The Adventures of Kharis the Mummy

While the 1932 film "The Mummy remains the best mummy picture ever made, it was the Universal low-budget quickies of the 1940s that actually solidified the idea of the shambling, bandage-wrapped mummy that dominates pop culture and Halloween spook houses today. This post covers those four genere-shaping films.

The Mummy's Hand (1940)
Starring: Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, Peggy Moran, George Zucco, and Tim Tyler
Director: Christy Cabanne
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of hard-luck Egyptologists (Foran and Ford) discover the location of the long lost tomb of Princess Ananka. Unfortunately for them, an evil cult leader (Zucco) controls the immortal, tomb-guarding, tanna leaf-tea slurping mummy Kharis, and he's hot afraid to use him to keep the secret of the tomb.


More of an adventure flick with a heavy dose of lowbrow comedy than a horror film, "The Mummy's Hand" isn't even a proper sequel to the classy 1932 "The Mummy."

This movie (and the three sequels that follow) are completely unrelated to the original film, despite the copious use of stock footage from it. The most obvious differences are that the mummy here is named Kharis, as opposed to Imhotep, and has a different backstory. Then, there's the fact he's a mindless creature who goes around strangling people at the bidding of a pagan priest where Imhotep was very much his own man and did his killing with dark magics without ever laying a hand on his victims.

If one recognizes that this film shares nothing in common with the Boris Karloff film (except that they were both released by the same studio), "The Mummy's Hand" is a rather nice bit of fluff. It's also the first film to feature the real Universal Studios mummy, as Imhotep was an intelligent, scheming, and more-or-less natural looking man, not a mute, mind-addled, bandaged-wrapped, cripple like Kharis.


The Mummy's Tomb (1942)
Starring: Wallace Ford, Turhan Bey, John Hubbard, George Zucco, Dick Foran, Isobel Evans and Lon Chaney Jr.
Director: Harold Young
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Thirty years after the events of "The Mummy's Hand, the High Priest of Karnak from the last film (Zucco), who, despite being shot four times and pointblank range and tumbling down a very long flight of stairs, survived to be an old man. He passes the mantle onto a younger man (Bey) and dispatches him to America with Kharis the Mummy (Chaney), who survived getting burned to a crisp at the end of the last movie, to slay those who dared loot the tomb of Princess Anankha. (Better late than never, eh?)


Take the plot of "The Mummy's Hand" (complete with a villain who has the exact same foibles as the one from the first movie), remove any sense of humor and adventure, toss in about ten minutes of recap to pad it up to about 70 minutes in length, add a climax complete with torch-weilding villagers and a mummy who is just too damn dumb to continue his undead existence, and you've got "The Mummy's Tomb."

Made with no concern for consistency (Ford's character changes names from Jenson to Hanson, the fashions worn in "The Mummy's Hand" implid it took place in the late 30s, or even in the year it was filmed, and yet "thirty years later" is clearly during World War II... and let's not even talk about how the mummy and Zucco's character survived) or orginality (why write a whole new script when we can just have the bad guys do the exact same things they did last movie?), this film made with less care than the majority of B-movies.

Turhan Bey and Wallace Ford have a couple of good moments in this film, but they are surrounded by canned hash and complete junk.


The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
Starring: John Carradine, Ramsey Ames, Robert Lowery, George Zucco, and Lon Chaney Jr
Director: Reginald Le Borg
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Modern day priests of ancient Egyptian gods (Zucco and Carradine) undertake a mission to retrieve the cursed mummy of Princess Ananka from the American museum where she's been kept for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, they discover that the archeologists who stole her away from Egypt broke the spell that kept her soul trapped in the mummy and that she has been reincarnated in America as the beautiful Amina (Ames).


"The Mummy's Ghost" starts out strong. In fact, it starts so strong that, despite the fact that the priests who must be laughing stock of evil cult set were back with pretty much the exact same scheme for the third time (go to America and send Kharis the Mummy stumbling around to do stuff, that it looked like the filmmakers may have found their way back to the qualities that made "The Mummy" such a cool picture.

