COLOSSUS AND THE HEADHUNTERS (1960)
aka Maciste contro i cacciatori di teste
Article 2242 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-6-2007
Posting Date: 10-2-2007
Directed by Guido Malatesta
Featuring Kirk Morris, Laura Brown, Alfredo Zammi

Maciste rescues a group of islanders who lost their home in a volcanic eruption. He brings them to a distant land, where they find themselves embroiled in a battle between distant relatives and headhunters.

The fantastic content here is, once again, Maciste’s enormous strength. It’s not as enormous as some other sword-and-sandal heroes, though; he gets two opportunities to bend the bars back and skips them both. He is good at moving heavy boulders, knocking down platforms and strangling two men at one time, though. There are no monsters and no evil queens to contend with. Despite a sizable cast during the battle scenes, this comes off as one of the cheaper movies of its kind, especially during the opening sequence. And, if you didn’t guess it from the above plot description, there’s no one named Colossus in the movie. Still, I will give the movie points for one thing; when it comes time to bore us with the ritual dancing, at least they make no bones about the fact that it’s done to kill time.