THE MUMMY. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE MUMMY. (2017) DIRECTED BY ALEX KURTZMAN.
STARRING TOM CRUISE, RUSSELL CROWE, SOFIA BOUTELLA, ANNABELLE WALLIS AND JAKE JOHNSON.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I only watched this movie on Friday night, this being Sunday afternoon, but I can barely remember any of it, it was so bad, so flat and so one-dimensional. I love Tom Cruise, and would marry him and have his babies in a heartbeat if he asked me to, but this action-adventure-fantasy film is so bad it’s even worse than THE MUMMY: THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (2008), and that movie sucked so hard. Sucked and blew.

It- the 2017 movie- belongs to the same THE MUMMY franchise that contains the two superb MUMMY films by Stephen Sommers (THE MUMMY- 1999 and THE MUMMY RETURNS- 2001), but it completely lacks their warmth, richness of colour- all gorgeous reds and golds- fabulous spectacle and characters both lovable, like Brendan Fraser’s adventurer, Rick O’Connell, and sneeringly sexy, like Arnold Vosloo’s handsome but evil Mummy and Patricia Velasquez as the poisonous Anck-Su-Namun.

And who could forget Patricia V. and the luminous Rachel Weisz cat-fighting with each other in the skimpy garb of Ancient Egypt? Also, the dialogue was hilarious at times.

Ardeth Bay to the kid: You’ve set in motion a train of events that could bring about the next Apocalypse!
Rick O’Connell to Ardeth Bay: You, lighten up! And to the kid: You, get in the car! Well, it’s funny when you’re watching it…

These two Stephen Sommers films are unforgettably brilliant. And you can forget the awful threequel, THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, if you try really, really hard, lol. And there’s no point comparing the 2017 Mummy film to even earlier films in the MUMMY franchise, because these include Boris Karloff’s 1932 masterpiece and the fantastic Hammer Horror Mummy films, and these just can’t be beaten, even if Tom Cruise had stomped Oprah’s couch into a bazillion couchy pieces.

But what the hell is this 2017 Mummy film even about, anyway? Wait till I have a quick look at Wikipedia. And the reviews. Wow, the reviews are absolutely awful. The film won a slew of ‘bad movie’ awards, including a ‘Worst Actor’ one for Tom Cruise.

Even the film’s director said he regretted making this film. There’s no fun in it, no atmosphere, no real romance, even though TC as U.S. Sergeant Nick Morton is throwing himself about the place like there’s no tomorrow. (TC is Tom Cruise, by the way, not Top Cat.)

Nick and his friend Corporal Chris Vail accidentally discover the tomb of Egyptian Princess Ahmanet while doing a tour of Iraq. Why is her tomb in Iraq? I forget. Anyway, Nick, Chris and a random archaeologist called Jenny Halsey unintentionally bring her back to life on the journey back to Britain. Why Britain? No idea. The plot is a bit of an old shambles.

Russell Crowe is there, acting weird, but again, I’m not sure why he’s in it except that he intends to let Set, the Egyptian god of death, possess Nick for some reason. There’s a dagger with a ruby on it, a sandstorm in London and- now this bit’s genuinely cool- there’s a massive ancient graveyard of Crusader knights found buried in the London Underground and the knights wake up at some point as zombies and start fighting everybody.

I’d watch a movie about that, now. There’s something very eerie about ancient knights. I’ve found them fascinating ever since watching whichever Indiana Jones fillum had an old knight at the end of it. The thought that they might live for hundreds of years, guarding whatever tomb or jewel or structure they’d been set to guarding by a higher power, is extremely interesting to me.

I do believe that that’s the end of the movie, folks, except that they may- groan- have left the door open for a sequel. God Almighty. Like I said earlier, I do love Tom Cruise and fancy the sculpted muscular arse off him, but this film should probably be quietly burned in a bonfire on the moors somewhere and never mentioned again. Even the special effects, which I presume cost, like, millions of U.S. dollars, are only ‘meh’ at best, for all the effect they have on one. (Did you like that ‘on one’ bit? ‘S dead posh, innit?)

Those of you who read my reviews regularly know that I like to take a positive view of most films, and there are some bits to like about this one, namely, the ancient knights, but Tom Cruise doesn’t even get his kit off in it, so I’ll literally never watch this movie again. And, if a sequel does ever come out, I’m going to hide under a pile of coats and hope to Christ that it’ll all be over soon.

 AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
 
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her new book, THIRTEEN STOPS EARLIER, is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://amzn.to/3ulKWkv
Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Stops-Sandra-Harris-ebook/dp/B089DJMH64
The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:
 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thirteen-Stops-Later-Book-ebook/dp/B091J75WNB/

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB. (1971) A BUSTY HAMMER CLASSIC REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB. (1971) BASED ON THE 1903 NOVEL, JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS, BY BRAM STOKER. A HAMMER FILM PRODUCTION DIRECTED BY SETH HOLT AND MICHAEL CARRERAS.

STARRING VALERIE LEON, ANDREW KEIR, JAMES VILLIERS, JAMES COSSINS AND AUBREY MORRIS.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Talk about a yummy mummy. This excellent Hammer romp has two big things in its favour; namely, lead actress Valerie Leon’s left boob, and lead actress Valerie Leon’s right boob, lol.

These are without a doubt the most magnificent breasts ever featured in a Hammer film, and Hammer films, as we know, featured many great boobies. But these knockers are in a class of their own, and should really have been given their own line in the credits.

Ms. Leon’s fabulous hair and eyes are not to be sneezed at, either. Her gorgeous chestnut tresses are so windblown and lovely and natural that I refuse to believe she was wearing a wig in this film, even though she admits to it herself.

And those beautiful, mysterious eyes! She really was the perfect choice to play both the evil Egyptian Queen Tera, as well as Tera’s modern day alter ego, Margaret Fuchs (pronounced Fookes), the daughter of a fervent Egyptologist.

Andrew Keir (Father Sandor in Hammer’s DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS and Professor Bernard Quatermass in Hammer’s QUATERMASS AND THE PIT) plays Margaret’s father, Julian Fuchs, the lucky bastard who gets to tuck that hot tamale into bed at night.

He’s obsessed with the aforementioned Queen Tera, to the point that he’s brought her perfectly preserved body and sarcophagus back from Egypt with him to his house, where he’s recreated her tomb in his basement. What a weirdo, right…?

Margaret, his own precious daughter, is the living image of Tera, and, when Daddy gives Margaret Tera’s old ring for her birthday, Tera’s evil powers begin to reach out across the chasm of centuries to take possession of Margaret.

Daddy Fuchs is not a very good Daddy. He wants to revive Tera, not realising that reviving Tera will mean his own daughter’s death. Margaret is so seduced by the power of the long-dead queen that she wants to revive Tera too, and so does Daddy’s old colleague (now his deadly rival), a plummy-voiced toff by the name of Corbeck.

The smarmy Corbeck has his own reasons for wanting to commit such a destructive act, and, when people have their own reasons for wanting to do things, it’s hard to dissuade them…

Together they set out to retrieve Tera’s ancient evil relics from the various members of the original expedition, because they need the relics to resurrect the old queen. Are they biting off more than they can chew? And will there be deadly consequences? Most assuredly, dear reader. Most assuredly…

There are some marvellous shots of Ms. Leon (in her time a Bond Girl and a Carry On hottie as well as a Hammer beauty) in a slinky negligée, with a wind machine blowing her hair artistically around her perfect boat-race.

Ms. Leon as Tera is pictured lying down with some kind of heavy gold necklet resting on her otherwise bare bosoms. She steals every scene she’s in with her stunning, matchless beauty.

I also love the inclusion in the cast of brilliant character actors James Cossins (FAWLTY TOWERS, SOME MOTHERS DO ‘AVE ‘EM, Hammer’s THE ANNIVERSARY and Hammer’s THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN) and Aubrey Morris, the gravedigger-gardener from THE WICKER MAN (1973).

A word about the craze for Egyptology and Egyptomania that existed when Bram Stoker wrote the little-known book on which the film was based, JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS.

Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, and the Victorians were fascinated by Egypt and all things Egyptian. As was Bram Stoker, who possessed quite a decent collection of books and writings on Egypt.

The British occupation of Egypt made it easier for them (the British) to bring the artifacts and sarcophagi they uncovered in that mystic land back to Blighty with them. (Whether or not it was entirely ethical for them to do so is another matter.)

Mummies and other paraphernalia frequented ended up in private homes as well as public museums, and there was a huge rise in the popularity of ‘mummy fiction.’

