This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 1: Hammer Horror Night
Beginning in the late 1950’s, the British film production
company Hammer began making a series of horror films that were essentially
remakes of the Universal Monster movies of the 1930’s. The Hammer films had
different storylines and monster designs, however, being in technicolor and
showing more explicit violence and sexuality is what made them a distinct brand.
The Curse of Frankenstein kicked off the Hammer Horror cycle in 1957,
followed by Dracula (released in the U.S. as Horror of Dracula)
in 1958, and tonight’s recommendation, The Mummy in 1959. Each film
spawned numerous sequels—some more entertaining than others—but none matched
the first in their respective series, all of which were directed by Terence Fisher and paired the great actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
The plot is pretty straightforward. In the 1890’s, a father and son
archeologist team discover the tomb of the legendary Princess Ananka. The son, John
(Cushing), has a broken leg, so he is not present when his father reads from a
mysterious scroll and witnesses something that drives him mad. An Egyptian man
named Mehemet (George Pastell), a disciple of the god Karnak, follows the
father and son to England to exact revenge for desecrating Ananka’s tomb. Mehemet’s
weapon of choice is... you guessed it, a mummy.
The Hammer Horror films usually cast Peter Cushing as the
protagonist and Christopher Lee as the monster. When Lee began his
acting career, he had difficulty getting good roles because of his imposing
size, a commanding 6’5”. It’s easy to understand why he was cast as Frankenstein’s
Monster, Dracula (his best horror role), and the mummy. While the mummy is a thrilling screen presence, he is not a very interesting
monster since he is just the tool for Mehemet’s revenge. When the mummy sees that John’s
wife, Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux), resembles the Princess Ananka, he begins to act on his
own will. The mummy’s silent, lumbering nature leaves Lee only his eyes to act with and he
does a pretty good job when he gets a close up. In a flashback narrated by
Cushing we see that the mummy was a priest named Kharis that was obsessed with
Ananka and attempted to bring her back to life. Lee gets to use his voice and
whole body in the flashback. It’s a brief scene but it’s good to see Lee really
play a character. Thanks to Lee’s large size, it is easy to believe that this
mummy could pick up someone by neck with one hand or burst through doors and
windows, the only way the mummy enters a room. When he and Cushing fight, it
doesn’t seem like much of a contest—thankfully, just then the mummy catches sight of Isobel.
Cushing and Pastell have a good scene
together when John visits his suspicious new neighbor. Mehemet is the main antagonist
of the movie, more so than the mummy, but his revenge is not without good
reason. He is not wrong that English archaeologists are desecrating sacred tombs and disregarding another culture’s customs, just so people can stare at relics in
the British Museum. John’s counter argument is that nothing would be
known of the ancient Egyptian people or their culture if it were left sealed and
buried. However, everything else he says is purposefully condescending and insulting as
he is trying to provoke Mehemet.
Like all Hammer Horror movies, the period sets and costumes,
especially the ancient Egyptian sets and costumes, look obviously fake. However, this only helps create the movie’s fantasy atmosphere. The bog nearby John’s
country estate is a fun set. Seeing the mummy in the dark, soupy water is a
great sight. The look of the mummy is pretty spooky—wrapped in bandages that
are dirty and tattered and look a thousand years old—especially with Lee’s eyes
behind the costume. Though, I’m pretty sure you can the line for a zipper on the back of the mummy in
certain scenes.
The top tier Hammer Horror films, in which I would include The
Mummy, are great Shocktober viewings because they are fun horror entertainment,
but not so scary as to be intimidating. Whether you are a bit squeamish or a die-hard
horror fan, the Hammer Horror version of The Mummy will help you have a
great Halloween.
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