Tag: Egypt

28 – Resurrection (The Mummy)

As the woman begins to speak, a wind begins to whip about the crowd. There are a few murmurs and the narrator’s voice falters slightly, but she continues.

The last word of the sentence is spoken, the wind dies, the murmurs cease…

The stage explodes. Splinters of wood whip past your face and those nearest the front are thrown to the floor, the narrator lays slumped at the foot of a tree several feet from the remains of the stage.

As the dust kicked up by the detonation begins to clear, an arm reaches up out of the pile of blasted wood. The arm is ragged, all sinew and bone. Tatters of cloth are wrapped about it in places and you feel your heart begin to race.

Could it be? Is this the creature from the cinema? No…it’s different…similar yes…but different.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the figure of a man pulls himself out of the wreckage. The head is more skull than anything else, the empty eye sockets, horrid pits.

Groping about, the man…the thing…finds the still breathing body of one of the unfortunate people who had stood in the front row. The grasping fingers find what they seek, there is a terrible scream.

The thing looks up. The sockets are no longer empty.

So here we are, my third review of a mummy film, perhaps the random number generator likes the mummy sub genre…or maybe it’s just that about 20 of the 300 or so candidates are mummy films…OK it’s me, I like mummies! The question is, do I like this mummy film?

Let’s find out, this time I’m reviewing what is probably the most watched film featuring the classic monster, it’s Stephen Sommer’s 1999 epic, The Mummy.

Let’s get something out of the way. Is this actually a horror film? Well, it’s primarily an action adventure, but the fact it contains a mummy and is essentially a reboot of Universal’s mummy franchise means that I’m quite happy including it. Also, it has some pretty horrific things which happen in it, this is not quite child friendly. From a certificate point of view this was an odd one as it was cut slightly to get a 12 in the cinema then the uncut home version was a 15.

So the premise of the film concerns various adventurers, treasure hunters and archaeologists searching for a lost city in the deserts of Egypt and encountering an ancient malevolent mummy. I referred to the film as an epic, and that’s just how it feels, it’s honestly more like an Indiana Jones film than anything else, the soaring music, the action, the quippy dialogue, the genuine creepy moments, it’s all there.

Our main trio of characters are Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), American, former member of the French Foreign Legion. Evelyn Carnahan, a British Egyptologist (Rachel Weisz), and her brother Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah)…who seems to be a bit of a playboy more than anything else.

The Chemistry between Brendan Fraser and and Rachel Weisz’s characters is fantastic. I know I mentioned it already but this is like the true 4th Indy film, more so than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever was. Arnold Vosloo plays the titular creature with gravitas, as with Universal’s original 1932 film, this mummy is no simple shambling brute but a powerful, intelligent being more akin to a sorcerer.  Whilst we’re talking actors I can’t forget that this film has it’s moments of hilarity, most notably when Kevin J. O’Connor or Omid Djalili are on screen. Honestly the whole cast is fantastic.

The locations are equally good. Sweeping desert vistas, dark foreboding tombs, opulent villas and all set in 1920’s colonial Egypt. This is all enhanced further by Jerry Goldsmith’s grand musical score which puts you in mind of the epics of earlier decades, totally suited to scale of this film.

Even the CGI effects manage to stand the test of time and mostly hold up, even by today’s standards, at the time they looked incredible. If I had to be nit picky I’d say the lighting looks a little off when we are seeing the animated mummy for the first time, but honestly for 1999 I should just shut the hell up, especially if we look at the Scorpion King from this film’s sequel which reeeeeallly doesn’t hold up…maybe we’ll get to that sometime.

From a horror point of view, what’s here to justify that label? Well as I mentioned this is part of Universal’s horror legacy, with The Mummy being one of the original ‘Universal Monsters’. There are plenty of creepy parts to this film, far more than in the 1932 original. We see animated corpses, flesh eating bugs, and one poor character has parts of his body removed. Under the action and romance, this film doesn’t forget its horror roots.