Mummy’s curses were frequently the topic of these stories and novels, that is, curses on the people who raped (let’s call a spade a spade here) and desecrated the splendour and grandeur of these ancient tombs and took their spoils home with them to other countries for profit and personal fame.

Female mummies in Victorian mummy-lit were usually sex objects and the male mummies autocratic princes or pharaohs. Some of the greatest films of all time are ‘mummy’ movies; for example, Boris Karloff’s UNIVERSAL triumph of 1932, THE MUMMY, and Hammer’s THE MUMMY of 1959, which starred the superb Christopher Lee in the title role.

Two facts about BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB you may not have known. Firstly, dear old Peter Cushing was initially cast as Busty St. Clair’s Daddio, but sadly had to withdraw after only one day’s filming due to his wife’s illness. And secondly, the scene where Hooters is eating that banana is indeed a metaphor for oral sex. D’uh, lol.

Anyway, BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB, featuring a rather cheeky disembodied hand, is a dark, moody atmospheric slice of Gothic film horror and could even be one of their bestest films. And never forget the two factors chiefly responsible for its success… Valerie Leon’s magnificent right boob, and Valerie Leon’s magnificent left boob…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.

BLESS THE CHILD. (1993) BOOK REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

BLESS THE CHILD BY CATHY CASH SPELLMAN. (1993)

BOOK REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

The child everybody wants… even the DEVIL…

This book had the potential to be absolutely phenomenal, given its premise- a battle to the death between Good and Evil- but, like the film from 2000 based on this book, it turned out to be a really damp squib, a major disappointment.

Mrs. Margaret Cavan O’Connor is an American widow who owns an antiques business. God has sent her one of the worst of all human trials, a daughter who is addicted to heroin. The daughter, Jenna, missing for a good while, presumably off doing drug addict stuff, turns up out of the blue one day with a baby, her baby, in tow.

Mind her for me, she begs Maggie, then she legs it again to God-knows-where. Maggie, shell-shocked at first, grows to worship her little grand-daughter, Cody, which is why it’s so hard to give her up when Jenna turns up again, three years later, demanding the child back.

Things have changed a lot for Jenna in three years. She now has a husband, a handsome, charismatic billionaire businessman called Eric Vannier, who pulls all Jenna’s strings and keeps her provided with the drugs she craves, so long as she goes along with his twisted plans for world domination…

When an anonymous phone call reveals Eric’s link to a sinister and deadly Satanic cult called Maa Kheru, Maggie becomes convinced that Cody’s life, not to mention her immortal soul, are in terrible danger from this evil, sadistic cult.

It turns out that Cody is a very special child known as the Messenger, and Maggie is the Messenger’s protector, by virtue of her past life as a handmaiden dedicated to the goddess Isis. Maggie accesses this past life with the help of her witch friend, Ellie, who’s into Tarot card readings and the cosmic alignment of planets and all that jazz.

Anyone who can capture Cody, control her and correctly harness the power she possesses can rule the world. You can imagine, therefore, that such a child will be popular with people like Eric Vannier, for whom world domination has always been his primary goal. It’s time to unearth that old cliché, stop at nothing; as in, Eric and Maa Kheru will stop at nothing to get their hands on that little girl and her magical powers.

Maggie enlists the help of a New York detective, Lieutenant Malachy Devlin, a man with tragedy in his past, and Father Peter Messenguer, a questioning cleric who’s sailing pretty damn close to the wind as far as his superiors are concerned, to get Cody back from the Vanniers and Maa Kheru.

She has endless and, it has to be said, endlessly boring conversations with these two men about religion, spirituality, past lives and their beliefs and hers, in which the author shows off the prodigious amount of research she’s done into things like the history of magic, ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses, the left-hand path versus the right-hand one, astrology and mysticism.

It’s to her credit that she’s done all this painstakingly detailed research, but you can’t read for too long in the book without tripping over one of the many enormous information dumps she’s left scattered throughout the narrative. Quite honestly, I thought I’d never finish reading this particular book, and I normally love reading about all things supernatural.

There is one really cool chapter in which Eric Vannier authorises for Maggie to be the victim of something truly dreadful called a ‘Sending.’ Maggie barricades herself inside a pentagram chalked on the floor of one of the rooms of her house, while Maa Kheru flex their black magic muscles by ‘sending’ her various demons and nightmarish entities to mess with her head and terrify her into submission.

