Musings!

Ettore Manni and Reg Park in HERCULES - PRISONER OF EVIL (1964) 

The movie's synopsis at IMDb: Hercules battles an evil sorceress who turns men into werewolves.

That pretty much covers it. I like the story. The original character wasn't Hercules but Ursus but even that doesn't really work with the story. Maciste would have been better. Both Manni and Park were in HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1961) so this was a reunion of sorts. The film utilizes BIG chunks of footage from THE SEVEN REVENGES (1961). The footage doesn't actually add that much to the story. It just pads the runtime. The (male) Bad Guy in this movie also appeared in THE SEVEN REVENGES as the Bad Guy and this is how they were able to tie those scenes with the new stuff. I wish those scenes didn't exist in the final cut since the production is so obviously different. I think the basic story of the evil sorceress turning men into werewolves would have been fine without it. Maybe a new edit is needed? To make things even more confusing, this movie was re-edited into an adult movie called THE EROTIC LIFE OF URSUS (1970), that added even more additional scenes in the already padded production. That movie is still missing in action. Anyway, this is a mix of PEPLUM and horror and since I'm a big fan of both genres, this movie is right up my alley. Maybe a BY THE GODS! magazine article on Horror and PEPLUM?