Having said this the film can get pretty goofy at times. This can somewhat take the sense of danger away at times, we don’t really feel that any of our main group are going to die. Plenty of characters do die in the film, but it’s certainly not going to be a surprise. If the film lacks anything it’s subtlety. It’s grand, it’s dramatic, but it’s not clever.

So is it any good? The truth is, I’ve watched this film more times than most in my collection, it’s a film that I can watch over and over without getting bored, it’s a special film to me and is a big reason why I have a love for Mummies. Universal knew what they were doing with this reboot, but I’m giving The Mummy 4 scarabs out of 5. I did debate giving this a 5, my enjoyment of the film ultimately carries the most weight here, I absolutely love it…but it really isn’t a 5. You could argue that if it had that subtlety and a greater sense of true danger then maybe it would ultimately be less enjoyable. Perhaps…perhaps it’s difficult for a film like this to attain such heights, is it trying to be too many things? This is still a very good film and one I’ll no doubt watch again and again in the future.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

So I mentioned that the film has its creepy moments. For me the best of these is after the group we are following has survived their initial encounter with the resurrected mummy. They have returned to Cairo and one of the American trio who had his eyes and tongue removed by the mummy, which is already pretty nasty, is sat in a room with a mysterious masked figure and Beni. Beni tells him that Prince Imhotep thanks him for his hospitality…and his eyes…and his tongue… It’s a deliciously macabre way of revealing to the poor man that the figure before him, who he cannot even see, is the same mummy who took his body parts from him…and now more is needed. It’s the scenes like this which remind you of the film’s horror roots.

I could really pick any of the moments that O’Connell and Beni (Yes I know I used a surname and a first name but that’s how they’re generally referred to) are on screen together. The one me and my friend Josh seem to quote occasionally is just after the boat they are all travelling on has sunk and they wade to opposite shores of the river. The two of them are in a race to reach Hamunaptra, the hidden city of the dead, first. Beni looks across at O’Connell and shouts “Hey O’Connell, it looks to me like I’ve got all the horses!” and O’Connell quips back, “Hey Beni, looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the river!” hey it doesn’t sound like much but once you’ve experienced the relationship these two have this scene is absolute gold.

Time to put this review to rest.

4 – Time for a Brew (The Mummy’s Hand)

Your breakfast consumed, you sit in a comfy chair by the fireplace, a cup of strong herbal tea steaming beside you. All of a sudden you feel a gentle tap on your shoulder.

Sorry to bother you. My name is Steven Banner, I’m an archaeologist from the mainland. I hope you don’t mind me intruding but it’s just, you have the look of a mainlander yourself, am I right in my observation?

Oh good! Wonderful! May I join you?

I’m sure you think me mad, but I’m telling you, the Egyptians came here, she came here, the Princess, I’m sure of it. The locals tell me I’m wrong, oh they’re nice enough in how they say it, but I don’t like the look in their eyes, they’re hiding something, they don’t like us mainlanders, you’ll find that soon enough.

So what do you say, will you meet me there? I’ve marked the location on this map.

He looks up suddenly, his eyes darting about the room, he stands quickly, speaking overly loud.

Mad am I? I take my leave of you then, good day!

Then in a lower voice.

Come soon…

Some of you may consider the previous review’s film Alien to be ‘pretty old’, and indeed, 1979 was 43 years ago! Today’s film however, came out almost as many years before that, in 1940.

This time I’m reviewing the first of Universal’s Kharis Mummy films, The Mummy’s Hand. Not the first Mummy film from Universal, that would be 1932’s The Mummy, but that film is unrelated, staring Boris Karloff as a very different Mummy named Imhotep.

Chances are that if you imagine the mummy, you are thinking of a shambling, bandaged, killer. That is exactly the mummy that you get in this film, and it is perhaps the earliest example of that stereotype.

