Tag: Mummy

18 – What time do you call this? (The Mummy’s Tomb)

Looking up from the now silent phone you are surprised to see something normal…people.

Since leaving the relative normality of the town of Summerisle you’ve not seen anything that could really be described as normal. I mean, you’re fairly sure that the people weren’t there before the phonecall, but right now you’re just happy to see anybody.

You approach a young couple who look like they’re dressed for a formal occasion, the man in a suit with a hat and the lady in a vintage dress, perhaps a 40’s themed event.

“This? Well this is Ubiquity, premiere seaside resort on Summerisle and proud of it! You’re staying in Summerisle itself you say? Well yes it IS the capital I suppose, but not half as big or grand as this place.”

After a short conversation in which you learn that Ubiquity is the second largest settlement on the island, you follow the couple’s directions to the recently opened Elm Street Cineplex. On the way you pass various people of all ages and all…styles. There really must be some kind of event on, so far you’ve passed a punk rocker, a Victorian lady and a group of children looking like they’d come straight out of a medieval fair.

Reaching Elm Street you are confronted by a Cinema that looks far from new. The neon sign has more letters missing than on and graffiti adorns the façade. A man is stood in front of the cinema, he looks familiar…it’s Steven Banner, from The Green Man back in Summerisle.

“I asked you to come soon! It’s been…oh never mind, this must be fate. I started without you, I was right, they did bring the princess here! I was making good progress but then strange things started happening, the men I hired, not locals mind, started to go missing. It was then that I received a note, telling me to come to this location…was that you? Did you…”

There’s a loud crash as a heavily bandaged figure smashes through the paint daubed glass of the cinema’s façade, his hands clasping about Steven’s neck, embedded shards of broken glass slicing the flesh of his throat even as the bandaged man’s horrific strength crushes the flesh to pulp.

Hello again, welcome to another review, I’m afraid it’s not as good as the first, but then sequels rarely are…

This time we have our first sequel to review! It was bound to happen at some point, and to be honest with the way the films are picked then the more sequels a film has, the more likely it is to come up. It’s another one from the 1940’s, Kharis the Mummy is back for some sweet, sweet revenge, it’s 1942’s The Mummy’s Tomb.

Set 30 years after the events of The Mummy’s Hand, the film continues the story of Steve and Babe and their run in with the Priests of Karnak. This time however we’ve moved from Egypt to the US and the two friends have to contend with a Mummy on their home soil.

Something I want to get out of the way first is the time setting of the film. As I said it’s set 30 years after the previous film, but when was that set? If we’re being very generous we could say that the film was set in 1920, so this film takes place in 1950, ok, believable, 1942 and 1950 aren’t a world away in how they looked. That however is being extremely generous, as there’s nothing in the previous film to imply that it’s set in anything other than the year it was made, 1940. Now THAT would make this film set in 1970! It absolutely doesn’t look like 1970, I mean why would it, that would be amazing guesswork on the film maker’s part, but there’s no effort made to make the film look like 30 years has passed, other than the age of some characters. To be fair, they may have just assumed 1970 wouldn’t look all that different to 1942, the pace of change really ramped up a little time after this. There is a scene where a reporter mentions the ‘Russian Front’ which would again imply that this is the 1940’s…or maybe a future war…either way the timeline is all sorts of confusing.

This film marks the first of Lon Chaney Jr’s three appearances as a Mummy in Universal’s 1940’s Mummy movies and you really don’t get anything from it being him in the role. Unlike the Wolfman films where he plays Larry Talbot, here he mostly shambles around and gets very little to do, and nothing to say, he seems to be in it mostly so his name can appear on the poster. That’s not to say he does a bad job at the role, it just seems a little pointless him being cast in it.

The Mummy itself isn’t as creepy as in the previous outing, we’re missing those dead black eyes of the Tom Tyler version. It IS a 1940’s film so I’m not expecting anything that’s going to scare me but what would be nice is some creepy atmosphere and that’s absent here. Whether that’s intentional so as to make the film appeal to the widest audience or just the nature of churning out films as quickly as Universal were in the 40’s I’m not sure but the end result is the same.

Moving the location of the film from the tombs of Egypt to small town USA seems like something that would switch things up a bit and add interest, but it really doesn’t. At least when we were roaming through the Bazaars and uncovering ancient tombs it felt like an adventure, this is anything but, it’s slow paced, incredibly short (Especially when the first 15 minutes is a re-cap of the previous film) and honestly dull.

Ultimately The Mummy’s Tomb is a step down from its predecessor. The setting isn’t as exciting, the characters aren’t as engaging, the story isn’t as intriguing and even the Mummy isn’t as scary. There’s very little to recommend in this unless you’re a Mummy fanatic, in which case you’ve likely seen it already. I’m going to give The Mummy’s Tomb 2 flaming torches out of 5, it’s not the absolute worst thing you’ll ever watch but at best this is something you might just decide to leave on while channel surfing on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

**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.

I mean…what WOULD I like to talk more about? There really isn’t a huge amount to this film. Sure I gave it a low score, but mostly because it’s bland, not because it’s committed any heinous crimes or has any stand out bad moments, and I’ve already talked about the oddity of the time it’s set in.

OK, let’s look at our two returning protagonists from The Mummy’s Hand, Steve and Babe. Well they at least look as though it’s some number of years later and to be honest it’s done fairly well, unlike the super old man thing happening with George Zucco as the surprisingly alive high priest Andoheb who was shot by Babe in the previous film and then fell down ALL of the stairs. So yes Steve and Babe are still our main guys and…oh wait no, they’re dead. Steve spends about 15 minutes at the start of the film recapping the entire previous entry before getting killed by Kharis 10 minutes later. We don’t see Babe till a little later on but he only lasts about 10 minutes as well from first to last appearance.

It’s a shame because these two don’t even get any screen time together, the film is intent on passing the torch over to Steve’s son and we don’t get any of the chemistry that the two of them had in The Mummy’s Hand, in fact there’s no chemistry at all in this film, unless you count brewing tana leaves.

The deaths in the film are mundane affairs, with the one armed, shuffling Kharis somehow able to grab people, two of whom could see him coming for them, and then strangle them or whatever is happening, he looks a bit like he’s performing Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch, but either way, they’re dead.

By the way, what is it with these horny priests of Karnak? Again we have a situation where the priest, this time Andoheb’s protégé Mehemet Bey, can’t help but order Kharis to kidnap the film’s leading lady. Honestly they can’t control themselves!

That’s all I can think of to talk about! Time for me to shuffle off myself!

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…