THE BEAST OF BABYLON AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1963)
aka L’eroe di Babilonia
Article 3342 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-23-2010
Posting Date: 10-8-2010
Directed by Siro Marcellini
Featuring Gordon Scott, Genevieve Grad, Andrea Scotti
Country: France / Italy
What it is: Sword and Sandal mayhem

A noble of Babylon returns to find the king has become a cruel tyrant who indulges in human sacrifice. He decides to help some rebels who plan a revolution with the aid of an invading Persian army.

The beast of the title is metaphorical, so there’s no monsters in this one; in fact, this is another case where the only fantastic content is the great strength of the hero (called Nippur). There are some nice touches to this one; the character of the tyrannical king is particularly well played, and the head of the invading army is a more interesting character than is usual for this sort of thing. Furthermore, there is at least one impressive scene of spectacle; it’s a battle scene which features several layers of soldiers, some on horses and some on foot, running in opposite directions. However, you don’t have to have seen too many of these movies to know that the plot here is strictly by-the-numbers, and after a while the movie gets a bit tedious in its predictability. It’s far from the worst of these movies; in fact, it may be one of the better ones, but I’m really at the point with these types of movies that if they don’t offer something new or up the fantastic content a bit, I find little satisfaction in watching them.