Let's face it, a title like this comes with a certain set of expectations. What I expect from a guy named Colossus is a beefcake who is capable of lifting boulders over his head and flinging 6 or 10 bad guys into the snowy peaks of the dolomites. What I don’t expect is for Colossus to spend half the movie off-screen and the other half standing around with his shirt off. I’m not trying to be picky but in this case, certain principals should be observed.

That’s strange because the role is filled by Kirk Scott, a veteran of these pictures who made at least two dozen but doesn’t seem to generate enough interest to fill a soap commercial. Oh, he looks great, he obviously spent a lot of time on his physique and his million dollar perm is appropriately dreamy but his acting chops are another matter. His performance consists mainly of standing around looking to the left of the camera and pointing that diamond-cutter of a chin first in this direction and then in that direction and finally over the head of his leading lady.

Colossus and the Headhunters comes out of the odd and sometimes just plain baffling genre of Italian sword and sandal epics of the 1960s, movies where the latest Mr. Universe puts on a loin cloth and saves a tiny village from a villain too stupid to hire an army with a brain cell.

The story opens with our miss-labeled hero saving a small village from the ravages of a volcano. This is actually the stopping point from the previous outing Fire Monster Against the Son of Hercules of which I suppose this is a sequel. In that film he saves a group of cavemen who escape on a raft. In the very short interviening time for Colossus and the villagers to run from the village to the boat, Colossus has morphed into a different actor and the cavemen have evolved from Neanderthals to Ancient Greeks! Who says evolution takes a million years?

Colossus is never one to stop and ask for directions so instead of sailing to the nearest island he sails all the way round to what he thinks is New Guinea, but it hardly matters as long as it’s got headhunters. Leaving women and children behind he and his men set off into the jungle and inevitably the women and children are captured – GOOD GOING COL!

Colossus finds the leader is the beautiful Queen Amoa who says that the people once lived in a city make entirely out of gold (uh huh!). Unfortunately, one of their members got greedy and lead a savage team of headhunters to flood the city with rivers of blood and severed body parts (why are the tales told in movies like this so much more interesting than the movie we’re watching?) Apparently, the turn-coat kidnapped her father and the people watch the clock and now count down the hours until the headhunters return and turn them into hamburger.

According to Queenie, Colossus is her people’s chosen savior (who decides that?) but Colossus decides to obey the Prime Directive and get the &@#$*# outta Dodge. He and his men get ready to leave and it’s ONLY THEN that the headhunters make their move.

But that’s not the end of their problems. The turn-coat returns with the the headhunters and takes Amoa prisoner until she agrees to marry him. He also, for some reason, has to get the permission of her father whom he had blinded and thrown in a dungeon.

Oh, you’ll love this: Pop agrees to the ceremony so long at the evil king doesn’t like cut her throat or anything – eww. Amoa, always a woman of ideas, comes up with a plan to stall the wedding until Colossus can come to the rescue by – and I am NOT making this up – having her handmaiden do an interpretive dance!! Not just a dance but a strange sort of Chicken Dance thing, the kind that leaves the jaw dragging and the therapist well paid.

It seems to take about three weeks for Colossus to get off his beefy butt and stop the wedding and by the time he does the war is half over anyway. His arrival at the battle doesn’t exude the kind of “At Last” sentiment so much as “Geez, it’s about friggin’ time!” And after having to rescue the queen for the twelfth time, Colossus finally makes mincemeat out of the evil king so he can blow off the offer to be King of this new land and sail off to another sequel.

Colossus and the Headhunters is an example of what happens when when you create a Ray Harryhausen special effects movie without Ray Harryhausen or special effects. That leaves us at the mercy of the *gasp* the plot! Not only that but the movie is ENDLESS! I swear that at 79 minutes the movie seems to take three weeks. Where it’s going you don’t want to know, you’re just relieved when you get there so you can go out and have a life. But life or no life, you’ll spend days and weeks trying to wrench that chicken dance out of your brain. I'm still working on it. Get out, get out GET OUT!!!