PEPLUM Clichés: Disposable Soldiers

One of the biggest clichés in PEPLUM films is the typical disposable soldiers or troops which offer almost no resistance to our heroes. If there's one cliche which I find sorta annoying, well, it's this one. The bad guys are usually so ineffective that they make our hero seem quasi weak. Remember, you're only as strong as your enemy is and if the army of the villain can be toppled by simply sneezing on it...it's not very impressive, if you know what I mean. Most of it is for fun, of course, but even more serious PEPLUM films do this. Here are a few examples:

Maciste (not Mark Forest but a stuntman) is about to clobber two mole men and a bunch more in MACISTE VS THE MOLE MEN.

Wandisa Guida is trying to convinced a bunch of soldiers to help her. Hmm...I wonder what will happen to these guys. Enter Hercules and boom! From HERCULES AGAINST ROME.

From MY SON THE HERO (or The Titans). Probably the best (or worse) example of this cliché...but this is a comedy so of course these guys are just props for funny action.

Above and below: same as MY SON THE HERO, these disposable soldiers from GOLIATH & THE SINS OF BABYLON offer almost no resistance mainly because it's played mostly for laughs.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of SON OF SPARTACUS (aka The Slave) was the mercenaries used by the Romans to terrorizes the land. Those guys were as strong as a wet noodle. This being a more serious PEPLUM, the realism of the ineffective mercenaries made the film appear more superficial than it should have.

Uploaded to the PEPLUM Clichés page