The Mummy’s Hand is a 1940 US horror film, produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Studios. Although it is sometimes claimed to be  a sequel or follow-up to the 1932 film The Mummy, it does not continue this film’s storyline, or feature any of the same characters, and its plot suggests rather an unacknowledged remake of the earlier mummy film. It was the first of a series of four films all featuring the mummy named Kharis, the follow-ups being The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost and The Mummy’s Curse, all of which starred Lon Chaney Jr in the title role.

The film begins with the Egyptian Andoheb (George Zucco) traveling to the Hill of the Seven Jackals in answer to the royal summons of the High Priest of Karnak (Eduardo Ciannelli). The dying priest of the sect explains the story of Kharis (Tom Tyler) to his follower. The tale closely parallels that of the original film, except that Kharis steals the sacred tana leaves in the hope of restoring life to the dead Princess Ananka. His penalty upon being discovered is to be buried alive, without a tongue, and the tana leaves are buried with him.

The leaves are the secret to Kharis’ continued existence. During the cycle of the full moon, the fluid from the brew of three tana leaves is to be administered to the creature to keep him alive. Should despoilers enter the tomb of the Princess, a fluid of nine leaves will restore movement to the monster.

Meanwhile, down on his luck archaeologist Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and his sidekick, Babe Jenson (Wallace Ford), discover the remnants of a broken vase in a Cairo bazaar. Banning is convinced it is an authentic ancient Egyptian relic, and his interpretation of the hieroglyphics on the piece lead him to believe it contains clues to the location of the Princess Ananka’s tomb…

Tom Tyler, who played the mummy, had previously been a star of western films, but by this point his career was on a downward spiral.

The Mummy’s Hand can be seen as the first ‘real’ mummy film, in the sense that it is the first to feature what would remain essential elements of the series, both for Universal and later Hammer. The earlier Karloff film, other than a brief sequence at the beginning, did not feature a bandaged, zombie-like character shufflingly taking his revenge against tomb raiders – that was something that this film invented, as well as the use of tana leaves (used throughout the Universal cycle). Sadly, it also set a low standard for action, horror and production quality that the rest of the Universal mummy films would follow.

Wikipedia | IMDb

“I know that the 1932 Mummy will always be considered the unquestioned classic, and I’m not denying it is a better-made picture overall. But what I’m also saying is that The Mummy’s Hand is just a lot more fun–a movie you can kick back with if you’re in the mood for some true golden age Universal movie monster mayhem. This is the stuff that the “monster kid” generation was weaned upon. It’s got chills, thrills, adventure and a generous dose of hokiness. It may be no somber, brooding masterpiece of cinematic horror, but when I think of ancient, bandaged, Egyptian dudes, The Mummy’s Hand will always be the film that first comes to mind…” The Vault of Horror

“This movie is perfectly content to be a simple, to-the-point time-waster, filling out the bottom half of a bill with some bigger, flashier film. It’s dumb but speedy, and often entertaining in its unambitious way.” 1000 Misspent Hours

Buy The Mummy Legacy Collection on DVD from Amazon.com

Buy The Mummy’s Hand + The Mummy’s Curse on DVD from Amazon.com

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Secrets of Sex (1969, released 1970) aka Bizarre, is a British film, directed by Antony Balch, an experimental filmmaker and frequent collaborator with William S. Burroughs. The film is narrated by an Egyptian mummy.

After directing the Burroughs-influenced shorts Towers Open Fire (1963) and The Cut Ups (1967), Balch approached producer Richard Gordon in 1968 to direct an anthology film running just over an hour, titled Multiplication. After the script was rewritten to bring the film up to feature length and the budget doubled (32,000 pounds) filming took place over 14 weeks in 1969. Released in February 1970, it was a huge success in the UK, running for six months at the Jacey Cinema in Piccadilly Circus alone, during which time it recouped its entire production cost. The film remained in circulation in the UK throughout the 1970s, sometimes appearing in a half hour edited version that played on the second half of double-bills.

Many of the actresses who appear nude in the film, such as Nicole Austin and Maria Frost, were mainly topless models who had begun to get minor acting roles in British sex and horror films of the period. Frost, who plays Lindy Leigh in the film, was so horrified she’d been given a major role in the film that she reportedly told Balch “I’m a model, I can’t act.”

The dinosaur sculptures that feature in the “Strange Young Man” segment are the famous Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.

The film was substantially cut for the British cinema release in 1970, with censor John Trevelyan removing over nine minutes from the film, while reportedly muttering “nasty stuff”. Heavily cut was the ‘Spanish horse/Female photographer’ sequence, while shots of men in bed together in the ‘Bedroom Beauties of 1929’ sequence were removed entirely. Writing in the Monthly Film Bulletin (March 1970) Jan Dawson remarked of the cuts “ paradoxically, the bowdlerized version of the film moves closer to pornography than the version from which its audience is being protected. …its sad that censorship should function against its own long term purpose and re-enforce the man-in-the-mac’s sexual furtiveness by denying him the chance to view sex irreverently.”

The film was briefly released uncut in America with the title Bizarre by New Line Cinema, before being withdrawn and re-released in 1972 as Tales of a Bizarre, a drastically re-edited version that deleted around 17 minutes from the film. The 1980 UK video release on the Iver Film Services label is uncut, as is the 2005 American DVD and the 2009 British DVD.

