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 It's Lon Chaney, Jr.'s last appearance as "one of the most memorable movie
monsters ever created: the mummy Kharis." Kharis is found in a swamp and
hauled away to Cajun country to be studied by "a bunch of prodding
archeologists." Construction workers uncover the body of Princess Ananka and
Kharis goes on a "reign of terror and destruction." Kharis and Ananka "unite
and wreak havoc together they face a greater threat to their ancient romance
than they have known - museums!" You should know that the movie's plot wasn't
anything like they described on the box. It almost sounded like a different
draft of the script. Couldn't have been any worse, I suppose... 1944, 61 minutes, VHS
This is the second Mummy movie that Universal released in 1944. I'll give it to
Kharis. That's got to be the shortest amount of time between comebacks a
movie monster has ever had. The question on everyone's lips is, was it worth
the wait? I would have to say yes, because this was Kharis' final film
appearance and I've been waiting for that ever since that wuss Steve Banning
busted into his tomb lo those many years ago, back when we were just hearing
about tana leaves and the cycle of the moon for the first time. Back when we
had only seen that flashback two times. Back when the old high priest was only
on his first death scene. So we bid Kharis adieu. We should celebrate his
last murderous rampage, should we not? Then let's get on with it already!
When we last saw the Mummy he was hauling a very old and nasty looking Ananka
down into some gooey swamp outside of Mapleton, Massachusetts. In view of
that, I was a little confused when this movie opened up with some ugly singing
broad in a cafe located somewhere in cajun country. Though this was never
explained, apparently the swamp Kharis and his bride sunk into had some kind of
wormhole that led to a swamp in Lew-easy-anna. I guess Universal figured no
one would remember what happened at the end of The Mummy's Ghost, what with that having come out several months ago and all. This ugly chick singing is the owner of the cafe and it serves as a hangout for
the local swampdrainers. That's right, somebody has decided that it would be
just dandy to drain the swamp that the locals know is haunted by a murderous
mummy named Kharis or something. So you get scenes of the locals who are
almost without exception filthy (shows their French ancestry) and talk with
their bogus cajun accent. There's even a guy there named Cajun Joe! These
locals constantly have to be encouraged to go out in the swamps to drain it
because of all the creepy superstitions that surround its murky depths. They
are also reluctant because one of their fellow workers was discovered with a
knife sticking out of his back. You can say what you want about Kharis, the
Living Mummy, but he's never stabbed any dirty stinky cajuns in the back!
You're probably asking where are those Egyptians the dying high priests keep
exporting to America? Never fear, just in the nick of time, two dudes from the
Scripps Museum (Living Mummy Wing) in New Yawk, New Yawk have arrived to muck
about in the swamps. One guy is named Dr. Halsey and the other guy is named Dr.
Zandaab. One of these two characters is an Egyptian with a hidden agenda.
Halsey and Zandaab are there to check out the swamp once it's been drained to
see if there are any murderous mummies in it. The guy in charge of the
swampdraining huffs and puffs about them getting in the way, but his sexy niece
of a secretary sweet talks him into not giving our guys a hard time. She
apparently is hoping that Dr. Halsey gives her a hard time later in his tent or
something.  For the most part the movie was pretty forgettable and just melded into the
rest of the Mummy movies I have seen. After awhile, all these movies basically
boil down to the same thing. Egyptian comes to America to stir up Kharis to
find Ananka and kill everyone who gets in the way, usually ending with Kharis
limping off with the girl, a mob of enraged townspeople in hot pursuit. It's
very hard to get excited at seeing all this again. You do get one very
effective scene in the movie that sticks out because it is pretty good and the
rest of the film is pretty bad. After everyone has quit working on screwing up
the swamp, you see this dirty hand break through the earth where the swamp had
just been cleared. Eventually a woman, caked with mud and dirt emerges from
the earth and starts stumbling around. Princess Ananka has been reborn is now
free to wander the swamps! It was kind of creepy watching her dig her way out
of the swampy ground and was reminiscent of a lot of those zombie movies where
the dead start coming out of their graves. Of course once that moment is done,
the movie immediately switches back into dumb mode and has Ananka walk back
into the water. Shortly thereafter she is back wandering the swamp with her
hair and make up perfectly done, looking beautifully exotic, the only clue that
she has been buried in the swamp being that her dress has a few dirt spots on
it. So she's wandering around and who should find her but Cajun Joe! C.J.
brings her back to the cafe and has the some people look after her there.