It’s very similar to the scene in the Hammer horror film THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, based on the book by Dennis Wheatley, in which Christopher Lee as Nicholas, Duc de Richleau, and his friends, are forced to defend themselves against a night of black magic attacks sent their way by Mocata, the charismatic leader of the evil cult trying to lure the Duc’s friend’s son, Simon Aron, over to the dark side.

Anyway, there are lots of extremely cool and interesting references to the various aspects of black magic in the book, but the book as a whole could have done with being a lot less long-winded.

Instead, the writer’s gone and heaved the entire bloomin’ kitchen sink at us, which is why it’s genuinely hard to see the wood for the trees here. Less is more, as the fella says, and, in this case, he might just be right…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.

THE HUNGER. (1983) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE HUNGER. 1983. BASED ON THE BOOK ‘THE HUNGER’ BY WHITLEY STRIEBER. DIRECTED BY TONY SCOTT. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN GOLDBLATT.

STARRING CATHERINE DENEUVE, DAVID BOWIE, CLIFF DE YOUNG, SUSAN SARANDON, BETH EHLERS, DAN HEDAYA, WILLEM DAFOE AND BAUHAUS.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

(First published here in 2016.)

I took this film out of the library recently (yes, there are still those of us who do that, like cave-people who’ve never heard of Netflix…!) and the librarian laughed as he checked it out and remarked that the director really had ‘a thing for billowing curtains.’

I had to laugh too. There certainly are a lot of billowing curtains in this visually beautiful and arty erotic vampire film, along with classical music and classical statuary and paintings. The director was definitely trying to create something artistically eye-catching and in this he’s succeeded, but the film’s not without its problems or, indeed, its stern critics.

Despite its being obviously sexy and stylish, film critic Roger Ebert described the film as ‘an agonisingly bad vampire movie.’ That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose, but it’s found itself a cult following amongst the goth subculture so the news isn’t all bad.

Me personally, I love this film and think it’s one of the best non-Dracula vampire movies ever made, along with INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and SALEM’S LOT, based on the internationally bestselling books by Anne Rice and Stephen King respectively.

Now to the plot. Miriam Blaylock, played by well-preserved French actress Catherine BELLE DE JOUR Deneuve, is one hot momma. In one way. In another, she’s a stone-cold bitch who also just so happens to be a vampire. That’s right, she’s an ageless and beautiful vampire who is hundreds, maybe thousands of years old.

She lives in Manhattan in a fantastic old house filled with the aforementioned priceless objets d’art. She doesn’t need to go out to work because she’s as rich as Croesus, although she poses as a teacher of classical music along with her handsome younger husband. By the way, did I forget to mention that this classy lassy with the bottomless bank account is married in the film to the Thin White Duke…?

Yep, her hubby John, an eighteenth-century cellist, is played by musician-actor David Bowie, who sadly passed away earlier this year and- as some people maintain!- unintentionally sparked off a chain of celebrity deaths that had us reeling and railing against the Grim Reaper till midsummer at least. It’s been a bad year for celebrity deaths.

He’s a vampire too like his missus but he’s a very tragic figure in this film. When we come in, he’s unfortunately started to age at the rate of knots, even though Miriam, that lying, manipulative bitch, had promised him eternal life and also eternal youth when they first got together back in the eighteenth century.

She may have been telling porkies about the eternal youth thing, but it seems that she was telling the brutal truth about his living forever, which is extremely bad news for her hubby John who’s now so ancient in his appearance that he makes Grampa Simpson from THE SIMPSONS look young…!

Before long, Miriam is callously locking him away in a coffin in a room at the top of the house where, incidentally, she keeps the rotting corpses of her other lovers. She’s pledged eternal love to all of them but we quickly learn that ‘eternity’ for Miriam can end in a heartbeat the minute she tires of you or you can no longer satisfy her. The corpses are doomed to lie there, awake and aware, for all eternity because she’s too goddamn selfish to let them die. That bitch. I told you guys she was cold…!

Things start to get really gruesome after poor, poor old David Bowie has been put in his ‘forever’ box in a heartbreaking scene that would make you feel very angry with Miriam on behalf of John and the other boxed lovers.