In 2005 the film was released as a special edition DVD by Synapse Films under its American title Bizarre. In January 2010 the film was finally released on DVD in the UK, by Odeon Entertainment, under its original title featuring new sleeve-notes by author Simon Sheridan

Wikipedia | IMDb

“There’s lots more: a sexy spy spoof, a silent bedroom farce, a man with a reptile fetish, and a woman who’s captured the souls of her lovers in the flowers in her greenhouse. Sadly, it’s not quite as impressive as it sounds: it’s a real one-of-a-kind movie and is entertaining in its way, but its ninety minutes feel like a long, long time. Acres of gorgeous female flesh, though; so certainly not all bad.” Cinematic Fibre

DVD Drive-In review

Pink Panther and Pals is a 2010 animated television series based on the classic DePatie-Freleng Pink Panther shorts from the 1960s, produced for Cartoon Network by Rubicon Studios in association with MGM Television. The show is composed of two seven-minute Pink Panther shorts with a seven-minute Ant and the Aardvark short in between (so that’s seven minutes break to go and so something else!).

In ‘And Not a Drop to Pink’, the Pink Panther is an Indiana Jones-type archaeologist exploring an ancient pyramid in Egypt that’s guarded by Mummy Big Nose, who wants to add him to his collection of animal mummies. After avoiding various deadly traps, charming an array of huge snakes with Henry Mancini’s original Pink Panther theme tune, and taming a giant ferocious guard dog, Pinky is able to find a fountain of youth which turns the mummy back into a baby.

Wikipedia

Vampire Season - also known as Vampire Season Monster Defense – is a Tower Defense/Strategy video game produced by Brainz and A Little Birdie Entertainment. It was released on June 28, 2012 for iOS devices. There are thirty levels spread across three themed chapters.

Vlad Cosmo Tepes, better known as Count Dracula and as one of the most notable vampires in history, has been hunted (unsuccessfully) for centuries by the Van Helsing clan. He used to reside in a secret castle in Transylvania until 2012, when Anthony Van Helsing revealed his location, resulting in one of the largest vamphunts in history, also known as The Great Hunt. Now, thanks to the 21st Century’s general lack of online privacy, Dracula’s secret hideout has been revealed and it’s up to players’ defense and strategy skills to protect him from a horde of big game hunters.

Vampire: Vampires are one of the most ancient supernatural creatures, with some scholars speculating their origin as far back as Cain himself. Other scholars claim they go back to the T-Rex.

Werewolf: Werewolves almost became extinct in the early 1900s. They are half human and half wolf. In no particular order. They are highly attuned to nature and possess heightened senses of smell and sight. Werewolves have been around since the dawn of civilization. Contrary to popular belief, they have not always been at odds with vampires. They just had one huge disagreement, but they get along pretty well most of the time.

Zombie: Zombies are the result of diverse causes: Voodoo, Hoodoo, Comic Books, etc. They have been increasing their numbers in order to meet the expectations set by diverse media about the Zombie Apocalypse, and attend rehearsals every Monday at 6 pm. They are qualified as a Basic Unit. Although their life and damage are similar to the Werewolf, their Zombie nature makes them extra squishy.

Skeleton: Skeletons are cousins to both Mummies and Zombies, but are still different enough to have their own seat and representative in the M.E.M.E. Skeletons are usually created byNecromancers or Warlocks by reanimating corpses. Because of the intrinsic details of the spell used by them, Skeletons lose all flesh and rise as pure bone.

Imp: Imps are mischievous, playful and somewhat naked. They hail from the depths of the underworld where they are usually forced to perform menial tasks. That is why they jump at the chance of joining the human world hoping for a better future.

Manny the Mummy: Manny is said to be the second oldest active mummy in the world, the oldest one being his wife Fanny. He is a powerful supernatural creature who is fiercely protective of Count Dracula and plays a vital role in the Count’s survival of The Great Hunt. Manny was a revered prophet in Ancient Egypt. He had visions that helped guide the progress of Egyptian culture, thepyramid being one of his greatest accomplishments. (Before Manny, Egyptians were planning to bury their Pharaohs beneath cubes). Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to predict that he would be poisoned by his sister-in-law.

Fanny the Mummy: Fanny the mummy, a very special little lady. Is the oldest active mummy in the world, making her also the strongest one. She is married to Manny the Mummy, and was once Queen of Mummydom before abdicating to follow Manny in his adventures in the human world. She used to be a prophet and revered oracle in Ancient Egypt. She took Manny under her wing when he was just a child, and taught him the art of divination. She died of natural causes and was mummified by her followers who were certain she was an emissary from Isis. They performed a ritual to steal her prophetic abilities, but instead ended up reviving her as an active mummy. She was really upset.

Ghost: Ghosts are the remaining energy of someone who died… with too much energy. Game show hosts are perfect Ghost candidates. In the game, they are qualified as a Power Unit. Although they don’t have a lot of life, they usually make up for it with their resistance to physical damage. Ghosts deal Magic Damage at a very short range but are very weak against Magic Damage receiving triple damage when attacked.

Warlock: Warlocks are humans that struck a deal with a supernatural entity in exchange for magical prowess. Most of them attended wizardry school at some point, but dropped out because they found it “too nerdy”. In the game, they are qualified as a High-End Unit and deal Magic Damage at a long range, they slow the movement of any enemies that enter their range by 50%.

