Maciste all'Inferno

Sporting only his trademark loincloth, Italian superhero Maciste shows up in the Scottish village of Loch Lake in the 17th century, where the winsome Martha is about to be burned as a witch. Hang about, says Big M, I'll nip down to Hades and sort this out. Pushing aside an evil-looking tree he descends into the Netherworld - a pile of cardboard rocks in some dusty corner of Cinecittà - in search of the real witch who's framed Martha. En route, he faces such perils of hell as serpents, a giant, an evil vulture and, curiously, stampeding cattle. Such unembarrassed loopiness should be amusing, but Freda's poker-faced manner plus the dullest of casts ensure that tedium sets in early: confirmation that the early-'60s muscleman cycle produced only small pleasures at best.