Inside a familiar wrapper is some unconventionally delicious eye candy in the almost arthouse level horror picture The Mummy, the intriguing feature debut of writer/director Maurice Chauvet. It all starts thousands of years ago, in ancient Egypt, where poor girl Ara (Apoorva Mittra) is picked to be the concubine of the pharaoh in the next world. She is stabbed to death by a priest (Michael Gallagher) and then mummified. The film then jumps ahead to present-day Mexico City, where archeologist Robert Corwin (Jon Jacobs) lives in the house his grandfather built. Robert’s grandfather had been a famous explorer who had plundered many Egyptian tombs for his personal profit.
Robert’s mother, Sonia (Laura Maccabee), had been institutionalized when he was a boy for hearing and seeing things invisible to others. So he worries about his daughter, Isabel (Sheba Jade), as she sleepwalks and remembers nothing of it. Robert’s wife, Elizabeth (Siena Goines), wants to take their daughter back to Chicago. Then Robert gets a visit from Charlotte Grove (Lisa Zane), the ultra-rich tech titan whose famous husband is on a life support machine. Charlotte is very interested in an artifact that she believes was kept by Robert’s grandfather: a small blue figurine of a bride of the dead, the kind that would have been found in a tomb with a mummified concubine. Charlotte offers to pay for anything, but Robert denies that he has it, resulting in threats from Charlotte if she does not get it. A bigger threat is lurking in the shadows, as the spirit of Ara lets loose thousands of years of rage.
Originally titled Bride of the Dead, The Mummy was re-titled and released by Asylum to catch some of the spotlight from the upcoming Blumhouse spin on Universal’s classic mummy. Young people call Asylum releases mockbusters, older people call them rip-offs, but they are the ultimate wellspring of what Tarantino referred to as paraphrase remakes. An element of a much more heavily marketed movie is used to bring attention to the lower-budget creation. This offers a rare opportunity to come up with a more effective riff than what the big boys came up with.
“It all starts thousands of years ago, in ancient Egypt, where poor girl Ara is picked to be the concubine of the pharaoh in the next world.”
I remember, back in 1980, there was a slew of mummy movies copying The Awakening, a Charlton Heston Egyptian horror flick that was famous for the poster being better than the movie. In that case, the paraphrase remakes, like Dawn of the Mummy and Fulci’s Manhattan Baby, were better than the original they were imitating. And that may end up being the case here, as Chauvet’s spin on the sarcophagus may be the better one. I’ll be seeing the bigger mummy picture when it comes out, but right now it has some big bandages to fill from this smaller film.
With The Mummy, Asylum has definitely followed the Roger Corman method of hunting down talented filmmakers to fill in the blanks of the product to be marketed. Chauvet, as a director, is a beast with a thousand eyes, each one finding one excellent shot after another in the amazing location. The house where the majority of the action takes place is an eye-candy factory of outrageous visuals and hyper-stylized lighting. With cinematographer Andrew Parke, Chauvet explores this surreal universe created by production designer Alyssa Katz and art director Cheri Moon. The Mummy‘s filming location is as fascinating as the witch academy in Suspiria, as it contains visions that send this picture up to art-house altitudes.
Like the truly excellent paraphrase remakes, Chauvet retains recognizable similarities with previous pictures, blazing his own path. The otherworldly dark dimension is similar to the one in Under The Skin, with the results being more creative than derivative. There are also several sections that are reminiscent of the Paranormal Activity films, which once again seems very clever for a mummy picture. It is definitely a class act, as it is surprisingly cheese-free. At no point is Chauvet not treated this dead seriously, which is so refreshing it makes me high. The Mummy is a visually captivating, sophisticated piece of horror that will be a scary hard act to follow.
"…contains visions that send this picture up to art house altitudes."