Gamezone.com scored it as a great game, giving it 8/10 Gamezebo.com says it’s a great reminder of real time strategy and tower defense games, and scored it 4/5. Gametrailers.com claims “it should go straight to the top of your download list.” GamingIllustrated.com says “Vampire Season will appeal to anyone with even the slightest interest in tower defence games or zombies. Yes, zombies and evil-things of the night are becoming a little long in the tooth now, but when they look and play this well do we really care? Vampire Season is a must own iOS title if you want to show off the power of your mighty iPad.” InsiderMobileApps.com states “is a high quality game with great production values. Its 3D in-game graphics are clear and animate smoothly, while between levels some entertaining and amusing cutscenes give a sense of unfolding — if rather silly — narrative to the proceedings. It feels like a highly-polished game, in short, and it will likely attract many players due to its price point”.

General Mills monster-themed breakfast cereals (officially referred to collectively as the Monster Cereals) are five current and formerly distributed breakfast cereal brands in North America. The series includes Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, and the discontinued Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy.

In October 1971, the first two cereals in the line were introduced, Count Chocula (originally called “Dr. Count Chocula”) and the strawberry-flavored Franken Berry. In February 1972, Franken Berry cereal included dye that turned some children’s feces pink due to an inability to break down the heavily dyed breakfast food, a symptom sometimes referred to as “Frankenberry Stool.” Boo Berry, reputedly the first blueberry-flavored cereal, was released in 1973, and Fruit Brute the following year. Fruit Brute was discontinued by 1983 and replaced in 1988 by Fruity Yummy Mummy, which also had a short life as it was also dropped in 1993.

Since 2010, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, and Count Chocula cereals are manufactured and sold only for a few months during the fall/Halloween season in October.

Wikipedia

Drak Pack is an animated sixteen episode television series. It aired in the United States on CBS Saturday Morning between September 6, 1980 and September 12, 1982. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera‘s Australian subsidiary.

Drak (voiced by Jerry Dexter), Frankie and Howler (both voiced by William Callaway) are descendants of Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, and a werewolf. To atone for their ancestors’ wrongdoings, the three, united as the Drak Pack, became superheroes.

They appear initially as normal humans, but whenever trouble arises, they strike their right hands together and shout, “Whack ‘em!” (This is called the Drak Whack.) They then transform into a vampire, a monster and a werewolf, respectively. Drak’s powers include flight, telekinesis, and the ability to change shape. Unlike most cartoon vampires, Drak may assume a variety of forms, although he favors a bat. Frankie has superhuman strength and can release electrical charges. Howler has an ultrasonic howl and super-breath. Their principal mode of transport is an amphibious flying car which they called “The Drakster.”

Their principal opponent is Dr. Dred, a blue-skinned evil genius, voiced by Hans Conried. Dred’s henchmen, collectively known as OGRE (“The Organization for Generally Rotten Enterprises [or Endeavours]“), include Toad, Fly, the massive mumbling Mummyman and Vampira. The sycophantic little Toad, voiced by Don Messick, is Dr. Dred’s right hand, but very often, he unwittingly assists the Drak Pack. Fly, a humanoid fly, also voiced by Messick, buzzes and flies and walks on ceilings. Mummyman, a reanimated mummy, has super-strength and can stretch his wrappings indefinitely, often using them to tie up the Drak Pack. His voice was provided by Chuck McCann. Vampira is a female vampire, with shape-shifting powers similar to Drak’s and is voiced by Julie McWhirter. She has something of an unrequited crush on Drak.

OGRE’s headquarters are on an artificial island called “Dredquarters,” but occasionally called “The Drednought” and “OGRE Island.” They travel in an airship that Dr. Dred calls “The Dredgible.”

When the Drak Pack needs counsel, it turns to Drak’s great-uncle, Count Dracula himself, whom they refer to as “Big D.”

Wikipedia | IMDb

Die Augen der Mumie Ma (English: The Eyes of the Mummy or The Eyes of the Mummy Ma) is a 1918 German silent film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The film stars Pola Negri as Ma, Emil Jannings as Radu, and Harry Liedtke as Wendland.

A young, wealthy painter named Wendland travels to Egypt, where he hears about the tomb of Queen Ma, a site far out into the desert that has reportedly driven everyone who has visited it mad. Intrigued, the painter arranges to be taken to the tomb. When he arrives, he is greeted by an Egyptian native named Radu, who leads him to a coffin in a dark room. There he sees the eyes behind the coffin slowly open and come to life, just before the Egyptian tries to attack him. The painter wards off Radu, and finds that the coffin lid is actually an entrance to a small adjacent room, where a helpless young girl, also named Ma, is held prisoner by the Egyptian’s Svengali-like hypnotic powers. Wendland rescues Ma from the site and takes her back to Europe with him, making her his wife. Radu, heartbroken at losing Ma, wanders into the desert and faints on the hot sands. A wealthy Prince finds him, nurses him back to health, and makes him his personal servant. When Radu comes to, he swears vengeance on Ma for leaving him…

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘The most disappointing part of the picture is the way Lubitsch handles the Mummy at the beginning.  Why did a girl’s eyes behind a fake coffin actually drive people (like the man at the hotel) mad?  Lubitsch tried, and for the most part succeeded, in building the suspense to the unveiling of the “Mummy”, but if the “Mummy” itself had been given a darker and more hideous treatment and had not been such a London After Midnight/Mark of the Vampire letdown, it would have worked much better.  But then again this is Germany in 1918 and they were still “working out the bugs” in motion pictures in that country.’ PolaNegri.com

Mike Hill is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, originally from Warrington, Cheshire in England, who specialises in ultra-realistic models of monsters from classic horror films. His work includes small figures for model kits to busts to life-size representations of monsters in well-known poses. His work has also featured in Madame Tussaud’s waxworks and in films such as Joe Johnstone’s 2010 remake of The Wolfman.

