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You Deserve a Great Mummy, So Here’s My Favorite: The Mummy ‘59

You Deserve a Great Mummy, So Here’s My Favorite: The Mummy ‘59

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Mummy-1959-US-posterMy short take on The Mummy unleashed to theaters last week as the start of Universal’s “Dark Universe” franchise gamble: It’s an embarrassment for everyone involved. Except maybe Sophia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet. She deserves a real mummy film, not a schlock Tom Cruise action picture only interested in selling later movies. The Mummy ‘17 is ugly, confused, stupid, and boring. North American moviegoers decided to watch Wonder Woman again rather than see Universal trash its own legacy: The Mummy opened to a glum $32 million domestically, putting it almost $25 million behind Wonder Woman’s second weekend. However, The Mummy is targeting international revenue (one of the reasons Universal allowed the criminally miscast Tom Cruise into the room), and so far it’s grossed $141 million in foreign markets. The “Dark Universe” will proceed, but under a bleak curse.

Okay, I’m finished with that movie. Healing time. I shall now read from the Scroll of Life, brew tana leaves, and bring back the sleeping Gods of Egypt with what I consider the high point of eighty-five years of movies about the undead of the Nile River Valley: 1959’s The Mummy from Hammer Films Productions.

The Alchemical Feat of The Mummy ‘59

“The Mummy made by Hammer Films is, in my opinion, one of the best films of its kind that British cinema has made.” — Christopher Lee

Because it stands in the shadow of Hammer’s first two Gothic hits, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula/Horror of Dracula (1958), it’s easy to gloss over The Mummy as merely a good Hammer horror film rather than one of the greats. But since it debuted on Blu-ray in the U.S., I’ve come to the realization I prefer The Mummy ‘59 to the famous 1932 Boris Karloff-Karl Freund film. I didn’t believe this was possible: The Mummy ‘32 is on my shortlist of Universal’s best classic monster movies. But watching the Hammer version in a pristine Hi-Def restoration, the vibrancy of its colors and designs rescued from dull DVD transfers, I had to face my emotions honestly and embrace it as My Favorite Mummy.

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Don’t Mess With the Amazons: The Wonder Woman Movie

Don’t Mess With the Amazons: The Wonder Woman Movie

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Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman

A lot has been said about Patty Jenkins’ movie Wonder Woman, pretty much all of it by people smarter and more qualified than I.

But given that I do a lot of comic books musing for Black Gate, and that I also reviewed Rogue One and Dr. Strange, I wanted to give Wonder Woman the attention it deserves.

Superhero movies are what they are.

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The Massachusetts Mummy: Universal’s Kharis Mummy Movies

The Massachusetts Mummy: Universal’s Kharis Mummy Movies

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tom-tyler-kharis-mummys-hand

A new Mummy is in theaters this weekend from Universal. How is it? I’m not sure, since as of this writing I haven’t watched it yet, although I’ll attend a screening on the morning this posts. But one of my favorite movie critics, David Ehrlich, said of it: “It’s an irredeemable disaster from start to finish, an adventure that entertains only via glimpses of the adventure it should have been.” You know you’ve got problems when people start talking of their fond memories of the Brendan Fraser Mummy from the Summer of ‘99. (I have a genuine affection for that silly movie. The Jerry Goldsmith score is killer.)

If you want to know more about why plenty of folks who love the classic Universal Monsters are a bit, well, concerned about this new Tom Cruise-starring Mummy and the studio’s plans for an entire “Dark Universe” franchise, our own Sue Granquist has you covered. As for me, I have no plans to write a post about Nu-Mummy. Instead, I’m going to hang out here in the 1940s, maybe work on my victory garden, listen to some 78s of Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five, purchase War Bonds, and watch a couple of mummy flicks.

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Goth Chick News: “Show Me the Mummy!” or Universal Studios Eats Its Young…

Goth Chick News: “Show Me the Mummy!” or Universal Studios Eats Its Young…

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The Mummy 2017-small

Back in October I reported on the travesty that Universal Studios was perpetuating on its own iconic catalog of classic movie monster films. Though I was sincerely hoping the early rumors were not true, it has recently been confirmed that Universal is indeed committing this violent crime which they are entitling their “Dark Universe,” the umbrella under which it is planning at least five films including The Invisible Man (with Johnny Depp), Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe), Frankenstein’s Monster (Javier Bardem) and Bride of Frankenstein (not yet cast but Angelina Jolie is rumored).

So what’s the problem you ask?

These films have already been remade multiple times, you say.

True enough.

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The Story of Your Life: Arrival

The Story of Your Life: Arrival

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arrival-markerboard-600x337Having taken in Arrival at my basement Cineplex, I proceeded at once to my local library, to dig up a copy of Ted Chiang’s “The Story Of Your Life,” on which Denis Villeneuve’s film is based. I suspected I would discover that the adaptation took broad liberties with Chiang’s original story, and I was not disappointed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This notion of being ahead of oneself, as you’ll soon discover –– or know already, if you’re familiar with either Arrival or “The Story Of Your Life” –– might be considered a joke. A wry joke, at best. Sad, perhaps. Devastating.

