After Aggripina Minor has had her squint-eyed husband Claudius killed, her son Nero (Rudy Adams) becomes the next Emperor of Rome. Nero likes to sing and recite poetry (and suck on his mother's nipples) but he feels a little out of inspiration. So he begins to stalk the streets searching for his next sexual kick in order to find inspiration for his poetry. Meanwhile he has sex with his mother frequently but also to a gay in drag as well as several mistresses of various shapes and sizes. Nothing helps his inspiration, though, and cheered on by his latest mistress Poppea (Patricia Derek) Nero then decide to burn Rome to the ground, blame it on the Christians, then build it up again to its new name Neropolis.

Nero and Poppea is Bruno Mattei in prime form. It's a definite relief for those who've suffered through Mattei's Caligula and Messalina at least (although that was released after this film). And yet frequent co-writer Claudio Fragasso hadn't anything to do with it. He wasn't needed, the basic story was already there. It's a totally ridiculous mixture of just about everything this genre of Caligula rip-offs can offer. There's political conspiracies, assassinations, massive orgies, gang rapes, incest, violence, torture, dancing midgets and a gigantic showdown at the end consisting entirely of footage lifted from other films such as The Last Days of Pompeii. While there's nothing here as hysterical as the guy in Caligula and Messalina trying to wrestle a stock-footage lion, there's still plenty of dreadful scenes to howl over. Especially if you like over-the-top acting. It's almost as if the main inspiration comes from Monty Python's Life of Brian rather than the above mentioned Tinto Brass classic, with Rudy Adams doing a tacky impersonation of poor Graham Chapman. If you want to know why there are Bruno Mattei fans, Nero and Poppea is one to watch. Movies don't get wackier than this.