As a boy he could be found digging up clay from the local riverbank and moulding figures from King Kong but his obsession with horror movies extended into post-school life and became a full-time career. Using tools such as dental scalpels and with an attention to detail that includes the creation of replica jewellery and inserting each hair in his subject’s body individually by hand, his reverence for the subject has also lead to him making sculptors of the likes of legendary Universal make-up man Jack Pierce and the rather more recent Rick Baker. Reproductions of the models utilise silicone and fibreglass, whilst the colours are built up in layers so as the replicate real human flesh (dead or alive!).

Hill has also adopted some of the techniques of his heroes, such as ageing the scroll of Aredth Bey by soaking the parchment in tea; he also takes personal commissions for work, with clients including Hugh Hefner. There are currently rumours of him working with Gillermo del Toro, as well as being involved in the new raft of Star Wars films. Hill is also working on his own film, Stickmen, which will feature another classic monster, Bigfoot.

Daz Lawrence

Mike’s stunning work can be viewed here http://www.mikehillart.com/index.html

The Mummies were a 4-piece American garage rock band from San Mateo, California. They are known for their defiantly lo-fi production values (dubbed ‘budget rock’) and their shadowy true identities, hidden as they were beneath ragged though effective Mummy costumes, reminiscent of those made iconic in Universal’s classic films.

The 1960′s weren’t all peace, love and understanding in the musical breeding grounds of the Pacific Northwest and California. Hundreds of bands appeared across the United States and Canada with vague understandings of chord progression and cheap instruments that were begged for stolen and borrowed but with boundless energy, attitude and fuzz – all recorded in decidedly primitive conditions. This then, is garage rock, one of the furthest-reaching, in terms of influence, musical movements of the latter half of the 20th century. The first wave, began in the early 60′s largely leaving the charts untroubled but the likes of The Kingsmen, with their ever-enduring censor-worrying “Louie Louie”, the more surfy twang of Link Ray and the costumed Paul Revere and the Raiders gained impressive enough followings.

By the early 70′s, many of the bands had already drifted into more traditional forms of employment but were introduced to a new generation by Patti Smith’s guitarist, Lenny Kaye, who assembled the seminal collection “Nuggets”. The famous quote says that Velvet Underground only initially sold a handful of records but everyone that bought one went on to form a band; the same can be said of “Nuggets”, though I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest all those bands were better. The sound of the punk movement can clearly be heard in these earlier bands. Two bands in particular on the record had a distinctive and arresting sound; The Wailers and The Sonics, both from the Tacoma area of Washington.

By the early 80′s garage rock was still the genre of choice for disaffected kids wanting to form a band with limited budgets and with little classical training. If anything, garage rock was now even scuzzier, more obnoxious and louder but still maintained the tradition of simple catchy guitar riffs, repeated choruses and trend-eschewing though instantly recognisable fashions, sometimes aping those of their musical forefathers. England had Thee Mighty Caesars (previously Thee Milkshakes, later Thee Headcoats – ‘Thee’ is a byword in garage lexicon), headed by cantankerous genius Billy Childish. America had The Mummies. Headed by the guy in the Mummy costume with the three other Mummies.

Horror and music had enjoyed success in partnership since the 50′s and 60′s – artists such as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Screaming Lord Sutch and Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett had all enjoyed success by borrowing imagery and sounds from recognisably ghoulish sources but it wasn’t until the horror-infused lyrics of The Flesh Eaters and Glenn Danzig’s The Misfits that entire careers were built solely on such a premise. The Mummies couldn’t really care less.

Rebelling against pretty much everything, The Mummies consisted of Trent Ruane on organ and vocals, Larry Winther on guitar, Mazz Kattuah on bass and Russell Quan on drums. Their DIY approach to the band encompassed their home-made costumes (which, in fairness, rather suggests that might be a shop for such things), much of their equipment (the bits that worked), their transport (a daubed upon Pontiac ambulance) and their songs a mixture of the grimy, two minute classics which had inspired them and suitably authentic-sounding originals. Their desire to remain anonymous was in keeping with their disdain for stardom, fame and selling out to The Man.

Their first record “That Girl” appeared on 7″ on the short-lived Pre-BS label. A frazzled mix of potty-mouthed lyrics, whooping and twanging Link Ray-ish guitar (if he’d been in a car accident), it was all done and dusted in a minute and a half, if you listened to the crackle at the beginning and the end – as a reward, you got another 3 tracks too. Further records appeared across a myriad of labels, most notably Estrus, to whom they returned most often. The singles were often released in eye-wateringly small runs, or at least they purported to be – my own collection suggests this may not quite have been the case.

