Fire Monsters vs the Son Of Hercules (1962)

Maciste is a pretty great character to have around.  He's not bound by the constraints of time and place, that's for sure, since he appears all over the earth at in various eras, from the time of Hercules to 17th century Scotland to prehistoric times, such as in this fun peplum.  He sounds a bit like a muscle bound Time Lord, doesn't he?  It wouldn't surprise me one bit at all, given his intelligence and know how of interesting things (like how to make fire and also get rid of witch's curses and other interesting things like that, don'tcha know).

I like the fantastic peplums a lot more than the "gladiator" movies for the most part, since those rarely had monsters in them.

In the US dub here Maciste is called "Maxus" which is kind of odd, since they actually had to dub that name in over the original English dub from Italy.  Most films then were shot silent with the actors adding their lines in post.

Here's one of the "fire monsters", something that almost certainly has to be a Rambaldi creation.  Two of the three monsters come from the water, so the title makes little sense, as exciting as it is.  This movie is full of action and only runs about 80 minutes, so I can easily recommend it, as it's never boring.  These captures come from the European DVD, which make the movie look way better than the washed out PD version we have over here.