Customer Reviews

Hercules Collection

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I bought this nicely priced set at a retail store for $15. I took a chance on it because it was distributed by Image Entertainment/Retromedia and I have never had a bad disc by these companies. I however hate to say it but at about the 16.20 mark on Hercules, Prisoner of Evil the film stutter skipped and then froze. I tried it on 3 different DVD players, a portable DVD player and my laptop and got the same problem. I got a replacement and it did it again. My third copy just stutter skipped but did not freeze. Sick of dealing with the problem I just got my money back. The clerk at the retail store said they have been getting a number of returns on this set and are actually thinking about taking it off the shelf (!?!). I don't know if this is widespread problem but talking to friends and relatives that also have bought the set I have found that theirs at least had the stutter skip.

For the price of this set it is still worth it to many as it is only one film in the set that is defective. Still I just want to warn you that you will likely get a set that has a bad stutter skip in Hercules, Prisoner of Evil or worse it freezes.

These are re-releases of the previous RetroMedia titles. Image Entertainment now handles the RetroMedia line. Sad to say all 4 discs are the exact same discs that have been available before. Quality is sadly lacking.

I was REALLY excited about this release, until I started to go into the details. (1) A Hercules set WITHOUT Hercules Unchained, this has been crying out for an anamorphic transfer for donkeys' years. It's great if the other titles are in 2:35:1, and if Unchained was there, I would have bought it just for that, but alas, it was not to be and (2)a small point, the cover art is actually from Goliath and the Barbarians, which is NOT in the collection. I'm afraid I'll have to pass, it's a pity Image could'nt have tried a little harder on this one, it really would have been worth the effort.

Image Entertainment has released the HERCULES COLLECTION, a four-disc DVD set with various Hercules movies, some I have seen and others I haven't heard of & will be watching. My review might not be all that helpful since I haven't seen all of these movies but I can at least comment on what I have seen. I will also say that you really have to be a die hard 1960s Hercules or Sword & Sandal fan to really like every single one of them. None of them are all time classics, but a few do stand out as better than average & can be a lot of fun to watch.Some of them that I have seen (not in this set) can be really slow/tedious viewings, heavy on film padding for 100 minute running times. These can be a little overlong with too much dialog and not enough action. I like the ones where Hercules battles a monster. The English dubbing is ok for the most part although it would be cool to have English subs as an option.
Here is the list of movies in this set..
HERCULES - this is the one with Steve Reeves - not bad - this is better than a lot of the follow ups & offshoots. Hercules goes on a long journey, loses his powers,meets up with Amazon women, fights a monster that sounds like Godzilla for the Golden Fleece. This one had a lot more adventure/good plot than later entries and they seemed to try with this , since it was the first of the whole Hercules series of movies. It isn't bad at all. All things considered,it is decent. This was an MST3K experiement,which was a good episode but the movie was heavily cut so it was hard to follow. I can watch this with or without the MST treatment.
MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES - This has Maciste fighting Mole People all throughout the movie non stop. The Mole People are laughable people wearing white with a Christopher Lloyd as Dr Emmett Brown (Back to the Future ) hairdo. It isnt bad when you are in the mood for some campy Hercules related movie. Full frame, looks like a VHS quality print.
HERCULES THE AVENGER - I haven't seen this one , but heard it has stock footage of other Reg Park as Hercules movies
HERCULES AND THE BLACK PIRATE - never heard of this one
HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN - I did a review on this one before and this one is a favorite of mine, very entertaining as Hercules sleeps a lot and had goofy looks on his face. That aside, he fights a monster called Proteus and an army of blond haired men led by Fay Spain. This was paced pretty well and was a decent fantasy - Reg Park as Herc. Fun to watch either in an MST3K or non MST3K format. It is what I would call wild and wooly..
HERCULES, PRISONER OF EVIL - This one was also ok, a little above average. This one Herc (Reg Park) becomes a werewolf..a witchcraft story.
HERCULES AND THE PRINCESS OF TROY - this one was a 1 hour pilot I believe - Herc battles a really cool looking sea monster - but he is not on screen long enough. The monster saves the movie and Herc saves the people from the monster.
ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS - this one I found to be really dull where Atlas fights a one eyed monster - it is a tedious going until the fighting at the end.
GIANTS OF ROME - I don't think Ive seen this one.
There are reviews of these titles all over the web. Now that I have this set I can tell you these are all the same exact releases from Retromedia put together to make one box set. This is basically a double dip. There is nothing new to report other than Retromedia released these as singles a few years ago - so if you own those, you can either hold on to them or go for the box set at a great price..
Die hard Herc fans will love this set, and I think those on the fence wondering if they should buy it should actually give it a try. Some are good, some aren't,but the price for all of these movies make this a bargain even it is a double dip. If you don't own them all and want to have them in a cool box set, here is a chance to own a lot of Hercules movies for a low price

VERY NICE BOX, QUICK DELIVERY

ALL THE BEST,

ERIC