More of a whimper than a bang for the end. Universal was running out of steam for horror films by the mid 40s and nothing really says it louder than the fact both Ghost and Curse came out in 1944 putting an end to The Mummy until Hammer studios got their hands on it. A titanic shift has occured here in both time and space, so apparently 25 years have passed since Ghost which if my math is mathing puts this in the late 1960s but the bigger kicker is the setting has shifted from Massachusets to friggin' Louisiana! That's kind of a wide berth to put it lightly, we got french speaking residents, multiple mentions of swamps and bayous, it's Louisiana. Admittedly the Universal Monster movies like a lot of series back then outside of film serials didn't hold continuity in a great light but even I was surprised how much was in sync picture to picture so this blindisded me a notch. But hey a change is welcome to not get stale, though it's very much business as usual. Priests of Arcam are searching for Kharis in the swamp to take him back to Egypt, the reincarnated princess is being stalked by Kharis, and the whole movie gets wrapped up in the last 5 minutes in true Universal fashion. Is it bad? No I wouldn't go that far, but I do feel if it truly ended with Ghost we would have a pretty damn good trilogy here. There really isn't much in terms of protagonist here, there's a bevy of characters who don't have much part to play so we just focus on the princess Ananka which sounds great! At long last we finally get to meet this girl who's been the goal since 1940 but since she's reincarnated she just takes the shape of a amnesiac with only hints of her past, which is a shame. Even Kharis doesn't have much to do if anything becoming the mindless killing machine we were warned about from the start, strangling any soul who's at the wrong place and the wrong time. Even the ending is pretty lackluster but it has brief memorable moments and flashes of something good that keeps it from being an utter slog and far from unwatchable. It's the weakest of the bunch but that is the curse of sequels. If I had to do a ranking I'd go:
4. The Mummy's Curse
3. The Mummy's Ghost
2. The Mummy's Hand
1. The Mummy's Tomb
2.5 stars for this one, 6.5/10. And it appears the eleventh hour is over now and the clock is striking twelve. This was a grand October here and elsewhere, and I hope it was for you too. Wherever you may be and whatever you do this most wonderous of days, you'll always have a little corner for Halloween right here.
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