These early singles were collected together as their first album, “The Mummies: Play Their Own Records!”. released on Estrus in 1992. It was an instant success, in the sense that no-one died and they didn’t all quit immediately. A brief flirtation with Crypt Records nearly caused unparalleled disaster as, when the label sent across an engineer to assist with the recording, there was the very real threat of it sounding professional. Sent on his way, the album appeared as the bootleg “Fuck The Mummies” whereas the band re-recorded the material and released it under the title “Never Been Caught”. Further issues arose with Regal Select beer threatening to sue the band for the use of their logo on the “Shitsville” single whilst the band went on the offensive against Sub Pop, incensed that the toast of the season had approached them to release a single as part of their incredibly popular (and now valuable) Singles Club. The resulting two-fingered response consisted of a mock-up sleeve with Sub Pop’s label crudely drawn on. The label, helpfully, saw the funny side.

More singles poured out, including split singles with the likes of the horror-monikered but not be-clad The Wolfmen (packaged in a delightfully 50′s-style comic book), as did a tour with Thee Headcoats, with Childish later to declare them to be “the only garage band I like”. It wasn’t enough to save the band and they split before the release of their live album, “Party at Steve’s House”, which was neither a live album nor recorded at Steve’s house. Throughout their career they released nothing but vinyl, the British release of “Fuck CDs, It’s The Mummies!” doing the describing for me.  Even video footage exists – occasionally copies of their New York Loft Party gig in December 1991 appear . Much effort is given to attempting to play a full-size keyboard like an accordion, eat a microphone and generally alarm an audience who look a bit like they’re looking for means of escape.

Some ten years later a CD finally appeared, “Death By Unga Bunga”, the irony being that it sounds every bit as trashed and battered as their vinyl releases. Very occasional live appearances at garage festivals have occurred since but there’s every chance these every-living fiends will take to the stage once more. Two warnings – R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck’s recent cover of “You Must Fight to Live (On the Planet of the Apes)” – their finest moment – is a disgrace, as are the coattail-riding Here Come the Mummies who are not to be confused with the Pharaohs of Fuzz in any way whatsoever.

A final note from the band’s website:

The Mummies don’t tweet, twat, connect, share, like, friend or give a damn.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia. With thanks to Russell Quan. For all your Mummies needs, sorry you’re too late. Look at their website http://www.themummies.com/index.php

Probably the only song ever written featuring the word ‘chagrin’

The Mummy is a 1959 British horror film, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. It was released on 25 September 1959. It was written by Jimmy Sangster and produced by Michael Carreras and Anthony Nelson Keys for Hammer Film Productions.

Though the title suggests Universal Pictures‘ 1932 film of the same name, the film actually derives its plot and characters entirely from two later Universal films, The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb, with the climax borrowed directly from The Mummy’s Ghost. The character name “Joseph Whemple” is the only connection with the 1932 version.

Wikipedia | IMDb

Introduction:

In Egypt in 1895, archaeologists John Banning (Cushing), his father Stephen (Felix Aylmer) and his uncle Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley) are searching for the tomb of Princess Ananka, the high priestess of the god Karnak. John has a broken leg and cannot accompany his father and uncle when they open the tomb. Before they enter, an Egyptian man named Mehemet Bey (George Pastell) warns them not to go in, lest they face the fatal curse against desecraters. Stephen and Joseph ignore him, and discover within the sarcophagus of Ananka. After Joseph leaves to tell John the good news, Stephen finds the Scroll of Life and reads from it. He then screams off-screen and is found in a catatonic state.

Three years later, back in England, Stephen Banning comes out of his catatonia at the Engerfield Nursing Home for the Mentally Disordered, and sends for his son. He tells him that when he read from the Scroll of Life, he unintentionally brought back to life Kharis (Lee), the mummified high priest of Karnak. He was sentenced to be entombed alive to serve as the guardian of Princess Ananka’s tomb as punishment for attempting to bring her back to life out of forbidden love. Now, Stephen tells his disbelieving son that Kharis will hunt down and kill all those who desecrated Ananka’s tomb…

Guest Review:

The Mummy is a remake -– the result of Universal making a fortune with Hammer’s Dracula and throwing their archives open for the company to plunder in search of new material. However, Sangster’s screenplay dips liberally into Universal’s entire, mostly lamentable Mummy series, cherry-picking the bits that work and discarding the rest. Most notably, it rejects most of the original film, which only featured the bandaged title character in the opening scenes. By the time this film was made, audiences had a good idea of what a mummy movie should feature, and central to that was a marauding mummy.

The Mummy aims for a more epic feel than Hammer’s Frankenstein or Dracula, eschewing the gothic trappings for an atmosphere that is perhaps closer to later fantastical costume dramas like She. This attempt to bring a touch of class to the film is only semi-successful – the lengthy flashback sequence at the centre of the story certainly tries to be grand, but the budget really doesn’t allow for it, and the funeral procession feels rather scant, truth be told, with props that look decidedly unsolid. Luckily, the rest of the film more than makes up for it. Uniquely in the Mummy genre, this is a film that throttles along, with three or four impressive action set pieces and a story that defies its own thinness. Terence Fisher’s solid, if unimaginative direction keeps the action moving and overcomes the wordiness of Sangster’s screenplay.