The sexually insatiable but horrifically selfish Miriam then turns her attentions to Dr. Sarah Roberts, the author of a dreary but terribly worthy tome called SLEEP AND LONGEVITY who carries out ageing experiments on monkeys, of all things.

Dr. Roberts, a gerontologist consulted by an agonised David Bowie before his incarceration in Miriam’s attic, is played by a freakishly young-looking Susan Sarandon with a painfully ‘Eighties hairstyle. Poor David Bowie thought that maybe she could slow down or even stop altogether his dreadful ageing process but it was no dice, sadly. Science hasn’t advanced that far yet, if it ever does.

Sarah can’t help being mesmerised by Miriam, who is quite simply the last word in feminine allure. The two have lesbian sex in Miriam’s gaff. (Well, what other kind could they have…?) Yes, you do see boobs; Sarah’s, but not Miriam’s…!

The sex is all very artistically-shot and stylish, and by the end of it, Miriam has co-mingled their respective bloods, in a disgustingly non-consensual act of what we’d today probably refer to as rape, and Sarah is on her way to becoming a fully-fledged vampire.

Sarah gets as sick as a dog as her body comes to terms with its new situation. I love the scene in which Miriam tells her new lover that she’ll sleep for six hours out of every twenty-four and she’ll need to ‘feed’ once a week. Just give the girl the instructive pamphlets entitled SO YOU’RE A VAMPIRE NOW or VAMPIRES 101 or VAMPIRES FOR DUMMIES or even SO YOU’VE RUINED YOUR LIFE and let her figure it all out for herself, lol. 

Sarah becomes so desperate for blood when ‘the hunger,’ as Miriam puts it, is upon her, that she kills her own scientist lover when he comes looking for her at Miriam’s place, and she joins in the gory fun when Miriam rips a young male pick-up limb from limb.

Sarah’s scientist friends are alarmed when they examine her blood medically and discover that her bloodstream has actually been invaded by a foreign, non-human blood strain, which is winning the battle for dominance over Sarah’s own normal blood.

It’s extremely frightening for Sarah (‘What have you done to me…?’), and it’s also almost impossible not to think of the way in which the AIDS virus is transmitted. This was, after all, the time when AIDS was rearing its ugly head for the first time. The passing of the vampire gene resembles the transmission of a blood infection. Christopher Lee never had this issue, lol.

In fact, when I first used to watch the devastatingly handsome and sexually dominant Christopher Lee as Dracula in the HAMMER HORROR films, I wanted nothing more than to be a vampire too.

I’d live with him in his crumbling Transylvanian castle and drink blood from a jewel-encrusted goblet brought to me nightly by my new husband’s naked, full-bosomed handmaidens. It was going to be sweet. This film put me off the idea of being a vampire for good.

All that sweating and being sick and looking as if you’re dying with the ‘flu while your body craves human blood changed my mind about it, along with the decidedly unsavoury sight of Susan Sarandon in her yucky grey sweat-socks sweating buckets through her old grey T-shirt.

I only ever wanted the glamour and the sex with Dracula, anyway, not so much the other stuff. I certainly never wanted to do my own killing, and I’d only ever be pushed about immortality if I had someone decent to share it with. But, when it comes down to it, isn’t that what Miriam wants for herself…?

So anyway, do Miriam and Sarah live happily ever after for all eternity, or is eternity just too long a time even for a vampire…? There’s a neat little twist at the end that I can’t tell you about, but I thought it was a strange ending to an already strange film. Apparently, some members of the cast were disappointed in the ending but some viewers will think it’s only right and proper.

There are some plotholes in the film, which is so painfully ‘Eighties it looks a bit dated now, but the plotholes, I suppose, are of secondary importance compared to the look of the thing. Willem Dafoe makes a brief cameo as a man who wants to use the pay-phone after Susan Sarandon’s finished with it and the violin-playing kid is really, really annoying. ‘Eighties band BAUHAUS make an appearance and the monkey experiments stuff gets quite confusing after a while. I didn’t enjoy that bit too much.

The first half-hour drags a bit and things don’t really get going until David Bowie is locked away in his coffin, but the hour or so after that is required viewing for fans of the vampire genre. Based on the novel by Whitley Strieber, there’s not one mention of the ‘v’ word in the film, however, which is interesting. Watch this if you enjoy vampire flicks. If you can overlook the flaws, it’s a real little cracker, I promise you.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

https://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor