Hercules Two: Clamation Boogaloo.

Adventures of Hercules
Lou Ferrigino

They made a sequel? Sweet Zombie Jesus, you have to be
kidding? Did they even watch the first movie before they slammed
down their cash to make the second? I thought not. Well
It's been two whole months, and then some, since I finished the Lou
Ferrigno Hercules movie. It took that long for the effects to
wear off and for me to recover from the shock. Unlike the first
movie, I managed to watch the entire thing without using the fast
forward button once. Like the first one, I had to turn the beast
off for a day and come back to it. It made my brain hurt.

Where to start. Well this movie seems to have been made by the
exact same people in the exact same style as the last. Same
cheesy 'special effects', same crap-tastic costuming, hell it even had
the same actors and the same freaking villain! I kid thee not,
the same actor playing the same villain. They resurrected the bad
guy, because he was oh so tough, you know with all the dieing he
managed to do in the end, and they used him again. Yeah, be
afraid Herc, be very afraid.

That's right. They resurrected King Minos, the evil user of
science, to fight against the power of the vaguely benevolent Gods and
the natural order of the universe. Was this movie funded by the
Roman Catholic church? I mean really, evil science? Science
the cause of chaos? In the end Minos didn't get any wicked ass
gizmos in which to battle the other bad guys with, he gets magic eye
beams, and a magic flaming sword. Make up your minds damn
it. is he supposed to be using a kick ass orbital death-ray
launched by the evil United States, or is he using the evil black
magic, invented by the United States? One or the other please.

Well the second movie actually seems to follow a plot that is at times
nearly makes sense. Well the story goes that Zeus' six magic
thunderbolts of something or other were stolen by some rebellious
goddesses led by Hera. These disaffected Hippies, thought to
gain, I'm not quite sure why they did it, but they did it anyway.
Well, yeah that's great, the thunderbolts are missing, the world is in
danger, send the Hercster to the rescue!

Well first of all, before all that started, some evil priests were
sacrificing a scantily clad babe to some god or demon of fire.
Two other scantily clad babes watch the goings on, and decide that they
don't like what they see, so they go for help. They consult a
pair psychedelic butterfly women, who tell them they need the help of
Hercules, and they'll find him in the forbidden valley. Just a
note, there's always a forbidden valley it seems in fantasy movies, and
the valley is forbidden for a very good reason. People in these
movies never seem to remember this fact.

Well The Herc gets to earth. The first thing he runs into is a
creature that I suppose is a werewolf, only it looks more like a
Greying cousin It from the Adams family, who happens to be wearing a
cheap baboon mask, with some dog-like sound effects added on top.
I'm not making this up, nor do I wish I were capable of making
something like this up. Brain Damage! Sadly the rest of the
movie doesn't get any better.

Once again to the so called special effects. The costumes are
cheap, both for the main human characters and for the monsters that
they fight. Some of the monsters use animation techniques.
Not that fancy-schmancy computer stuff, but the old fashioned
way. So old fashioned it seems, that they felt that they were
making it up as they went along. The stop-motion claymation that
they made use of, was out-done by such 1950s and 1960s fare as the
Sinbad films and Jason and the Argonots, not to mention Clash of the
Titians. No, it seemed more like a bad Gumby short at
times. The rest of the animation was just simplistic color,
bright primary hues mostly. Flat and boring.

Oh, I can't forget my favorite part of the movie, the Amazons fight
scene. Chicks with guns kick ass. It is a proven
fact. Much ass is kicked by chicks with guns. I cannot
reiterate this enough. Imagine my surprise and delight when the
Amazons were about to attack. And then disappointment when I
discovered it was just a bunch of men in drag. That's right kids,
rather than getting real amazon like women, they just dressed men up in
drag, gave them fake breasts and everything, and then dubbed it all
over with womens voices. No wonder the Amazons lost, not only
were they poseurs, they were also a group of confused young men.

Then there were the absolutely confusing aspects of the movie.
Zeus, at one point, confronts his arch nemesis chaos. I shall now
recreate the scene for you...

Chaos-chick: We're a lot alike you know, we balance things
between us?

Zeus: Oh yeah? Well poopy head, I gots me the time on my
side baby!

*A giant animated skull comes down and zaps her with a death-ray*

Zeus: Eat it clown!