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Peplum Populist: Maciste in Hell (The Witch’s Curse)

Peplum Populist: Maciste in Hell (The Witch’s Curse)

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maciste-in-hell-Italian-movie-poster-1962Among the canon of Italian peplum (sword-and-sandal) films made from 1958 to 1965, there are three special horror-fantasia entries. I’ve already written about Mario Bava’s classic Hercules in the Haunted World (1961). In the future I’ll look at the same year’s Goliath and the Vampires, which was co-directed by famed Italian Western director Sergio Corbucci, the man who helmed the original Django (1966).

Today I’m spending my peplum-time with the third dark fantasy, Maciste in Hell (1962), yet another movie featuring Italian homegrown hero Maciste. (Oh, wait. Goliath and the Vampires is also a Maciste film. Damn these U.S. title changes!) Although Maciste in Hell isn’t as fantastic as Hercules in the Haunted World — it’s hard to best Mario Bava when it comes to doing weird horror on the cheap — it’s on the top of the pile as far a sword-and-sandal movies go. And its Amazon VOD presentation is relatively high quality. The picture has the vertical squeeze problem of Perseus the Invincible, but at least you have the entire image and a decent print.

The idea of Maciste journeying to the underworld like Dante or Aeneas wasn’t new: Maciste in Hell (Maciste all’inferno) is also the title of one of the silent Maciste films that were hits in Italy in the 1910s and ‘20s. The two movies don’t have any story connection aside from the hero in an infernal setting, and the silent Maciste is a different character and phenomenon from the 1960s version. But Maciste in Hell ‘62 is also different from other peplum films of its time, and not just in its overt supernatural horror elements. Where Maciste’s standard stomping grounds are the ancient/mythic Mediterranean, here he pops up in seventeenth-century Scotland. Maciste has a reputation for shifting about in time and place: I dealt with him in prehistory in Colossus of the Stone Age, and recently watched him battle Mongols in China in Maciste at the Court of the Great Khan (retitled Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World in the U.S.). Even so, Scotland in the Early Modern Era is pushing against the sword-and-sandal barriers.

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Goth Chick News: Look Behind Pennywise – If You Dare

Goth Chick News: Look Behind Pennywise – If You Dare

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Pennywise the Story of It-small

2017 seems to be the year that clowns replace zombies in the dark subconscious of the general collective, thanks entirely to the nightmare-inducing remake of It, due out September 8.

But before Bill Skarsgård donned the red nose, it was Tim Curry looking up at us from the sewers and giving us the screaming heebie-jeebies. As good as the new version may (or may not) end up, we’ll never completely get over the emotional scars left by Curry.

So it is with great anticipation that I tell you Dead Mouse Productions Ltd and Cult Screenings UK Ltd, makers of Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and You’re so cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night, are gearing up to produce a fully independent retrospective into the making of the 1990 TV miniseries of Stephen King’s IT. Exploring the series’ cultural impact over the last 28 years, the upcoming documentary Pennywise: The Story of IT, is being directed by Chris Griffiths and is set to “tell a story heard by few and showcase a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage and photos seen by even fewer.”

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The Complete Carpenter: Escape From New York (1981)

The Complete Carpenter: Escape From New York (1981)

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Escape-from-New-York-1981-poster

There are no guards in this article. Only the author and the words he has typed. The rules are simple: once you go in, you do not come out … unless you click on a link or a bookmark or close the browser tab or …

Jumping out of The Fog and back into the fire as I move into the most intense period of John Carpenter’s career: the one-two knockout punch of Escape From New York and The Thing.

Escape From New York was the second movie Carpenter made under a deal with Avco Embassy. The production budget was $6 million, the largest amount of money Carpenter had yet worked with, but still tight for an ambitious SF picture. By comparison, 1981’s James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only, had a budget of $28 million, and that was a cost-cutting move for the series after Moonraker. And the small drama On Golden Pond cost $15 million. Escape From New York ended up a hit, grossing more than four times its budget, making it one of the most successful films in Carpenter’s career — and, unfortunately, one of his few hits of his most productive decade.

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A Mythic Crime Story: Top Cow’s Postal

A Mythic Crime Story: Top Cow’s Postal

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postal1

Regular readers may notice that I try to sample a lot of different comic series. I like individual comics, but I also try to understand the field and its sub-genres. Crime fiction has a long history in comics. Its modern incarnations include titles like Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets, Ed Brubaker’s Gotham Central and Criminal, among many others.

Last year I heard the Nerdist Comics Panel interview Bryan Edward Hill, a TV writer working on Top Cow’s Postal.

The premise was catchy: Eden is a town entirely populated by criminals laying low or getting new identities, completely off the grid. And the main character of the story is Mark, the mayor’s son who works as Eden’s postman and who has Asperger’s.

And it’s in development for TV.

So I checked it out.

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Goth Chick News: Are the Blade Runner and Alien Worlds Colliding?

Goth Chick News: Are the Blade Runner and Alien Worlds Colliding?

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Blade-Runner-2049-small

I was super excited to see the new Blade Runner 2049 trailer released this week, partially because I was curious to see how much if any actual running Harrison Ford would actually be doing.

Okay, don’t look at me like you weren’t wondering exactly the same thing.

Turns out, there was more than one item to discuss in this latest look into our dark futures.

First, Mr. Ford does do a bit of a hustle at the 1:41 mark, which incidentally was not bad for a 75-year-old man. Next, Jared Leto’s Wallace character is sufficiently creepy with those cataract contact lenses. And apparently you make the future even more futuristic with 3-story-tall, sexed up holograms – who knew?

But what is really giving the fan girls and boys fits is the possible Easter egg at the 15-second mark.

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