Central to the success of the film is Lee’s portrayal of The Mummy. For audiences used to seeing Lon Chaney Jr shuffling along in pursuit of people who could escape him simply by walking at a steady pace, this must have been a revelation. We first see Kharis as he emerges from a swamp, covered in mud and glistening in the moonlight, and right away it’s an imposing sight. It’s not just Lee’s height and stature, though of course this is impressive – no hunched over figure here. More significantly, this is a Mummy who moves at speed and has immense physical strength – seeing him tear out the bars of the asylum windows, smash through locked doors and more or less run across the room reveals this to be, uniquely, a mummy that seems a genuine threat. It must have had the same impact as the first time people saw zombies run.

But there’s more to Lee’s performance than sheer brute force. While being buried under monster make-up again must have felt like a step back after Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles (and perhaps the flashback scene was also a sop to Lee allowing him dialogue and a regular appearance), his performance here is remarkable. Simply through his eyes and his physical stance, Lee is able to display determination, malice and pathos – his Mummy is, in the end, a tragic figure more than the mindless killer we see in other films. It’s easy to believe that this role could be filled by any stuntman (a belief Hammer clearly shared, given the casting in subsequent films in the series, Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and The Mummy’s Shroud), but Lee’s performance here shows how wrong that is.

Cushing, conversely, has very little to do for much of the film. While he gives his usual committed performance, John Banning is a fairly bland character who spends much of the film spouting exposition. There is none of the fire and intensity of a Dr Frankenstein, Van Helsing or Sherlock Holmes in this character, sadly, though we get touches of it in the scenes where he battles Kharis one-on-one – these moments are not up to the dramatic climax of Dracula, but they’re not far short and show the chemistry and physicality that Cushing and Lee brought to the roles.

As the real villain, Pastell is suitably evil, though his character is at least allowed to be more rounded than you’d expect. When he argues with banning about the ethics of tomb robbing, you can’t help but think that – murderous mummy rampage aside – he might actually have the moral high ground. Yvonne Furneaux is very beautiful, but is given little to do other than let her hair down (apparently, neither Banning nor Kharis can recognise the resemblance to Ananka when it’s tied up!) and then be carried off, swooning, by the Mummy.

Although generally considered the lesser of Hammer’s original trilogy, The Mummy remains a fantastic film – pacey, dramatic and exciting, it is uniquely the only Mummy movie from either the Hammer or Universal series that can be called great (I’m not counting Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb here, of course!).

Blu-ray Disc review:

This new UK edition is a long-overdue high quality release for the film. As well as a fantastic new transfer that looks astonishing – even if it does sometimes expose the cheapness of the sets – the disc comes with extensive extra content. There’s a half hour ‘making of’ that is very much in line with similar, entertaining entries on other hammer discs, plus documentaries about Bray Studios and Hammer’s ‘rep company’ – the supporting players who turn up in several Hammer films. There’s also a World of Hammer episode about Cushing, a lively commentary from Marcus Hearn and Jonathan Rigby, and more. But the most impressive extra is the 1952 Hammer film Stolen Face.

This pre-horror melodrama tells the story of plastic surgeon Phillip Ritter (Paul Henreid), who falls in love with concert pianist Alice Brent (Lizabeth Scott) during a holiday. But she is secretly involved with another man (Hammer regular Andre Morrell) and runs away to Europe. Heartbroken, Ritter does what anyone would do – he remodels the scarred face of habitual criminal Lily Conover (Mary McKenzie) to be the double of Alice, as part of a dubious attempt to rehabilitate convicts who he believes are driven to a life of crime by their damaged appearance! But Ritter soon sees the folly of such dodgy ideas after marrying Lily, only to find that once a thief, always a thief. Meanwhile, Alice has ditched her fiancé and is now back on the scene.

A slight but entertaining thriller, Stolen Face mixes elements of Film Noir with straightforward melodrama and also looks forward to Fisher’s later work with another obsessed surgeon, Dr Frankenstein. Curiously, it also mirrors the plot – often in rather precise details – of the later ‘greatest film ever made’ Vertigo. I wouldn’t possibly suggest that the Hitchcock film is a copy of this obscure hammer quickie, but it’s certainly interesting.

Stolen Face is a film worth picking up by itself, so it’s inclusion on this disc is most welcome. If, for some bizarre reason, you were still unsure about this new edition of The Mummy, then this substantial extra should be the tipping point.

David Flint – Guest reviewer from Strange Things Are Happening

Orror (Italian: ‘horror’) was an Italian ‘adults only’ fumetti comic book published in two different series in the late 1970s. For the first series, publishers Edifumetto issued 21 issues from June 1977 to May /1978; for the second series, 6 issues were issued in 1979.

As was the case with most horror-themed fumetti, the comics and covers often depicted scantily-clad or half-naked young women being terrorised by all manner of predatory ghouls, killers and monsters. Artwork was sometimes based upon images from horror films, such as the first edition’s no.20 which shows a vampire modelled on actor Jon Pertwee from the Amicus movie The House That Dripped Blood (1970) but shows him as Afro-Caribbean, Blacula-style! The cover for number 10 seems to be derived from an image used to promote Blood and Lace (1970), although in this case the hammer murder weapon is replaced with an axe. Second edition, no.6 shows a vampire with a striking resemblance to Jack Palance, who played Dracula for TV director Dan Curtis in 1973.

We are grateful to Comic Vine for the cover images shown here. Visit their site to see more…

La momia nacional (which translates as “The National Mummy”) is a 1981 Spanish horror sex comedy directed by José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres, Scream – and Die!, Rest in Pieces, Edge of the Axe) from a screenplay by Juan José Alonso Millán. It stars Francisco Algora, Quique Camoiras, Azucena Hernández, Carlos Lucena, José Jaime Espinosa, Lili Muráti, Trini Alonso, Paloma Hurtado, Mabel Escaño, Pilar Alcón. 

