Review #222: The Mummy (1932)

This review was originally written in October 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #76: The Mummy (1932)

Man, this is another example of a movie that is NOTHING like its successors. I don't know what I expected from a Mummy movie but it certainly wasn't THIS.

The Mummy starts off with an archaeological dig where a mummified Egyptian prince named Imhotep has been discovered, as has a box bearing a warning of a deadly curse and containing a scroll that grants power over life and death. Despite warnings against provoking the curse, one of the excavators opens it and transcribes part of the scroll, awakening the mummified Imhotep, who takes the scroll and leaves. Ten years later (!) Imhotep shows back up posing as a normal person, and tries to use magic to locate the reincarnated form of a woman he loved in life, but things get complicated I guess and it doesn't go according to plan.

This movie is kind of bonkers. The eponymous Mummy is only seen wrapped up as a mummy in the initial scene, and for the entire rest of the movie he's just a dude, walking around and speaking English. There's a scene where someone tells him to have a seat so they can have a frank discussion- and he does. Is this going to happen in more movies? Is there going to be a scene where The Wolfman (1941) has to wait in line at the bank? How many lines of dialogue is Godzilla (1954) going to have? Are The Birds (1963) going to spend a weekend at the beach? Again, this is a horror film about a mummy, and the second time you see the mummy he's wearing normal clothes and signing a legal agreement with some archaeologists. I'm actually not even sure why there was any conflict in this film at all, because the scene that starts off what will become the main conflict is when Imhotep (using the name Ardath Bey, because again, he's posing as a normal dude) is caught sneaking around the museum at night trying to resurrect his beloved Ankesenamun, but in the immediately previous scene he was told that the museum would be kept open all night in his honor (since he led the archaeologists to find the artifacts that made the museum famous). If this had happened, then Helen wouldn't have passed out at the front door (which was locked despite them saying they'd keep it open), she'd have come straight to Imhotep and then he could have done whatever he needed to resurrect Ankesenamun. Instead she passes out, Imhotep goes to meet her and has a nice chat with the protagonists of the film, then he retreats to a magic scrying pool where he spends the rest of the film casting magic spells from a distance like a D&D wizard. This is NOT what I expected from a mummy movie.

Apparently, this film has a ton of extremely direct parallels to Dracula (1931), which I reviewed the other day. A supernatural entity (Dracula & Imhotep) comes into town but is mistaken for just a normal dude, he takes an interest in a local man's daughter (Mina & Helen), some guy (Jack & Frank) is also in love with this daughter, an expert played by Edward Van Sloan (Van Helsing & Muller) uses a religious symbol to ward off the supernatural entity (a crucifix & a symbol of Isis) and then the guy and the expert go to the supernatural entity's base to confront them before the movie ends VERY abruptly. I didn't realize this until after the movie was over (except for Edward Van Sloan, who was in Dracula, Frankenstein, AND The Mummy) but once you notice it, the similarities just keep coming.

This movie is very boring. I know I talked a lot about the mummy just looking like a normal dude, but like, that's kind of my point. So much of this movie is just people having chats, and not in a way that feels exciting or scary. I find it absurd that (according to IMDB) this movie was nominated for the American Film Institute's "100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies", because this was a SNOOOOOOOZE fest. ALL of these classic movies are more boring than they are "heart-pounding", and frankly I just don't understand how anyone today could feel otherwise. I'm sure it was scary back in 1931, but that doesn't mean anything today. I just don't have any particular amount of nostalgia or reverence for these movies, and without that, The Mummy is just a dry breeze.

Overall Rating: 2/10 Mummy's Toilet Things

(Un?)Intentional Humor: My wife has a Bachelor's Degree in Art History, and she found the line "The British Museum works for the cause of science, not for loot" to be VERY funny.