Somehow Halsey agrees to look after her at his campsite. She then amazes him
with her knowledge of ancient Egypt. Of course, she knows all this because she
actually lived back then, she just doesn't remember it yet. Interestingly
enough, she has no problems using a microscope and reporting her findings to
Halsey regarding the type of cloth that Kharis would use. Like a princess of
ancient Egypt would know the finer points of the cloth some "commoner" wore. Soon, it is revealed that Zandaab is nothing but a double-crossing high priest
wannabe when he meets up with one his cajun flunkeys at the old abandoned
monastery on the other side of the swamp. Glad they have all these old creepy,
secluded buildings laying around. You know, I think municipalities and the
like could really alleviate their "monster problem" if they just started
condemning and bulldozing all these old, creepy, secluded buildings they have.
A little urban renewal can go a long way to preventing a problem before it
becomes a problem. So anyway, you've got Zandaab and his flunky doing the
whole tana leaf bit when some dude waltzes in and says that he keeps an eye on
the place and that Zandaab and company should leave because what they're doing
in there ain't exactly Christian. Zandaab kind of rolls his eyes and this nosey
dude ends up in a heap with mysterious mold around his neck. Why would you
have a guy keep an eye on the place in the middle of the night when nobody has
been there in years? So Kharis kills some more people, like the cafe singer
and Cajun Joe and I kind of shrug, figuring they had it coming what with the
lack of musical talent on the part of the cafe singer and what with Cajun Joe
having a name like Cajun Joe. We also clear up the knife in the back of the
worker, too. Zandaab's flunky did that because the dead guy helped him move
into their new super-secret hideout in the monastery and they didn't want
anyone squealing.  Eventually Kharis kidnaps the reincarnated Ananka and takes her to the
monastery. Bet you didn't see that one coming. Zandaab slips Ananka some tana
roofies or something and then Zandaab's flunky shows up and throws a monkey
wrench into everything. It seems that being out in the swamps with a mummy and
an
Egyptian didn't do much to satisfy his manly urges so he has somehow tricked
the sexy niece secretary character into coming to the monastery (I know it's not
much, but we can make it ours!). Zandaab is peeved at this and hurls some
dramatic curse his way so the flunky sticks him in the back with a dagger! I
was laughing, I mean that whole knife in the back thing has kind of become the
flunky's gimmick! Kharis becomes aware of this and is mad that his pal
Zandaab (he apparently had a better working relationship with Zandaab than he
did with John Caradine's priest in the previous picture) got offed so he pretty
much tears the monastery down around both of them, burying them in rubble for
all eternity or until the monks come back. Ananka ends up mummified and Halsey
and the sexy niece of a secretary look at one another and decide that such is
the stuff of romance! Glad to see it worked out for them. You know, this one
was about as dumb as the last three. My only question is how did the Egyptian
know that Kharis was in the swamp in cajun country? If he did know, why didn't
he come down sooner with some diggers and tana leaves? This was another short,
stupid mummy movie that basically consisted of Kharis shambling about
strangling people until he found Ananka at which point he runs off with her.
If this is such a true love kind of deal, how come once Ananka is found she
never wants anything to do with Kharis? This dude isn't a mummy so much as a
stalker! In any event, this brought to a close a prolific chapter in the
Universal Monster line of monster flicks. Bottom line on the whole mess of
movies? First one: masterpiece. Second one: retarded fun. Third one: Steve
Banning and Babe Jenson bite it. Fourth and fifth ones: twin turds that even
Divine wouldn't eat.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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