This film was a domestic release that does not seem to have been sold outside of Spain except perhaps in some Latin American countries.

The IMDb‘s plot keywords include: werewolf, female nudity, brothel, prostitute, vampire, governess, erotica, political comedy, mummy, severed arm, sex and insane asylum, which all sounds like good/bad fun to us… although the song that plays over the opening credits is appalling, so perhaps this is one comedy horror that deserves to remain in Spain?

IMDb | We are most grateful to No, hija, no for some of the images above.

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The main hacksaw-to-the-head image is from Horror Express

‘A monster legacy comes to life!’

Creature Feature (promoted as Creature Feature!) is a 2010 American ‘adult’ horror film. Produced by and featuring Tom Byron (This Ain’t Dracula XXX; Buffy the Vampire Slayer XXX; The Human Sexipede), it was directed by Lizzy Borden aka Janet Romano. The latter also directed Cannibalism, a similar sex/horror crossover movie, in 2002. It stars Sunny Lake, Mark Zane, Anthony Rosano, Evan Stone, Tommy Gunn, Jennifer White, Andy San Dimas.

A surprising number of porn parodies are a lot of fun to watch, including Jonathan Morgan’s Double Feature (1999) which appears to have been the overall role model for this incompetent poverty-row portmanteau video, with Sunny Lane as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark introducing five hardcore vignettes (“The Bride of Fuckenstein”; “The Mummy – It Will Leave You Speechless”; “Count Dracula”; “The Wolfman”; “Night of the Fucking Dead Zombie!”) produced in what looks like one or two days with approximately $200 worth of Halloween props and costumes. You will find yourself fast-forwarding through most of it to end your misery.

Sunny Lane as the Hostess with the Mostess:

Evan Stone apparently doing a Rotwang-impersonation, though it may be coincidental, with Jennifer White as The Bride of Fuckenstein:

Gracie Glam as a Lara Croft-lookalike, with the mummy behind the cobweb though you can’t tell it’s there untill she kneels down to unwrap its member. You should have seen his face, but we don’t, as the camera never leaves the crotch area:

Anthony Rosano as Count Dracula in vampire cinema’s smallest cape:

Tommy Gunn as the Wolfman:

Mark Zane as Johnny and Andy San Dimas as Barbara. With a graveyard set consisting of one plastic gravestone leaned against a tree, this actually manages to make Plan 9 from Outer Space” look big-budget!

Look, there cums one of them now: The film’s producer Tom Byron as The Zombie:

Nicolas Barbano, Horrorpedia Guest Reviewer

The Thai Ghost – original title: Mon Khun Ma Jak Long “It Came Out of the Coffin”) is a 1991 Thai horror film.

We have been unable to find any credits and the film is not on IMDb so all we can currently post is the artwork for the poster above, courtesy of Wrong Side of the Art!

Noble Johnson (April 18, 1881 – January 9, 1978) was an African-American actor and film producer. He was one of the first black actors in Hollywood to achieve any meaningful level of fame and successfully navigated the transition from silent movies to talkies.

Born in Marshall, Missouri 18th April 1881, Noble was a boyhood friend of Lon Chaney Sr and both became well-known for their ability to immerse themselves into roles, playing a wide variety of characters, often ‘bit-parts’ who still made a big impression. The Johnsons were a well-known black family in the city and their father was an expert horse-trainer. Johnson left school at 15 and travelled with his father riding horses until 1898 when he became a cowboy and had a succession of jobs in ranching, horse training, and later in mining in 1909, as well as finding time to be a boxer and an athlete.

Noble Johnson became the first major black actor, and though achieving fame, inevitably found himself often cruelly typecast. His imposing 6’2″ frame and comparatively light-coloured skin meant that he appeared as innumerable tribal characters, servants, Russians, Asians, Polynesians, monsters, Arab Princes, Native Americans and the Devil himself! This chameleon-like ability was aided by the quality of early film-stock and make-up.

Early successful silent appearances included the Rudolph Valentino break-out smash war epic, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), as The Bronze Man in Cecil B. DeMille’s first Biblical colossus, The Ten Commandments (1923), The Indian Prince in Douglas Fairbanks’ swashbuckling, The Thief of Baghdad (1924) and Pre-Code sensation, Dante’s Inferno (also 1924), which featured completely nude actresses and scenes so dazzling they were reused in the 1935 remake, and nearly 60 years later in Ken Russell’s Altered States. A sign of the times is that although playing the somewhat critical part of The Devil, Johnson appeared uncredited. Johnson also appeared in a minor role alongside his friend, Chaney, in Tod Browning’s 1928 film, West of Zanzibar.