Despite a really obnoxious love interest for Amina (played with nails-on-a-chalkboard-level of obnoxiousness by Robert Lowery) and a complete ressurection of Kharis (boiling tannith leaves now apparently reconstitutes AND summons a mummy that was burned to ashes in a house-fire during "The Mummy's Tomb"), and a number of glaring continuity errors with the preceeding films (the cult devoted to Ananka and Kharis has changed their name... perhaps because they HAD become the laughing stock among the other evil cults), the film is actually pretty good for about half its running time. The plight of and growing threat toward Amina lays a great foundation.

And then it takes a sharp nosedive into crappiness where it keeps burrowing downward in search of the bottom.

The cool idea that the film started with (Ananka's cursed soul has escaped into the body of a living person... and that person must now be destroyed to maintain the curse of the gods) withers away with yet another replay of the evil priest deciding he wants to do the horizontal mambo for all enternity with the lovely female lead. The idea is further demolished by a nonsensical ending where the curses of Egypt's ancient gods lash out in the modern world, at a very badly chosen target. I can't go into details without spoiling that ending, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth, and it's such a complete destruction of the cool set-up that started the film, that the final minute costs "The Mummy's Ghost" a full Star all by itself.



The Mummy's Curse (1944)
Starring: Peter Coe, Lon Chaney Jr, Kay Harding, Dennis Moore, Virginia Christine and Kurt Katch
Director: Leslie Goodwins
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A contruction project in Louisiana's bayou uncovers not only the mummy Kharis (Chaney), but also the cursed princess Ananka (Christine). Pagan priests from Egypt arrive to take control of both. Mummy-induced violence and mayhem in Cajun Country follow.

What happens when you make a direct sequel where no one involved cares one whit about keeping continuity with previous films? You get "The Mummy's Curse"!

For the previous entries in this series, Kharis was shambling around a New England college town, yet he's dug up in Lousiana. (He DID sink into a swamp at the end of "The Mummy's Ghost", but that swamp was hundreds of miles north of where he's found in this film.)

He also supposedly has been in the swamp for 25 years. For those keeping score, that would make this a futuristic sci-fi film with a setting of 1967, because the two previous films took place in 1942. (And that's being generous. I'm assuming "The Mummy's Hand" took place in 1912, despite the fact that all clothing and other signifiers imply late 30s early 40s.) Yet, there's nothing in the film to indicate that the filmmakers intended to make a sci-fi movie.

And then there's Ananka. Why is she back, given her fate in "The Mummy's Ghost"? There's absolutely no logical reason for it. Her ressurection scene is very creepy, as is the whole "solar battery" aspect of the character here, but it is completely inconsistant with anything that's gone before. And she's being played by a different actress--but I suppose 25 years buried in a swamp will change anyone.

There's little doubt that if anyone even bothered to glance at previous films for the series, no one cared.

Some things the film does right: It doesn't have the Egyptian priests replay exactly the same stuff they've done in previous films for the fourth time (although they are still utter idiots about how they execute their mission), it manages for the first time to actually bring some real horror to the table--Kharis manages to be scary in this film, and I've already mentioned Ananka's creep-factor--and they bring back the "mummy shuffling" music from "The Mummy's Ghost" which is actually a pretty good little theme. But the utter disregard for everything that's happened in other installments of the series overwhelm and cancel out the good parts.

"The Mummy's Curse" should not have been slapped into the "Kharis" series. If it had been made as a stand-alone horror film, it could have been a Six-Star movie. As it is, this just comes across as a shoddy bit of movie making where I can only assume that anything decent is more by accident than design.

The Complete Night Stalker, Part Four

"Kolchak: The Night Stalker" is a show that many people my age think fondly of, half-remembering episodes that scared the bejeezus out of us as kids. Viewing the entire series as an adult, I found that there were many episodes that warrant those warm feelings. However, as I continue my survey of all 20 episodes in the series as part of the 31 Nights of Halloween, I it is clear that today's batch represent the series at its height.

