight the King of Africa, who arrives on a sedan chair borne by the Washington Generals. Circe uses her magical powers to transform Hercules into Ultraman, and he grows large and tall enough that we really can’t help but look up his skirt. Thanks Circ.

Unfortunately, one upskirt shot and Circle falls in love with Hercules, which makes her lose her powers. But they accidentally arrive at their destination anyway, where Circe is immediately shot with a laser by—I’m not kidding—a robot Cyclops centaur. Hercules smacks the thing around until it makes a sound like a 1970 Plymouth Duster swallowing a valve, and then, in it’s death throes, it performs anal sex on itself with its own tail.

I’m still not kidding.

Herc wakes up chained to the floor, just as Sybil arrives with a chalice full of “The Black Lotus” and tells Herc they’re going to get high and then boink, suggesting the screenplay drew upon several classical texts: Hesiod’s The Shield of Herakles, Euripides’ Children of Hercules, and Sophocles’ Letters to Penthouse Forum.

Minos takes Cassette to Mount Doom, where he plans to stuff her inside a picnic basket and lower her into the lava. She seems okay with this, probably because the “lava” appears to be Campbell’s tomato bisque on a low simmer.

Herc surprises Minos, but the king is armed with a glowing, flaming, multi-colored sword that’s kind of like a light saber if they came in Neapolitan flavor. So it's on, bitch!

The fight is kind of dull, until Hercules accidentally makes the volcano erupt with stock footage. Castrol and Herc panic and run around the tiny set, while we cut to shots of burning Styrofoam pyramids and hear the ADR folks shrieking gamely from the looping stage.

So, Herc has managed to kill everybody on the island, but he did get the girl. He just doesn’t seem to know what to do with her, as Cassaba tries to give him a kiss, but he deflects it and retaliates with a little back-patting hug. Then they suddenly shoot into the stars, where they become the Just Good Friends constellation.

Two bears. One waxed.

Okay so it wasn’t a great movie, but Lou was clearly trying his best, and while you may say Ferrigno, I say FerrigYES.