By Glenn Kay
For the Sun
This weekend sees the release of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, a Warner Bros. genre picture with a sizable budget of $80 million dollars. Alas, the studio has decided not to screen the movie for the press. It’s hard to say whether they aren’t confident in the picture, or if the ongoing sale of the studio has resulted in scaling back publicity. Whatever the reason, no one can see it until it officially opens in cinemas. So, it seems like a good time to briefly examine the history of this subgenre.
Ancient Egyptian mummies are iconic and immediately recognizable to anyone, fascinating historians and the general public. But curiously enough, there haven’t been as many films featuring the monsters as one might expect, and the majority haven’t been critical or commercial hits. Perhaps it’s because the character itself is a mute, dusty husk wrapped in bandages – certainly not as charismatic as a vampire, as tragic as a wolfman or Frankenstein’s monster, or as corrupted and unhinged as an invisible man.
Several silent shorts featured these monsters in them, but the first major film was the Universal Pictures classic The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff. Karloff plays Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian high priest who is discovered by archeologists and rises from his sarcophagus in the hopes of being reunited with an ancient princess. It’s a famous title, but isn’t the strongest from the original Universal Studios Monsters line. After the first 10 minutes, the resurrected figure assimilates into society and looks relatively normal, then falls for a woman he believes is the reincarnation of his lost love. Obviously, the mummy’s first major film appearance is important, but this is a slow-paced effort, low on scares and drama.
Despite the middling results, several sequels followed, including the well-received The Mummy’s Hand (1940) which featured more mummy action, as well as the forgettable follow-ups The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) and The Mummy’s Curse (1944). The creature made one more notable appearance in the comedy, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955).
In the meantime, a series of low-budget Mexican B-movies were delivering a different kind of bandaged monster. The franchise began with The Aztec Mummy (1957), which involved a scientist who discovers the Aztec tomb of an ancient warrior and attempts to make this mummy do his bidding. This trilogy of pictures was silly, but featured an interesting creature design (this rotting figure still has some hair!). And, the makers delivered some goofy fights with the monster, including an outrageous showdown in the third and final chapter, Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (1958).
In the UK, British horror studio Hammer Films had been enjoying success with updates on classics like The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958) aka Dracula. So, it was only a matter of time before they tackled the famous bandaged corpse with The Mummy (1959). According to movie historians, the makers took the best bits and pieces from the Universal series, concocting a tale about a team of related archeologists finding the tomb of an Egyptian princess. The youngest member breaks his leg and can’t enter the site, but the others discover a scroll that brings a mummy of the princess’ high priest back to life. The remains are shipped to England, where the creature (played by Christopher Lee) goes on the rampage, seeking revenge on the archeologists. It also wants to find the princess.
The feature is lavishly shot in color and delivers a few inventive and wince-inducing moments. The setting transports the corpse from the desert to the British marshes, adding a bit of freshness to the proceedings. This mud-covered mummy is also taller, more muscular and threatening in this film, thrashing victims as it kills them. While the living characters are a bit dry, there is much to enjoy here. The movie’s success inspired more titles from the studio which were progressively weaker, including The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972).
The late 1970s and 1980s saw a massive increase in horror productions, and so a few mummy-themed titles popped up too. One was The Awakening (1980), a flop with Charlton Heston as an obsessive archeologist searching Egypt for the tomb of Queen Kara. In his quest, he ignores his pregnant wife, who goes into labor. The story moves forward in time, as the lead wonders if his grown daughter might be possessed by Queen Kara. This movie is lavishly shot and features elaborate death set pieces in the style of The Omen, but is ridiculous, overacted, and will give viewers a case of the chuckles rather than chills.
One highlight from this era actually debuted on television. Steven Spielberg produced a major anthology series called Amazing Stories (1985 – 1987), and one of its best episodes was Mummy Daddy. The plot follows a horror film production in the Deep South based on an actual mummy legend. An actor playing the wrapped cadaver receives word that his pregnant wife has gone into early labor. With no time to lose, he hops into a car and races to the hospital, only to be chased down by a mob of locals who believe that he is the actual monster. This episode looks fantastic. The jokes work very well and it’s fun to see a panicked mummy with a muffled voice fleeing angry humans (the script cleverly makes fun of mob mentality). There is even a good story twist, making this effort well worth digging up.