If the majority of the show had been as good as Episodes Thirteen through Sixteen, and if ABC and Universal  Television executives had dealt more fairly with star Darrin McGavin (instead of reneging on promises of creative control and co-producer status of the series), maybe it would have earned a second season.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker
(The Complete Television Series Reviewed, Part Four)

Episode Thirteen: Primal Scream
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Director: Robert Scheerer

A trail of brutal dismemberment murders that start at a research lab analyzing core samples retrieved from the North Pole brings Kolchak face-to-face with savage man-apes that have spontenously regenerated from thawed-out cells.

This episode is pure scientific nonsense of 1950s monster-movie variety. In think even in the 50s, audiences would have rolled their eyes at the notion of life-forms as complicated as a meat-eating primate regenerating from a few single cells. What makes this episode fun is Carl's interaction with the incidental characters and the supporting cast back at the INS office. Ron in particular gets to shine in this episode.

The monster here is lame, and Carl's heedless pursuit of a creature that is so plainly dangerous to whomever it comes across is pure idiocy (even by Kolchak Standards) but the non-monster related interaction definately saves this episode.


Episode Fourteen: The Trevi Collection
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars
Director: Don Weis

Before a source can give Carl a promised scoop, the source is murdered. As Carl investigates, he uncovers disturbing facts about the House of Trevi, a ritzy fashion design studio: The lady it's named after is witch, and deadly curses are being tossed left, right, and center... at anyone who seems to threaten the supremecy of Trevi. And that includes Our Man Carl.

This is one of my very favorite episodes, despite the somewhat dubious way Carl is drawn into the situation. I love the way the story's many twists and the way Carl's gung-ho monster-hunting attitude (where he blazes ahead without having all his facts straight) ends up making the situation far more deadly. A subplot about mobsters chasing Carl for information also adds a lot to this episode.

The episode is also enlivened by a guest appearance by Lara Parker as the fashion designing witch who will let nothing stand between her and success. She is so good that I may down the "Dark Shadows" movies she starred in.


Episode Fourteen: Chopper
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
Director: Bruce Kessler

Aging, former members of an outlaw biker gang are being murdered, all decapitated by an impossibly strong killer. Kolchak investigates, and then he becomes the next target of a headless ghost biker who has come back from the dead for revenge.

This is one of the great "Night Stalker" episodes. There's plenty of horror and plenty of laughs in this excellently written episode. The tension remains high until the very moment--there hasn't been such a strong sense of danger for Kolchak since "The Zombie".

This could have been a Ten-Star episode if not for the absolute laziness with which the headless biker was created. I realize it was the 70s, they didn't have the sort of computer effects we have today, and television budgets and shooting schedules were tight, but there MUST have been a better way to do the biker ghost than just have a stunt driver pull his jacket over his head. In life, the biker just have been known as "Johnny Long Torso" because his chest is about one-head length too big.

This bit of shoddiness undermines what could have been a truly great episode.


Episode Fifteen: Demon in Lace
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Director: Don Weis

Young men are being frightened to death on a college campus. Kolchak traces the cause back to an ancient tablet and the demon who dwells within it. Will anyone believe that a priceless historical treasure must be destroyed before any more lives are lost?

This is a solid, middle-of-the-road episode. The story is okay and well thought out--it even provides a reason for why Carl isn't fired and/or locked up for good at the end--and there's a nice balance of humor and horror as a frustrated Kolchak battles not only the police and college campus bureacrats, but also has to contend with a journalism student who shares many of his worst personality traits. It's funny to see Carl get a dose of his own medicine.


Episode Sixteen: Legacy of Terror
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
Director: Don McDougall

Someone armed with a dull blade has been cutting out the hearts of physically-perfect men and women, killing each victim is found on a higher and higher prime numbered flight of stairs. Kolchak's investigation puts him at odds with bizarre Aztec cult seeking to revive their mummified god at the correct celestial alignment. To prevent the mummy's resurrection, Kolchak must prevent the sacrifice of their fifth, "perfect" victim on the highest flight of stairs in Chicago.

