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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Retromedia version has good technical quality, June 13, 2009
The Retromedia version offers an excellent anamorphic transfer. DVDs for many campy public-domain films look like they're taken from TV prints that have been dragged behind a truck, then run through VHS twice. Retromedia clearly had access to a clean 35mm print and made a modern digital transfer. It looks and sounds far better than expected for this kind of title--about what you'd get from a major studio with honest technicians and a good vault copy. Given the age of the film and the likely budget, we're probably seeing everything there is to see.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Amusing Movie, Terrible Transfer, December 31, 2005
Of all of the Italian sword-and-sandals movies, this has perhaps the silliest premise--in fact, the whole notion of Hercules fighting "moon men" only appeared in the English-dubbed version (the Italian original is about "Maciste," a strongman character in Italian movies back to the 1914 *Cabiria*, and there was nothing about aliens from the moon). It is moderately entertaining, and very low budget, as was typical for these movies. I say moderately entertaining, but only if you like this sort of thing, i.e., cheesy genre movies--if you're looking for another *Casablanca*, this isn't it. Most of the sword and sandals DVDs have very low-quality transfers: they chop up the original widescreen movies with pan-and-scan, and often look like they are using a video camera pointed at a TV screen showing a very faded and scratched print to make the transfer. This particular movie, however, has the worst transfer I have seen yet: few colors besides blue have survived, and there is no sharpness in the image at all. I am checking out the "special edition" DVD of *Moon Men* from somethingweird.com (Something Weird Video), which specializes in this sort of thing--they promise widescreen at least, and a "digitally remastered" version.
I've looked at the Something Weird version, and it is incomparably better (well, the visual quality is, at any rate!)--this is the double feature entitled "Hercules Against the Moon Men/The Witch's Curse" (a mere $17.99 here at amazon.com).
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4.0 out of 5 stars
I knew something was up when I saw the name 'ALAN STEEL', July 30, 2010
I found this dvd in a used book store and picked it up just for the fun of it. The first thing that caught my eye was that the lead was named Alan Steel and it took about 1 second and a half to realize that was a name that was thrown on just for an American audience. So anyway, I didn't expect much, and in a way I was not disapointed for this is just not a very good movie. Why 4 stars then? Well, it was entertaining. Queen Samara was just awesome even if she wasn't very competent. The plot was kind of a mish mash of different things going on but in the end it boiled down to moon men helping Quenn Samara gain more power in exchange for her helping them bring the moon closer and arrange for her sister to help reanimate some other woman for a purpose I didn't get. Anyway once the plan falls apart and the Queen runs to her moon men bodies for help we discover what comes from an unholy alliance. And it's not that Samara didn't have a chance. I think if I broke my leg and had to carry an anvil I could move faster than the moonmen. Well, Hercules does eventually do battle with the moonmen and it's the mismatch of the century. This movie din't promise much but it was watchable, laughable and kind of fun. It's probably more fun if you have a few friends with you. We had a group of 8. That helped. You have to be in the right mood, but if you are, go for it. I'll stick by my 4 star rating.
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