Episode 89.2: The MUMMY Movies (1932 - 1959 - 1999)

The Wages of Cinema

Imhotep. Karras. Your mama. Whatever you want to call him or it or 'what', you don't want to #&%@ with the Mummy. And yet, strange as it may seem, the Mummy is a bit of an underrated, or at least underestimated, character in the scope of horror cinema. Everyone can dig on Dracula with his Hungarian accent and eyes, or Frankenstein's monster with that head and arms, or even the Invisible Man because... hey, it's Claude Rains after all! But does the Mummy ever get his due? What if the Mummy is really, as the song goes, a prisoner of... love? Jack and Andrew decided to coincide with the release of the Tom Cruise Mummy reboot to watch, for either the first time or for the first time in many years (actually it's both of those), the *other* movies that are also called the Mummy: the 1932 Universal-Monsters original directed by Karl Freud and starring Boris Karloff; Hammer's 1959 Warner brothers released remake starring Christopher Lee and directed by Terence Fisher; and the 1999 blockbuster reboot (the, uh, first time they tried it at Universal) with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo as the titular Imhotep Mummy directed by Stephen Sommers (pre Van Helsing). We look at all three and break down what works, what doesn't, and if the movies are still scary, or why Brendan Fraser once worked as a leading man (no really, don't laugh, it's true... maybe). [e-mail] Also, be sure to look out for us on GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC! Just search under Podcasts and type our name! (trailer and clips from the 3 Mummy movies, including the theme from Swan Lake, and Syd Valentine's "Rock & Gravel" to close it out)