The Mummy (1959)

And here we are, at the end of another horror filled month of reviews. And how better to end where we began?

The Mummy, one of Hammer's finest movies combining the best elements from all previous Mummy movies before it, specifically the Universal Mummy movies into one excellent film. The plot is very similar to the Boris Karloff Mummy movie, explorers discover the tomb of an Egyptian princess Ananka which is percieved by protectors of the tomb as sacrilege so they ressurect her high priest Kharis played by Christopher Lee to seek vengeance on those who raided her resting place. Peter Cushing plays the son of one of the explorers, and must stop the ancient Mummy from spilling more blood. This movie, Curse Of Frankenstein, and Horror Of Dracula are the prime examples of Hammer horror and must be seen by any horror fan. The sets are excellent, the acting is fantastic and played by the best actors Britain had to offer, the story is timeless though set near the beginning of the 20th century, and I don't think I need to say this is the greatest Mummy movie ever made. Peter Cushing is a brilliant lead that plays the part with great conviction and style, while Christopher Lee though a mere pawn in the game has such emotion purely through his eyes and you feel immense sympathy for his character. The bits of action are quite good too, fully taking advantage of the set pieces and are there to progress the story but are great spectacle too. It even has a bit of romance in it, which is a common theme with the more classic monsters, the monster seeks a young woman to have and to hold till death do they part. Such emotion is severely lacking in modern horror movies today, you can feel a wide range of emotion other than just fear and shock, which is what sets classic horror so high in the eyes of this humble reviewer. The Mummy is a first rate thriller, deserving of every ounce of praise it gathered after the almost 60 years since it first hit theaters.

Thank you for joining me this month and I sincerely hope you find great enjoyment in these films, as I did. It's always such a joy to discuss horror movies this most wonderful time of the year. Oh, and.....Happy Halloween.

In Retrospect: The Mummy (2017)

I told you I didn't forget!

I'm so thrilled we get another one of these, granted not until 2019 but it will be worth it. So obviously The Mummy did a good job with not only gaining the revenue to show these movies would work in the future, but also with building the universe in which classic monsters are reborn. And I still attribute it to Sofia Boutella, you can get any big name star like Tom Cruise in a movie but the movie is called The Mummy for a reason so the film rides on her performance and I'm still head over heels about her and yet I can still look at her performance and say, yes she did a great job and I hope it won't be the last we see of Ahmanet. When I heard they would take on a more action/adventure tone with the Universal Monsters, I was worried but the movie was still very entertaining. I liked the movie a lot, it had brief but decent action, wonderful atmosphere in some scenes and the horror aspects can still be felt, so I can't say it wasn't a good movie. Not a lot of people know about the classic monsters, but boy howdy have I seen them popping up lately. From costumes, to these beautiful decorations found in regular stores not even specifically Halloween stores, they're coming back and it makes me proud. If you asked a normal person on the street how many Mummy movies Universal made, they might say 4 or 5, five if they count the Boris Karloff original when they made at least 9. These movies can create a new generation of monster movie fans, to make people watch not only The Mummy, but The Wolf Man, The Bride Of Frankenstein, even Creature From The Black Lagoon. There was a reason I talked about the classics my first October, because I was a fan and more people should watch those movies. So I applaud The Mummy, I applaud Universal for bringing them back, and I'm excited for the future of a new world of gods and monsters.

The Mummy (2017)

Oh Sofia Boutella......

What is wrong with people? All I heard about this before I saw it was this movie sucked, it's garbage, nothing really nice about it, and it was awesome! Now I might be biased because I am a very big fan of the Universal Monsters. I thought this movie was great! The action was decent, the comedy was hit or miss but nothing to ruin the movie, the horror aspect was quite good although I must admit it fell into the trope of jump scares, and even the cast ranged from not bad to holy hell can I marry you! Tom Cruise was fine, he did the job and he did it well so no complaints there, Russel Crowe as Dr. Jekell was an interesting choice but I would be lying if I said it was bad, Annabelle Wallis's character was just bland so I don't blame the actress I blame the character for not doing much to get me invested in her. And then there is Sofia. Oh God Sofia.....wow. Like dude, wow. You wanna talk great? You wanna talk awesome? You wanna talk sympathetic, creepy, terrifying, and a touch sexy? Bam, Sofia Boutella in The Mummy! Perfect! Love, love, love her in this movie! You are my golden girl now Sofia! Huh, what's that? This is supposed to be a review, so talk about the movie? Well fine then! The story was a great twist on the usual Mummy lore, with a princess destined to be the next pharaoh of Egypt until the pharaoh has a son and denies her of her throne, so she kinda....snapped and killed the pharaoh and the baby (kinda dark), and she even makes a pact with the Egyptian equivalent of Satan! Nice. But she gets captured, buried alive, and her tomb is not discovered for over 3000 years. So Tom Cruise wakes her up, thank you very much Mr. Cruise, she decides to wreck shit and be you know awesome and she even takes a certain fancy to Tom's character, damn you Mr. Cruise. But Russel Crowe has this kinda sorta secret league where they hunt monsters, and they try to take her down. So that's basic plot, and I found myself very interested cause I want this to work so bad. I need a cinematic universe of Universal Monsters! The monsters are back after 86 years. High time for a comeback! Go see this movie, if for no other reason than for me. You people can have your superhero movies always, but who has got the love for the monsters? I certainly do. So of course I highly recommend to see this movie in theaters, go watch it, be introduced to a new world of gods and monsters. And see if you can pick out those easter eggs in the glass jars! I have faith in you. Until next week.....

