Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Blistering performances.

I feel I should mention that I saw the movie in its original and widescreen version, not the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. After seeing it, I regret not seeing the MST3K version; surely the hosts of that show would have added some life to the movie by their non-stop comic jabs. To put it bluntly, this movie is a real bore. It is extremely slow-moving and with very little plot unfolding during its endless slog. Making things worse is the character of Hercules himself. There is almost no character development done with this demi-god; believe it or not, for large chunks of the movie he becomes a weak supporting character. Even worse are the moon men; they only appear for a few minutes in the entire movie! Some of the production values are okay for an Italian muscleman cheapie of this time, but they don't enliven the enterprise very much. Unless you watch the MST3K version, I would only recommend the movie to insomniacs.

Aliens from the Moon have landed near the kingdom of Samar and are terrorizing the people into sacrificing their children in order to appease them. Desperately searching for a way to stop this madness a man by the name of "Gladius" (Nando Tamberlani) appeals to "Hercules" (Alan Steel) to come to Samar and lead the people to victory against them. Unfortunately, the evil leader of Samar named "Queen Samara" (Jany Clair) has made a secret deal with the leader of the Moon Men, "Rudolphis" (Roberto Ceccacci) and she intends to stop Hercules at any cost. Now, as far as this movie was concerned I will just say that it had a good plot, adequate acting and some nice cinematography. Likewise, the dubbing from Italian to English was also quite good. However, the costumes for the Moon Men were pathetic and the overall film lacked passion. There was also one scene involving a dust storm that seemed to go on forever. In short, this wasn't a bad film by any means--but it also wasn't as good as it should have been. All things considered then I rate it as just slightly below average.

Hercules Against The Moon Men? The title says it all. And it's hardly a successful mixing of genres.The mythic demi-god strongman played here by Alan Steel is summoned by some folks in a small kingdom whose Queen played by Jany Clair is demanding child sacrifices. The kids go up on a mountain that is continually veiled in mist, but they never come back. Kind of like the Pied Piper without the flute.As for these aliens they're rock monsters who have a human queen who needs blood sacrifices to keep her comatose body alive, preferably the youngest blood possible. When the moon and planets are at a certain confluence, they're going to come down out of their mountain hideout and takeover. What's the science here, I'm not sure, I don't think the producers thought seriously on the subject. Hercules must have stopped them permanently, they didn't make an appearance when Armstrong and Aldrin paid the moon a visit. Though they did bring back some rocks.Careful they don't grow up to be monsters.

HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN (MACISTE E LA REGINA DI SAMAR) is a bad film, though it's almost passable entertainment up until the last 20 or so minutes of the film. Then, the film shows exactly why it's now listed in the "hallowed 100"--the 100 lowest ranked films on IMDb.The film begins in the land controlled by the insane Queen of Samara. It seems that they have made a deal with some weird rock-like creatures. They'll make the Queen all-powerful and all she has to do is keep supplying them with human sacrifices. Oddly, her people don't seem to appreciate this arrangement and one of them even sends out a request to Hercules (Maciste in the original non-dubbed film) to put a stop to Samara and her rock group. The film is packed with betrayals, a love potion and assorted silly rock monsters and somehow it almost works for the first hour. Sure, there are some unexplained problems, such as: "How does Hercules ALWAYS manage to have his skin glisten like he's just had a baby oil rubdown and wouldn't this tend to mess up the furniture?" "If Hercules is so strong, why does he have to struggle so hard and have such difficulty killing some of the people or getting out of traps--after all, he's freakin' Hercules (or at least Maciste), right?!" "If this is a mythical tale, why is it so slow and ponderous?" "Why, oh, why, doesn't Hercules just snap the Queen's neck early in the film and put an end to everything?! Why dilly-dally?!" However, late in the film, it just goes from dull but watchable to totally stupid. When you see the rock creatures and their weird boss, you can't help but laugh as they seem like the least scary and silliest monsters in film history. Plus, when Hercules has his final showdown, it sure seems to end awfully easily and quickly.Overall, it's a watchable mess but still, clearly, a mess of a film. However, there are a few moderately interesting scenes and Sergio Ciani is some nice eye-candy, so I really think it's current ranking on the worst films list is unmerited--the bottom 500, maybe, but not #92--I've seen many films worse than this muddled mess of a film.