This is one of the better episodes as it features a high creepiness factor, high humor factor, and there's a strong sense that Kolchak may be in over his head during the climax, but the lengths to which the writers go to make their story believable (by filling the viewer in on details regarding Aztec mythology) sometimes gives it a feeling of a doctoral thesis gone waaaay of the rails. Still, it's an etertaining, fast-paced, and exciting episode. The cult/conspiracy angle it takes also strengthens it immensely; the supernatural monster doesn't appear until the very end.

(Speaking of the monster, the final shot of the mummy shows its eyes flicker a bit. I'm not sure if that's sloppy editing or intentional, but it was certainly startling, since Carl was certain he'd prevented the gods resurrection... at least until the stars align again.)










Please join me again next week, as I finish the trip through all 20 episodes of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker", just in time for the monster explosion that is Halloween!

Still the best mummy film nearly 80 years later

The Mummy (1932)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, and Edward Van Sloan
Director: Karl Freund
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

After an archeologist accidentally restores him to life, a cursed ancient Egyptian high priest Imhotep (Karloff) sets about likewise reviving Princess Anckesen-Amon for whom he gave up everything so they can resume their forbidden love. Unfortunately, she has been reincarnated, and her spirit is currently residing within Helen Grosvenor (Johann), the daughter of a British diplomat. Imhotep hasn't let the natural order of things stop him in the past, and he's not about to let it get in his way now.

"The Mummy" is perhaps the best, most intelligent mummy movie ever made. It's more of a gothic romance story set in Egyptian surroundings than a monster movie, with Imphotep trying to recapture a love that he lost 3,700 years ago.

The actors in this film are all perfectly cast, and they are all at the top of their game.

Karloff is spectacular, conveying evil, alieness, majesty, and even a little bit of tragedy in his character with a minimum of movement. (Unlike most mummy movies, Imhotep isn't a bandage-wrapped, shambling creature, but instead appears like a normal human being; he is still dried-out and somewhat fragile physically, though, and Karloff does a fantastic job at conveying this.)

Johann likewise gives a spectacular performance, particularly toward the end of the movie as Imhotep is preparing to make her his eternal bride and she has regained much of her memories from when she Anckesen-Amon. Johann is also just great to look at.


The two remaining stars, Manners and Van Sloan, are better here than anything else I've seen them in. Manners in particular gives a fine performance, rising well above the usual milquetoast, Generic Handsome Hero he usually seems to be. (Even in "Dracula" he comes across as dull. Not so here.)

The cinematography is excellent and the lighting is masterfully done in each scene. Karloff's character is twice as spooky in several scenes due to some almost subliminal effects caused by lighting changes from a medium shot of Manners to a close-up of Karloff... and the scene where Imhotep is going to forcibly turn Helen Grosvener into an undead like himself is made even more dramatic by the shadows playing on the wall behind the two characters.

There are some parts of the film that are muddled, partly due to scenes that were cut from the final release verson, or never filmed. Worst of these is when Imhotep is interrupted during his first attempt at reviving Anckesen-Amon, and he kills a security guard with magic during his escape. However, he leaves behind the spell scroll that he needs for the ritual. Why did he do that? It's a jarring, nonsensical part of the movie that seems to serve no purpose other than to bring Imhotep into direct confrontation with the heroes. (The commentary track on the version of "The Mummy" featured in Universal's "The Mummy Legacy Collection" sheds light on what the INTENTION was with that devolpment, but it just seems sloppy and badly conceived when watching the movie.)

While "The Mummy" may seem a bit slow to people who are used to Brandon Fraser dodging monsters--or even the Hammer mummy movies--it is a film that every cinema buff should see and even add to their personal movie collection. (There are at least three different DVD editions of the film available for sale as of this writing. However, the best value for your dollar is to pick up Universal's "The Mummy: The Legacy Collection". You'll get "The Mummy" with an excellent and very informative commentary track, as well as a bonus disk with the four mummy movies that Universal released in the 1940s. You can read more about the set at Amazon.com by clicking on the link below.)

Your marriage problems are NOTHING!

