STACK #155 Sep 2017

DVD&BD FEATURE

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MORE MUMMY MADNESS

of death. And then on top of that you have massive skyscrapers; a millennia of history to draw from and a wonderful collision of tones all over the place, no matter where you look.” Ahmanet’s tomb is also a unique addition to Mummy lore in that her sarcophagus is submerged in a well filled with mercury – a detail Kurtzman discovered when researching Egyptology, its totems and magic. “One of the things that really struck me was the idea that in some ways, mercury was like Kryptonite to evil – they believed it repelled evil. To me, that was such an interesting visual.”  Horror fans will find plenty to enjoy in The Mummy – as well as the obvious connection to the eponymous monster and its long screen history, there are nods to several other horror classics.

Boris Karloff’s emergence from the tomb back in 1932 has since brought a collective cry from Hollywood and audiences alike: “I want my Mummy!”

Tom Cruise with Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll

[London is] a city literally built on centuries of death

THE MUMMY Elegant 1959 Hammer Horror version in which Peter Cushing desecrates the 4,000 year-old tomb of Queen Ananka and faces the wrath of Christopher Lee as Kharis the Mummy.

Kurtzman notes that while Boris Karloff’s original 1932

and style and the way that Hitchcock would build suspense. No one has really come close to matching that kind of brilliance – we took a lot of inspiration from that,” he says. The Exorcist was also a big influence, especially in the scenes where Cruise’s soldier of fortune uncovers an ancient evil buried in the desert of the Middle East. “That was a big one for texture and tone,” adds Kurtzman. “You look at the first eight minutes with Max Von Sydow in Iraq and there’s

incarnation of The Mummy was the

biggest point of inspiration,

both he and Tom Cruise watched a film per day during

preparation in order to find the right look and tone for their version. “We watched a lot of Hitchcock –  The Birds , Psycho , Vertigo … just in terms of rhythm

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB Hammer Films’ atmospheric adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 'Jewel of the Seven Stars' is the first and the best. Later remade as The Awakening and Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy .

almost no dialogue there, but you’re immediately immersed in that world and experience a deep sense of dread.”

• The Mummy is out Sept 6

BUILDING A DARK UNIVERSE

Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Wolf Man… Those are the films I grew up loving as a kid, and the idea was to give the audience a really satisfying Mummy movie, but also to open that door and give

partner Chris Morgan will be involved in future Dark Universe films, which will include Bride of Frankenstein , directed by Bill Condon ( Beauty and the Beast ), as well as the return of The Invisible Man and Frankenstein’s Monster, played by Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem, respectively. News of Condon’s involvement in Bride of Frankenstein is particularly exciting given he has such passion for the material, having helmed the James Whale biopic Gods and Monsters (1998) starring Ian McKellen. “It feels like he was put on this earth to do that,” agrees Kurtzman. “He’s the perfect director for it, so I’m really excited to see what he does with it and how he evolves it.”

DAWN OF THE MUMMY A fashion shoot disturbs the tomb of evil pharaoh Safiraman. Taking their cue from George A. Romero, his army of zombie servants rise from the dead to devour the flesh of the living.

them a peek at what’s behind it. We’ve really only begun to tease what’s there,

“ [ The Mummy ] is the first film in what Universal is now building, called Dark Universe, which is dedicated to the Universal Monsters,” Alex Kurtzman explains. “They take great pride and call them ‘their’ monsters because the studio is literally built on those monsters – Dracula,

DOCTOR WHO: PYRAMIDS OF MARS They might look like chunky mummies but, as Tom Baker’s Doctor discovers, these bandaged Egyptians are actually the robotic servants of the evil Sutekh the Destroyer.

and there’s some deliberately open-ended questions at the end of the film. The Prodigium and Doctor Jekyll will return.” Kurtzman and his producing

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SEPTEMBER 2017

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