I sunk my teeth into yet another Steve Lawson (High Fliers Films/Creative Films) project; the writer/director did not disappoint. The Mummy: Resurrection (2022) is an excellent, drawing-room dream ... or, uh, rather a monsterized melodrama, with a little, "revivalist" humor to lighten its pervading dread.
The Victoria-era yarn serves a mummy's curse (what else?), and in this instance, the tested formula seeps from the preserved, Egyptian Princess Khenemtptah (with all of her precious organs intact, no less), cushioned in her gold/jewel-laden sarcophagus in the basement of an elderly explorer, Melvyn (The Fourth Musketeer) Rawlinson's Felix Randolph, who warns of the madness and death the ancient royal may bring.
Three men become tied to the corpse after Randolph's passing, each actor having starred in Lawson's Ripper's Revenge: Chris (Ripper Untold) Bell's Everett (Randolph's gambler nephew); Rafe Bird's Archie (Randolph's analytical nephew); and Carl Wharton's Sykes (a debtor who insists that Everett pay up or else).
Everett hopes to compensate Sykes with his uncle's inheritance, but when he discovers that it's comprised of Raven Lee's gnarly mummy (one that reputedly administers its curse upon one's mere touch of its ornate lid), he devises a plan to exploit the "novelty" for its gold, jewels and creepy, sideshow potential, but Archie suspects that the Princess' alleged curse stems more from psychotropic residue than anything vengeful, and though this could be exploitive in its own weird right, the circumstances press for something Frankenstein-ish.
A blood transfusion is planned to revive the Princess, first through an unwitting harlot, Sophie Marlowe's Shelly, but when that arrangement goes awry, it's Archie's fiancé, Natalie (The Shamrock Spitfire) Raynor's Nancy, who becomes the risky conduit.
What develops is most frightful, for Khenemtptah is, indeed, as hateful as she's hideous, leaving the trio with mere seconds to retract the resurrection before the consequences turn cataclysmic. What then occurs becomes the stuff of mummy legend.
On every quaint and/or fearsome level, The Mummy: Resurrection is a pleasing throwback to those monster movies of the 1930s and 40s that often padded the more high-profile submissions of Universal and MGM. Such films are generally more dialogue-driven and confined in their scares, but never less effective for their atmospheric settings, amicable spins and enjoyable characters. Fans of those endearing sideliners will appreciate Lawson's respectful approach, and for those who don't, well too bad. The Mummy: Resurrection simply wasn't designed for their ilk.
No comments:
Post a Comment