The Mummy (1959)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Yvonne Furneaux, and Christopher Lee
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A Victorian archeology expedition unearths and carries off the treasures from the tomb of Egyptian princess Ananka, so the secret society devoted to protecting it pursues the members back to England. Here, the fanatics unleash her eternal protector, a mummy (Lee), onto the British countryside. Whether the expedition members are in manor houses or insane asylums, the mummy finds and kills them, until only John Banning (Cushing) remains. When the mummy confronts Banning, however, it becomes captivated with his wife (Furneaux), who bears a strinking resemblance to his long-dead mistress.


Hammer Films' revival of "The Mummy" in gorgeous color is one of the best films that production house was responsible for. Better than "Horror of Dracula", but not quite as good as "The Curse of Frankenstein," it is a suspenseful movie. Cushing is as good as ever, and Lee also turns in a good performance as Kharis, whether as the shambling mummy, or as the living man during the flashback to ancient Egypt. The entirety of the final confrontation between Banning and the mummy is movie-making excellence.

'The Mummy Lives' but you'll wish it didn't

The Mummy Lives (1995)
Starring: Tony Curtis, Leslie Hardy, Greg Wrangler, Jack Cohen, and Moshe Igvy
Director: Gerry O'Hara
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Entombed alive after getting frisky with a the God of Vengeance's favorite concubine, Aziru (Curtis) is restored to some semblance of life and given a chance to earn the god's forgiveness after the obnoxious media baron Lord Moxton (Cohen) breaks into and loots the temple that is his resting place in the name of archaeological science (and personal glory). All Aziru has to do is kill those who desecrated the temple and then sacrifice the reincarnated concubine (Hardy) to the gods and the stars.


"The Mummy Lives" claims to be based on Edgar Allan Poe's humorous tale "Some Words with a Mummy", but it plays out more like a rewrite of the classic 1932 film "The Mummy" by someone who missed the whole point of that story.

While we have a pair of lovers reunited across the ages--Tony Curtis as the revived ancient Egyptian priest who speaks with a pronounced New York accent while going on about how he's a true son of Egypt and so on, and Leslie Hardy as the current-day incarnation as the woman he loved and lost everything for--we don't have the love story that made "The Mummy" so engaging. Instead, we have an uninteresting plot about an unsympathetic villain stalking and killing a bunch of even less sympathetic characters, while preparing to sacrifice a young woman who's died and been reborn so many times that the god MUST have been able to reclaim his concubine at some point.

Not only does "The Mummy Lives" not have the engaging story of the 1932 version of "The Mummy", it also lacks the visual style of its forebearer. It also lacks the visual lushness of the 1959 "The Mummy", with which it also shares plot similarities. Finally, it features a lackluster cast of mediocre talent that can't hold a candle to the likes of Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Zita Johann, Yvonne Furneaux, David Manners and Peter Cushing--all of whom have played the parts featured in "The Mummy Lives" far better.

(The only actor who can't be described as mediocre is Tony Curtis, but he is as horribly miscast here as any role I've ever seen. And his performance is definately lazy... whould it have killed him to attempt SOME sort of accent? No one knows what a native speaker of ancient Egyptian who learns English through some strange magic would sound like... but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be like a butcher from Brooklyn.

If you're a fan of mummy movies who wants to see everything the horror subgenre has to offer, I suppose you should watch "The Mummy Lives"...it's not as bad as "Mummy Raider" or even "The Mummy's Curse". However, the rest of us probably want to stick with 1932 version of "The Mummy", or the one made in 1959.






To read some of Poe's stories, including the one upon which this movie was based, click here to visit a small on-line anthology at Steve Miller's Classic Fiction Archive.

Elvis vs a soul-sucking mummy!

Bubba Ho-Tep (2003)
Starring: Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis
Director: Don Coscarelli
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Someone, or some thing is creeping through the halls of Shady Rest Retirement Home and stealing the last bit of life from its defenseless residents. In the face of an uncaring staff and world, its up to nursing-home residents Elvis (Campbell) and JFK (Davis) to put an end to the evil before it condemns the souls of every oldster in Shady Rest to eternal torture and damnation.


