"You Cannot Slay the Dead, Hercules": Horror, Masculinity and the Peplum

The peplum was a subgenre of Italian fantasy film that was extremely commercially successful between 1958 and 1965. The cycle featured bodybuilders, usually of the American or British variety, in hypermasculine roles such as that of Hercules, fighting for justice in a fantastical setting that usually vaguely resembled classical Greece or Rome. This thesis examines the intersection between the horror genre and the peplum. Making use of three horror-peplum hybrid films as case studies, this thesis demonstrates that the horror genre’s predilection for highlighting cultural anxieties emphasises a fear of gender fluidity within mid-century Italy as expressed by the peplum cycle. The three films used as case studies are Hercules in the Haunted World (Ercole el centro della terra, 1961), The Witch’s Curse (Maciste all’inferno, 1962), and Goliath and the Vampires (Maciste contro il vampiro, 1961). In Hercules in the Haunted World, the role of the gendered cinematic gaze is highlighted to suggest that Hercules is becoming weakened by his increasingly fluid, inadequate masculinity. In The Witch’s Curse, doubled characters are used to demonstrate the destructive potential of gender fluidity for both men and women. This is partially expressed through the male hero’s inexplicably transient status within the narrative. In Goliath and the Vampires, anxieties regarding changing Italian masculinity are displaced onto the film’s villain, rather than its hero, which facilitates an exploration of fears concerning homosexuality, and the relationship between homosexuality and the peplum. Overall, this discussion of the relationship between horror and the peplum contextualises the peplum cycle both in terms of cinematic Italian horror and the evolving social attitudes of Italian post-war society.