15 Greatest Guilty Pleasure Movies Of The 1980s

14. Hercules

Joysticks 1983
Cannon Films

When the subject is 1980s trash cinema, there's no way we can get into it without mentioning Cannon Films at least a couple of times. Indeed, we could quite easily make a full list of great guilty pleasure movies featuring nothing but Cannon productions.

The 80s also saw the rise of the sword and sorcery movie: Conan-inspired tales of high fantasy filled with magic, monsters and musclebound heroes, usually boasting posters/VHS covers that promised spectacular visions, but almost never with the budget to pull it off.

1983's Hercules is one of the most beautifully bonkers of them all. Directed by Italian schlockmeister Luigi Cozzi (under his Anglicised pseudonym Lewis Coates), the camp classic casts Lou Ferrigno - bodybuilder, one-time arch rival of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former small-screen Hulk - in the title role as the mythic demigod hero, legendary for his physical strength.

As eye-popping as Ferrigno's muscles may be, these are by no means the only thing liable to leave you staring in disbelief. The movie borrows liberally from many adventure hits - Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark - but clearly has a lot less money in its coffers.

Brace yourselves for numerous scenes of Ferrigno and his similarly scantily clad co-stars cavorting on sets that look like they're made of foil-wrapped balsa wood, doing battle with stunningly unconvincing stop-motion monsters, and - in perhaps the film's most unforgettable scene - throwing a bear into outer space.

Now, who can deny that the 2014 Dwayne Johnson Hercules would have benefited from a bit more of such absurd spectacle?

 
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Ben Bussey hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.