Sunday, April 06, 2008

Peplum Guide


Over at the Euro-Trash Paradise Yahoo group a few months ago someone was talking about their love of sword & sandal movies. I chimed in expressing my enjoyment of the genre and mentioned a magazine format guide I bought through the mail years ago. I promised to drag it out and post the info about it but I've only now been able to locate it. Sometimes I think I have too much crap and sometimes I think I don't have enough.

It's called "MUSCLES, MYTHS AND MOVIES- 'An Acquired Taste On Video' Guide to the Cinematic Adventures of Hercules". It's listed as being compiled by Stephen Flacassiea. Its a plain black & white magazine copyrighted 1994 with an ISBN number of 0-9641643-0-2.

Its a pretty entertaining 66 page triple columned look at a number of peplums with a four category rating system-
1. Beefcake- how pumped up was the lead?
2. Monsters- are they good, bad, ugly or some combination of the three?
3. Love Interest- is the hot thing wallpaper or an actual character?
4. Action Scenes- Quantity of fights with 'Hero vs. Everyone' being the highest rating.

I'm not sure if this is still available out there anyplace but its a fun read for fans of the genre. Its been so long that I wonder if there was ever a follow up publication with more information and reviews.

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