By the time he had made the leap to talkies, the roles, though perhaps more developed, still focussed more on Johnson’s appearance than his talent – interestingly, his appearance in The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu (1929) was alongside another actor who struggled to escape typecasting, Warner Oland, best known as his many appearances as Charlie Chan and also the cause of everyone’s problems in 1935′s Werewolf of London. Further indignity followed when he starred as ‘Janos the Black One’ in the first film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue; like many Poe-based films, the plot skirts timidly around the source material,

Four films that followed helped elevate Johnson to more significant roles in the industry and to the attention of horror film lovers; The Most Dangerous Game (1932), The Mummy (1932), King Kong and Son of Kong (both 1933). As the sinister Cossack, Ivan, in the seminal The Most Dangerous Game, he was subject to something which may now seem extraordinary – he was ‘whited-up’ – naturally the opposite of being blacked-up. Appearing opposite Karloff in The Mummy he played the elegant Nubian, by turns, obedient and merciless. In both Kongs, Johnson appeared a the Tribal Leader of Skull Island – fun, iconic but let’s face it, hardly a progression morally or otherwise. He played The Zombie in the Bob Hope horror-comedy The Ghost Breakers in 1940.

Johnson essentially drew a veil over his career in 1950, shortly after appearing alongside John Wayne in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon as Chief Red Shirt, though he popped up in the 1966 TV movie, Lost Island of Kioga… as a hostile Indian. Truly, we had come no further. Johnson also helped to found the first Black-American film company, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, in existence until 1921. He died at the grand old age of 96 in 1978.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

‘Evil has awakened’

The Mummy Resurrected is a 2014 American horror film directed by Patrick McManus from a screenplay by Joanne Spring. It stars Stuart Rigby, Lauren Bronleewe, Elizabeth Friedman, Bailey Gaddis, Iyad Hajjaj, Fouad Hajji, Mark Naji, Pablo Time Nuñez, Jessie Paddock, Alena Savostikova, Sarah Schreiber.

Plot teaser:

A group of archaeologists uncover a long lost pyramid in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Believing the pyramid to be full of ancient treasures, the group decides to explore. Little do they know that their actions are about to awaken an ancient evil….

Review:

If you can accept a lead – Brit Stuart Rigby – who appears to read his lines rather than act them, a gaggle of young female archaeologists (hey, they all happen to be attractive) who “like” talk and “like” behave in the dimmest ways possible, lacklustre special effects and no attention to detail (in the closing credits Libyan is incorrectly spelt… three times!), then you might tolerate this. A mercifully short running time and a better than expected mummy are the film’s two plus points.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

“Well, if you happen to be that type of indiscriminate viewer who overlooks a script only doing the bare minimum to constitute a plot, who forgives poorly conceived visual FX because the animators had limited resources, and who gives the director credit simply for producing a completed film, then maybe you will find The Mummy Resurrected to be tolerable.  But if you demand at least some modicum of relative quality no matter the budget, scope, or production’s backstory, then you will have a hard time mustering any respect for a movie that refuses to respect you back.” Culture Crypt

“While this movie has an interesting back story and plot, it is lost mostly in shaky camera work and questionable acting at best. It is a real shame because the timing is right for the mummy story to return to the big screen, unfortunately just not with this movie. The cinematography by Emmett Callinan, who also took care of the Electrical Department [and co-produced - Ed.] is quite uneven and inconsistent and the musical score by a compilation of people does little to boost this movies flagging disregard for the viewers intelligence.” Cryptic Rock

IMDb | Facebook

Orror is an Italian adult comic book (known as “fumetti” in Italy) that was published in two volumes in the late seventies. Initially, twenty one issues were published between June 1977 and May 1978. The second series, published in 1979, consisted of six issues. Some of the cover artwork was obviously ‘inspired’ by film imagery.

We are grateful to Comic Vine for information and images.

Mike Hill is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, originally from Warrington, Cheshire in England, who specialises in ultra-realistic models of monsters from classic horror films. His work includes small figures for model kits to busts to life-size representations of monsters in well-known poses. His work has also featured in Madame Tussaud’s waxworks and in films such as Joe Johnstone’s 2010 remake of The Wolfman.

As a boy he could be found digging up clay from the local riverbank and moulding figures from King Kong but his obsession with horror movies extended into post-school life and became a full-time career. Using tools such as dental scalpels and with an attention to detail that includes the creation of replica jewellery and inserting each hair in his subject’s body individually by hand, his reverence for the subject has also lead to him making sculptors of the likes of legendary Universal make-up man Jack Pierce and the rather more recent Rick Baker. Reproductions of the models utilise silicone and fibreglass, whilst the colours are built up in layers so as the replicate real human flesh (dead or alive!).

Hill has also adopted some of the techniques of his heroes, such as ageing the scroll of Aredth Bey by soaking the parchment in tea; he also takes personal commissions for work, with clients including Hugh Hefner. There are currently rumours of him working with Gillermo del Toro, as well as being involved in the new raft of Star Wars films. Hill is also working on his own film, Stickmen, which will feature another classic monster, Bigfoot.

Daz Lawrence

Mike’s stunning work can be viewed here http://www.mikehillart.com/index.html

The Pyramid – previously known as Site 146 – is an upcoming American horror film directed by Grégory Levasseur and written by Daniel Meers and and Nick Simon. Alexandre Aja produces.The film stars Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O’Hare, James Buckley and Daniel Amerman. It is scheduled to be released on December 5, 2014, by 20th Century Fox.

Plot Teaser

A team of U.S. archaeologists unearths an ancient pyramid buried deep beneath the Egyptian desert. As they search the pyramid’s depths, they become hopelessly lost in its dark and endless catacombs. Searching for a way out, they become desperate to seek daylight again. They come to realize they aren’t just trapped, they are being hunted…

Wikipedia | IMDb

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