The plot follows two American archaeologists searching for the tomb of an Egyptian princess. Along the way they befriend a Magician and his daughter and run afoul of an Egyptian priest and the re-animated mummy Kharis.

When watching films from this far back you have to view them with a somewhat different mindset. The 1940’s is one of the more sterile eras of filmmaking. We are past the introduction of the Hays Code, but before there was much push back against it. There’s no gore, or even much in the way of violence, characters die but it’s all very tame. When it comes to flirting and relationships there’s not even a hint that the characters are anything other than perfectly prim and proper.

If you are capable of watching most recent horror films then this film is not going to scare you, you’d be hard pressed to find a horror film from this period which would. Having said this Kharis himself, played by Tom Tyler, does a good job of appearing creepy and menacing, particularly the shots of him looking towards the camera with those dead black eyes. To modern audiences it’s not very scary but at the time it was probably very effective.

The story itself is decent and compelling if a little disjointed and unnecessary at times, it’s nicely paced, it has to be, the film is after all only 67 minutes long! The main characters are fun, in fact the first half of the film is more comedy than horror with the duo of Steve Banning and Babe Jenson providing a few laughs, particularly once they meet the magician Solvani. The second part of the film becomes more what you would expect with Egyptian tombs, rituals and murder, if you’ve seen the 1999 version of The Mummy then you can see some of it’s roots here.

There’s some nice sets and the scale of the film is good for a lower budget offering, it’s believable that we’re in Egypt even if we don’t see much real evidence of it. It would have been nice to see more in the way of exploration but when a film is this short there’s only so much you can fit in. If it had been even 5 minutes longer and that time had been used to set the scene and add some more atmosphere I feel it would have greatly benefited.

I’m going to award The Mummy’s Hand, 3 Tana leaves out of 5. Not a true classic but an important film in the Mummy mythos. If you’re after a shambling slasher with the archetypal bandaged monster then this is where it began.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

Let’s talk Tana leaves. They are integral to the plot, being the key ingredient of the elixir which revives Kharis, but…why? They just seem to add extra complexity which never pays off. We’re told that 3 keeps him alive, 9 will revive him and allow him to move about, but more than 9 and he’ll become some unstoppable monster! But no, we never get to see that happen, it’s just a tease.

The elixir also seems to work like mummy cat nip and vials of it are used to lure Kharis to his various victims, but again, why? He seems perfectly capable of following orders, it does seem that they’re his payoff for doing the priest’s bidding, but honestly for a film this short we could have done with less Tana and more tombs.

Despite what I said about the story being decent it really does derail a bit towards the end. The Priest, Andoheb, spends most of the film coming across as intelligent, if a little creepy, but then as soon as Kharis brings him Solvani’s daughter Marta, he goes full horn dog and decides he’s going to inject her and himself with the Tana leaf elixir making them both immortal. Oh, so it can do that now? Why hadn’t you done it already if this stuff is so good? It comes out of nowhere.

Speaking of Marta she’s quite a strong female character for a 1940’s movie, she only faints a couple of times, but seriously she’s shown as being the confident, sensible, intelligent person that her father is not and isn’t entirely there to get kidnapped. It’s her who figures out there must be a secret passage, and Steve doesn’t doubt her conclusion. It’s a real plus point for the film that there isn’t a bad boy / good girl dynamic between Steve and Marta which is an often used stereotype.

The final confrontation with Kharis is actually pretty fun, he’s impervious to bullets, super strong and he’s getting close to overdosing on the Tana leaf elixir (OK so maybe it does add something but it could have been handled better!) Kharis meets a fiery end at the hands of Steve and Babe with one fairly graphic, for 1940, shot of the burning Mummy on the floor.

We can’t end on that though, there’s a few light hearted jokes including a nice call back to a letter Steve received earlier in the film. There’s a lot of humour, and it’s well done, it never feels too much and rather than detracting from the horror aspects it helps to make those sections more effective, always end on a joke.

I think that wraps it up…