I don't get it either. It seemed random, like it was added simply
for the chance to let their effects crew draw a giant skull and then
have it attack someone. The entire movie was like that. It
also went along with the first flick in it's blatant attempts to
butcher the original classical mythology. Though at least this time
there weren't any giant robots to fight against. The movie did
make a fair attempt at destroying my sanity and giving me epileptic
seizures. Why did I pay money for this crap?

The worst part is, I have failed to learn my lesson and keep watching crappy movies.

So I plan to survive the apocalypse. Despite all the odds against me making it. But I've been a fan of the genre in general for far too long to believe myself anything other than woefully ignorant of the mundane tasks of day to day life after the end. I mean really, I'm totally out of it when it comes to building a McGyver like trap to take out the last of those bastard biker nomads who just murdered my beloved wife and child. I'll need a wife first. Any takers?

I'd like to take up sailing. Windpower is unlimited, if a bit unpredictable. And the world's surface is covered with water, at around 70%. Plus, and this is important, frakking zombies can't swim. Ok, the buggery tradition of the open ocean isn't so overly appealing, but then sometimes you just need to live by the unwritten book of the sea. Not just the sailing, but the entire survival at sea class of skills, from navigation to gathering food and facing storms.

Next, I'll need to learn how to enjoy fish and other seafood. I hate fish. And I'll probably be living off it for a while. Unless there's some genetic revolution in the meantime and seacows are created. In that case, fuck the Tuna Surprise Jeeves, I'll have the steak. Scientific establishment, get on that would you?

There will probably be other survivors, and life on the move is rather lonely so I really need to work on some better pickup lines. Though accurate(hopefully), I imagine that "I'm neither radioactive or undead! Do me!" Will fail to bring in the honeys for very long. Specially after the other male survivors pick up on those magic words. Eventually I'll need to admit that I just can't compete with the three eyed mutant who can say (and prove) I've got a six inch tongue and can breathe through my ears.

I'm not going for some McGyveresque feat of "I've taken this box of rubber bands, this ballpoint pen and a bag full of baking soda and built a nuclear powered air craft carrier. What'd you do?" No, I'd settle with being able to open the hood of a vehicle and not saying "Gee-willikers, there are a lot of hoses and stuff. looks Like we're walking buddy."

Run a still and make a decent vintage(one that doesn't make the imbiber blind). I don't touch the stuff, and will likely be less interested when I see what goes into the process. But folks do like their liquor and they might be willing to trade. Keep that eye on the brass ring. Remember on you way out to try some Suttonstein's 3 hour special brew - It probably won't make you crazy.

Blacksmithing. Not so much for the weapons/tools/art, but more for the bulging muscles. It'll also give me some affinity for the warhammer.

Land navigation and wilderness survival. If I don't take to the sea I'm hitting the mountains. Which means I have to get to the mountains. And then not die of gross stupidity (I'm betting against myself on this one). It's unlikely that I'll stumble on a goodwilled ole'timey trapper type who will take me under his wing and teach me everything I need after the fact. Nope, gotta be proactive here. I plan to spend the next week or so watching and re-watching Jeremiah Johnson.

Aikido. Nuff said.

Playing gameboy without throwing it when I lose my temper after the fiftieth time in a row where the damn game cheats and I magically get hit and die right before I beat the last boss again, fucking god damn it why does that happen every time who the hell programmed this shit-fest they call a game. Best Buys might be few and far between.

Gardening. Assuming that I live to a ripe old age. Gardening is what old retired people do. I like to leave my options open. Besides how freaky would it be to one day happen on a random plot of land out in the middle of nowhere where a crazy old dude is growing petunias?

Free-style running/parkour. What the hell would be cooler than a post apocalyptic event with a parkour style chase? Imagine my bad self, clad in football shoulder pads and chaps, running through what's left of Paris as a gang of biker nomad mimes try and hunt me down after brutally killing my wife and child. of course there are too many to Aikido and I have no ammunition left (wasted it on the first gang of biker nomads - fuckers) so I have to parkour my ass out of there to lick my wounds and come back and get them with my pointed stick of vengance.

Skill 16, manufacture of kickass pointed sticks.

Knitting. So, after I broke my leg from a misstep whilst parkouring away from some rather savage looking midgets, I'll really need to be able to form a rope and climb the hell down the rest of the cliff so that I don't have to go over the waterfall. I'll just need to remember to keep a pair of long needles with me.

Exotic dance. You never know when it might come in handy.

There are probably more. But I think I have all the major ones.