The Mummy Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor

No wonder it took 7 years to make this friggin' movie!

Sweet Jesus I am having severe flashbacks to Pirates. Not a good start. I don't feel like recounting the plot! Blah, blah, blah, ancient evil, drama, betrayal, curses, evil wakes up. Rick and company got to deal with it. Same old shit. Though it is awfully nice to change it up from Ancient Egypt to Ancient China. It does a bit more in terms of how powerful the villain is. But honestly setting it after World War 2 barely does anything. So strike one, familiar plot to Pirates. Strike two, Rachel Weisz could not reprise her role and it hurts the film majorly in my eyes, cause she made that character and seeing someone else in the role feels incredibly wrong. And strike three, they bring motherf***ing yetis in this movie!!! Are you high?? Just...just why? Congratulations, the Mummy trilogy has jumped the shark! Ugh, God. One shining star, the silver lining in these dark clouds is Michelle Yeoh. She is awesome! She raises an undead army to fight stone soldiers! I'm so in admiration of her it's not hardly real. Needless to say she is my favorite character. Oh yeah, and they totally wasted Jet Li as the Dragon Emperor. Thank you so much for that. You know, I heard that the new Mummy movie isn't that great but boy howdy let me tell you something, it can't be worse than this. Like it is going to rock my socks off compared to this! And I can't wait. A shared world with the Universal Monsters? Dream come true for me. And we'll talk about that tomorrow.

The Mummy (1999)

Well this movie was on a list of reviews to be done, and since I already did the classic 1932 Universal Mummy movie, it only makes sense to talk about the most recent ones before the new movie hits Friday.

So The Mummy was released in 1999, even though I could have sworn it was earlier in the 90s, starring Brendan Fraiser and Rachel Weisz. So the story is a basic retelling of the 1932 Mummy, with the priest Imhotep buried alive after having a love affair with the pharoah's mistress, only to be ressurected and it's up to our 3 heroes Rick, Evie, and Jonathan to find a way to defeat the ancient evil before he you guessed it, destroys the world. Okay, not exactly Shakespeare in terms of story but it is a decent action adventure movie. You know, it's kind of weird. This movie is actually kind of a hybrid remake of past Mummy movies. It has the story of Imhotep and his ressurection from the original movie but it takes it's action and adventure standpoint from future Mummy movies that occured after the original. Except those movies followed a different mummy named Karras, and I know this Mummy Movies 101 is going in depth but I wouldn't consider this a good review if I didn't talk about the origins. But basically, this movie is an amalgamation (Love that word!) of past Mummy movies. And you know what really surprised me? Well two things surprised me, first is the sets. Everyone I know talks about the cgi filled moments of this movie, but if you really take a step back and look at the backgrounds, there are many real sets and locations used in this movie. It only uses the cgi when it's absolutely necessary, and I think the new movie will go the same route, real sets but occasional use of cgi when neccesary. Second is the cast! You know what? I am gonna go out on a limb here and say Brendan Fraiser was my generation's Chris Pine. He's a decent looking guy that has no issues doing the action and stunts, has good charm to him, and is very witty and funny at times. I know that sounds insane, but give his performance a shot. Rachel Weisz is very lovely as Evie, but knows her history of Egypt, and yes I am blaming the ressurection on her! She read the book! That's on you Evie. Sorry love. But by the sun god Horus, is Arnold Vosloo awesome as Imhotep, dare I say he makes the movie even though we never really see him until much, much later on. Yeah...the titular mummy doesn't make an appearance until about an hour in of this 2 hour movie, and even then we never see Arnold in full glory until near the end but he commands such a presence, and just how he moves, and how he talks, it really leaves an impression on you. Almost very much like Boris Karloff in the original. And I have no doubt that Sofia Boutella is going to be outstanding! Action is the name of this movie, and it is done very well, sure it's over the top in places but honestly when you get right down to it, you don't really mind. This movie was made to entertain and I say it did a good job since it got two sequels, and a spin off movie (Which we will not be reviewing this week.) so it's not really supposed to be a horror movie. It's an action movie with roots in the horror genre. And if you walk in this movie with that frame of mind, I'd probably guess you wouldn't mind it maybe even like it. It's no masterpiece of adventure, but it's trying to just be an entertaining popcorn flick. And I'm okay with that! So give it a shot, tell me what you think, we might do both sequels tomorrow so I can get that new movie review out for you guys first thing on Friday. So until then, take care.

The Mummy (1932)

Yeah, this is not only a horror story but also a love story.

Now frankly, I love this movie because of it's love story elements in it. Now there is a bit of confusion to clear up before we continue with the review. This Mummy is not the same you probably think of. You probably think of a Mummy always in it's bandages, strangling people, and is more action orientated than horror. And you are correct that is the Universal Mummy, but not the same one in this movie. There were several Mummy sequels that followed a different Mummy named Karras where this one follows the Imhotep Mummy. Now that we got that out of the way, let's continue. The story follows a group of archeaologists who unearth an ancient Mummy that after being awakened is trying to reunite with his Mummy princess. Boris Karloff plays the Mummy to perfection, and he is such a better actor than what you see in Frankenstein. He has such a hypnotic voice and his appearance is fantastic. He towers over every other actor, speaks slow and low, has a groovy fez, and only kills when necessary. This is a perfect monster, and you will greatly enjoy this film. It's one of the prime examples of a horror classic.

Tomorrow we look at one of the funnest monster movies and most interesting special effects ever to come out of the 1930's.