Just in time for the run up to Halloween Cineplex Theatres is running Richard’s transformation from man to werewolf in their preshow. On October 29 you can check out a good old fashioned double feature of The Wolf Man and The Mummy (more info HERE). In the meantime have a howling good time with Richard as he finds out what happens when the wolf bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
A new thriller, As Above/So Below, follows in a long tradition of Hollywood movies. Mad Men co-star Ben Feldman and Edwin Hodge play archaeologists who explore miles of unmapped catacombs under the streets of Paris and uncover a dark secret beneath the City of Lights.
According to Romancing the Stones: Archaeology in Popular Culture by Mark A. Hall, every decade since the 1920s has produced at least one film dealing with the eerie aspects of archaeology. “In the 1932 film The Mummy,” writes Hall, “the archaeologist Sir Joseph Whemple states: ‘much more is learned from studying bits of broken pottery than from all the sensational finds. Our job is to increase the sum of human knowledge of the past,’ but it is often as a foil for the supernatural elements to come.”
Harrison Ford played the screen’s most famous archaeologist, Indiana Jones. He is, as Major Eaton (William Hootkins) describes him, “a professor of archeology, expert on the occult, and how does one say it? Obtainer of rare antiquities.”
In each of the four movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, the Last Crusade and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a fabled object has great supernatural power. Whether it is the Ark of the Covenant, the Shiva Stones, the Holy Grail or an extraterrestrial crystal skull, Indy unleashes all kinds of trouble in the present because he messes with the past.
Angelina Jolie became a superstar playing Lara Croft, the athletic, aristocratic archaeologist and star of two movies, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and The Cradle of Life.
The character originated in a wildly popular video game series that saw her track down meteorite fragments that endowed humans with supernatural powers and magical stones. On film Jolie’s Croft said, “Everything lost is meant to be found,” as she stirred up trouble by uncovering ancient talismans and rescuing Pandora’s Box from an evil scientist.
The movie that established the link between archaeology and the paranormal was 1932s The Mummy. Inspired by the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the controversy over his “curse” in 1922—rumours of a jinx began after Lord Carnarvon, the man who sponsored the dig of King Tut’s Tomb, died six weeks after the discovery—the film uses a Mummy’s spell as the catalyst for the action.
In the spooky movie Sir Joseph Whemple (David Manners) translates the hieroglyphics: “’Death… eternal punishment… for… anyone… who… opens… this… casket. In the name… of Amon-Ra… the king of the gods.’ Good heavens, what a terrible curse!”
I haven’t seen The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the latest entry in the jocular action adventure series starring Brendan Fraser as a treasure hunter who constantly runs afoul of ancient supernatural forces yet—you’d get cranky too if Fraser woke you up after a 3000 year nap—but to get primed I did check out first two parts of the trilogy, The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, now out on deluxe editions DVDs.
Inspired by the 1932 Universal Boris Karloff classic both films are actually comedies disguised as horror. In the place of real scares are family-friendly thrills more in line with vintage Saturday-matinee horror-adventure classics than anything that’ll really send shivers down your spine.
In both films Brendan Fraser, with sidekicks Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) a clumsy yet intelligent Egyptologist and Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah, the only actor other than Fraser to appear in all three Mummy movies) as Evelyn’s bumbling, but money-hungry older brother, unwittingly unleash a 3,000-year-old Mummy’s curse and must, like a poor man’s Indiana Jones, do battle with the Wizard of Gauze and his minions.
As Rick O’Connell Canadian-born Brendan Fraser’s mission is to “Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world,” and he anchors the film with a goofy charm balanced with just enough heroic swagger to effectively echo the Saturday matinee stars the film pays tribute to.
The jokes are on the level of Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy but on the upside both films feature outlandish, but lavish special effects.
On the downside both films are a tad too long and occasionally veer into cheesy melodramatics, but both are thrill rides that will keep the eye entertained—the bad guy transforms into a sandstorm!—even if they don’t engage the brain.