Another winner is Lot 249, the first chapter from the anthology creeper, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). It follows a brilliant but poor graduate student who is cheated for a scholarship by a pair of wealthy, cheating classmates. Luckily, he has a mummy at his disposal, which he uses to seek revenge, although things don’t go entirely to plan. The segment is fast, punchy and darkly humorous, featuring a great cast with early performances from Steve Buscemi and Julianne Moore, alongside Christian Slater.
For those who were kids during this period, the children’s horror series Goosebumps (1995 – 1998) may bring up nostalgic memories. They delivered a couple of passable takes on the creature in the season 1 episode Return of the Mummy and Don’t Wake Mummy (1997) from season 2. The second example is slightly stronger than the first, building suspense as a mummy rises from its sarcophagus in a family’s basement. But viewers will also have to accept low production values and several lapses in logic. Personally, one perhaps unintentionally hilarious moment occurs when the mummy attacks the household, and the kids’ mother flees the scene, letting her kids battle the deadly monster.
As a young man, I attended a film festival premiere of Talos the Mummy (1998). It followed archeologists who discover the hidden Egyptian tomb of Talos, but only find wrappings (and not his remains). Once in London, the bandages themselves come to life, hunting victims to help the villain rebuild himself.
The version I saw wasn’t great (some of the early CGI effects looked horrible, even back then), but it was a unique take that had a few memorable sequences. It also included a great cast, which included Jason Scott Lee, Louise Lombard, Sean Pertwee, Lysette Anthony, Michael Lerner, Christopher Lee, Shelley Duvall and a young Gerard Butler. The movie was picked up by Dimension Films, who chopped nearly 30 minutes of story and character development out and renamed it Tale of the Mummy. This butchered edition is the only one available in North America, turning a flawed but interesting effort into something nearly unwatchable.
Thankfully, we can now move on to the highlight of all of these pictures. The Mummy (1999) is currently the gold standard for this subgenre.
Universal Studios delivered a remake that added a sense of Raiders of the Lost Ark-style adventure to the proceedings. They made Imhotep even more powerful, able to use sand as a weapon and raise other mummies to fight with him. And added well-written and charismatic lead characters (played by Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah) who played incredibly well off of each other.
In this update, a bookish librarian and amateur Egyptologist teams with her humorously dishonest brother and an adventurer follow a map to an ancient burial site filled with flash-eating scarabs and, even worse, a mummy who wants to take over the world. While some of the CGI-effects have dated, the cast, story, jolts and action make this perfect popcorn-munching entertainment.
The film was a hit with audiences as well, spawning sequels and a spin-off series. Unfortunately, the follow-up The Mummy Returns (2001) felt rushed and convoluted. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) did offer a new and interesting setting in China, but still couldn’t match the first film.
In the years since, the famous character has faded a bit. The low-budget horror film Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) is about an Egyptian mummy that escapes a U.S. museum and terrorizes a retirement home. Living there is an elderly Elvis Presley (played by genre star Bruce Campbell), and a man claiming to be John F. Kennedy, both of whom are hiding from the public. The movie has become a cult item and offers some chuckles for genre fans.
The French fantasy/adventure film The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec (2010) from Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional, The Fifth Element) features a museum full of misunderstood mummies who come to life in the final act to help the protagonist save her sister from a deadly fate. It’s a solid effort, though it’s little-seen in this part of the world.
The found-footage effort The Pyramid (2014) is best forgotten. It follows a group of characters who discover a hidden tomb and can’t put their cameras down as they get lost and are slowly wiped out by mummy cats and an extremely phony-looking CGI Anubis God-monster imprisoned in the locale.
And, almost a decade ago, Universal Studios attempted to revive their franchise with a new, big-budget rendition of The Mummy (2017) starring Tom Cruise. The Marvel Universe was reaching heights in popularity and the studio was planning on creating their own “Dark Universe” of classic monsters. Alas, the mix of expansive action, an overly somber tone and a lot of set-ups for future instalments (Russell Crowe appears in the film as Dr. Jekyll) didn’t gel or get audiences worked up about seeing the Mummy, Dr. Jekyll, Dracula and other monster team-up/battle each other many movies down the road.
Now, we have the latest iteration of The Mummy trying to make an impact. Will it manage to overcome some of the issues of earlier versions, or will it fall victim to past mistakes and end up buried in cinema history? The answers should become clearer this weekend.
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