"Bubba Ho-Tep" is a horror movie that balances goofiness (it really IS an aged Elvis who is battling an undead evil in a retirement home, although JFK is obviously just a poor man suffering from senile dementia) with social commentary about how our culture discards and mistreats our senior citizens.

Although a bit slow moving at times, "Bubba Ho-Tep" has enough of humor, horror, and touching moments to keep the audience watching. Davis and Campbell both give excellent performances, and the dreary look of Shady Rest is the perfect setting for the story.

By the way, you need to watch the film at least twice. When you watch it the second time, make sure you do so with the DVD audio commentary by The King himself. :)

'Blood from the Mummy's Tomb' spilled for no cause

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)
Starring: Valerie Leon and Andrew Keir
Director: Seth Holt
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

In "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb", archeologist Prof. Fuchs (Keir) loots the tomb of an ancient, thoroughly evil Egyptian princess, carting its entire content (including her perfectly preserved, perfectly sexy, body) back to England and recreates the tomb in his basement. The dark magic harnessed by the princess in her lifetime--the same magic which is keeping her body from decaying--manifests itself by causing Fuchs' daughter Margaret to first grow into the perfect image of Tera (with Leon playing both the undead princess and Margaret) and then to unleash deadly dark magic upon an unsuspecting modern world as the spirit of Tera possesses the young woman.


While "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" isn't the worst of Hammer's mummy movies' it's darn close (that honor goes to "The Mummy's Shroud.") It's got a muddled confusing plot that's crammed with too many characters (so none are ever properly introduced), at least one subplot too many (so none are ever properly resolved) and a build-up that's too slow and that seems even slower due to the fact that the storyline is confused and muddled and jammed with too many characters. The most amazing thing about the film is that it is losely based on Bram Stoker's "The Jewel of the Seven Stars", and it succeeds in being even more boring than that novel is!

Leon is easy on the eyes, and she gives an okay performance. Keir has a small part, but he does his usual excellent job--and it's him that really makes the ending work as well as it does. In fact, the ending is probably the only part of this movie that I'd consider to be well-executed. Everything else about "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" is weak and flawed to some degree or another. (There is a scene where one of the members of Fuchs' expedition is killed by Tera's magic... but it's ruined by bad editing, so it goes from having the potential to be damn scary to just too much so it is seems more silly.)

Despite a strong ending, I'd only recommend "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" to Hammer completists. As it stands, I think the creepiest thing about it is that Prof. Fuchs left the nearly naked Tera exposed on the slab in his basement. While she's a joy to behold, I would have thought that as Margaret came to resemble her more and more, Fuchs would have covered Tera up. Or maybe not. Who knows what happens behind closed doors among the upper-classes?

Boredom rises from the tomb in 'Mummy Raider'

Mummy Raider (2002)
Starring: Misty Mundae, Darian Caine, Bruce G. Hallenbeck and Ruby Larocca
Director: Brian Paulin
Rating: Zero of Ten Stars

When Kristen (Caine) is abducted by a Neo-Nazi scientist (Larocca), it's up to adventuress Misty (Mundae) to save her before an ancient evil mummy is resurrected. Will even Misty's considerable skills at shooting, Kung Fu fighting, and lesbian seduction save the day?!


This "movie" clocks in at about 45 minutes, and even that's too long. It doesn't work as a spoof (it's not funny), it doesn't work as an action film (the fight scenes are so very, very lame), it doesn't work as thriller (bad acting and an even worse plot), it doesn't work as a horror film (horrible though it may be), and it doesn't even work as a soft-core porn flick (yeah, Misty wanders around topless for most of the flick, but so what?!).

Zita Johann was sexier in the 1932 Universal film "The Mummy" fully clothed than any of the ladies are in this flick. Yes, the girls here are very attractive and the casting appears to have been done so there's a breast-size to meet your oogling preference... but you've got to be REALLY hungry for naked flesh to sit through this one.

Add to the drawbacks what is one of the very worst mummy costumes that has ever been put on a film that people were expected to pay money to see, and you've got something that's not even worth the time it'll take you put the disc in your DVD player.