Kharis 4: The Mummy’s Curse Reviewed

 

A Plan9Crunch analysis from Joseph Gibson

 

Previous Recent Kharis Reviews:

https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-mummys-hand-reviewing-kharis.html

https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-mummys-tomb-reviewing-kharis.html

https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-mummys-ghost-reviewing-kharis.html

 Introduction: The Ship of Theseus

 

Please forgive the title and format change for this review series; in my head, this was quite clever and apt.  By this point in the Kharis tetralogy, there was no substantial creative figure I can find that was still in the franchise that had been previously.  (Each film had a different director, but writer Griffin Jay and producer Ben Pivar were the constants before this, but now Bernard Schubert has taken over writing arguments, based on a story from Leon Abrams and Dwight V. Babcock, while Oliver Drake is the producer.)  There is really no single piece of this creative experience that was present from the days of the Mummy’s Hand, so I thought why not make my review match that in some way.

 

It brings to mind the thought paradox of the Ship of Theseus.  If every piece of the whole has been swapped out, is it even the same ship anymore, and at what point did it change?  This is still a Kharis film, with Ananka and the evil mysterious High Priests, but Kharis isn’t Tom Tyler, Ananka isn’t Ramsay Ames and not only are the Priests called Arkam not Karnak now but Andoheb, our main tether to this cult, is gone.  The setting also, rather bizarrely, is different now.  Some of these changes happened gradually, with tethers to the old still present, but ripping off the Band-aid with how different this film is even from the last one raises a certain question.  Is this still even the same series anymore?  I would say yes, but you’ll have to be in suspense as to my reasoning for quite a while.  Despite also starting this review differently than before, I, like Kharis, am still here, for better or for worse and this review is built on my previous analyses of this series, just like the movie is built on his previous escapades.

 

Of Name Discrepancies 

 

Because I was unsure how fully to commit to the Ship of Theseus bit, I actually watched this film not on my captioned dvd but on Internet Archive without captions: in a completely different format which also happened to correspond to a different experience. Consequently, and it is actually very interesting this happened, I cannot say for sure what certain character names are (and neither can internet sources).  Does Kay Harding play Betty Ward as IMDB claims or Betty Walsh (wikipedia)?  It certainly sounds more like Walsh, and her uncle is named Walsh.  Is Peter Coe’s High Priest character named Doctor Ilzor Zardad or Ilzor Zardaab?  Those would sound similar no matter what, so I don’t lean one way or the other. 

 

I generally trust Wikipedia (or at least the sources it links to) more than IMDB, but Wikipedia also calls Tante Berthe’s Cafe (the sign clearly visible multiple times in the movie) a pub.  It is really interesting to me that there is such a large disagreement and even more interesting that I got to be a part of that experience by accidentally taking away the option to have an answer.  The name differences do not matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.  I will call Ilzor Ilzor and Betty Betty (the funny thing about that is that this is also how the credits refer to them, just their first names).

 

The Beginning of the Movie

 

This film is set in rural Louisiana (somehow Kharis, Peanuts, Tom and the mob in the last movie all made the 1382-mile trek from Massachusetts to Louisiana during that climactic chase scene) and opens at the Tante Berthe’s Cafe with a musical number from Tante Berthe.  Character Cajun Joe hits on her and seems somewhat like a sleazeball but one they put up with, while another character named Achilles alludes to Kharis being around as a town legend after winding up in the swamp 25 years before.

 

The actual plot begins when the Southern Engineering Company, represented through belligerent Pat Walsh (Betty’s uncle), aims to drain the swamp that contains Kharis, much to everyone else’s chagrin on account of a recent disappearance and murder attributed to The Mummy or Rougarou/Loup-Garou (pesky captionless print; the Rougarou and Loup-Garou are technically different and either would make sense in this context).  Two doctors from the Scripps Museum (which previously housed Ananka), Ilzor and James Halsey, show up to try to reclaim Kharis and Ananka from the swamp.  Ilzor, it turns out, is there to reclaim them not for the museum but for the cult.  

 

Now, there has been at the very least a 25 year time skip, and seemingly Ilzor and another character already planted in the Louisiana town called Ragheb (Martin Kosleck’s character) are all that remain of the cult of Arkam.  It makes enough sense, given how Andoheb sent The Beggar, Mehemet Bey, and Yousef Bey into dangerous scenarios that got them killed, that Andoheb might have run this cult into the ground offscreen (even if that is a little contrived), but I will actually commend the detail that Ilzor was planted in the museum.  As far as damage control following Dr. Ayad figuring out the secret of the tana leaves, it makes sense for the cult to infiltrate their enemies.  (As for how Andoheb would know about that, The Mummy's Ghost showed both him and Yousef to be very adept at interpreting information from the gods in prayer.)  It just feels like there is a film missing where a dying Andoheb sent Ilzor as their last hope to revive Kharis and annihilate anyone who knows their secret and where Kharis somehow wound up in Louisiana.

 

Ilzor at least has learned from Yousef’s mistake of trying to outright control Kharis by trying to reason with him mostly.  This brings us to the obligatory backstory explanation with stock footage where Ilzor instructs Ragheb in their tana ritual, and the caretaker of the monastery where they are keeping Kharis arrives only for Kharis to kill him.  Ilzor informs Kharis that he will have to find Ananka, and, throughout these scenes, the tana leaves are once again confusing.  Three to keep Kharis alive is mentioned again (though he would have spent 25 years without any, so does he need them for his heart to beat?), but there is a scene where an already moving Kharis is given his 9 tana leaves (9 are supposed to give him motivation and movement, but consistently, he has been already moving to receive those 9, so he should be uncontrollable in all the films, which he admittedly is in these last two but for character reasons, not tana reasons).

 

The Return and Recasting of Princess Ananka

 

Next, a hand and later a body emerge from dirt nearby the swamp.  This being walks stiffly, like a Mummy, from being caked in mud, but the sunlight above empowers her to walk normally after she washes off.  This is Virginia Christine’s Princess Ananka.

 

Now, this hardly feels like the same character as Ramsay Ames in the previous film, and that is technically both a good and bad thing.  Amina was trapped between two battling identities, and the amnesia here should serve as a reset for at least one of those personalities.  If last time the spirit of Ananka inhabited the normally witty Amina, this time the amnesiac Princess Ananka should be our true introduction to this character as she uncovers at least one of her dormant personalities.  In this movie, she alternates between a bubbly and helpful nature that is knowledgeable about Egyptology or almost full catatonia where all she can do is mutter Kharis, run from the mummy and pass out.

 

It is in her less lucid moments that Cajun Joe finds her, tells her he can take her to find help, goes through the side door of Tante Berthe’s cafe, lays her on the bed, and, surprisingly, actually does go get Tante Berthe for help, leaving to get the doctor once Tante Berthe starts helping Ananka.  I don’t want to allude too much to R rated subject matter, but this scene, especially with the context of Cajun Joe as a bit of lecherous Ne’er-do-well, resembles a particular kind of heinous assault especially with Ananka being groggy (implicitly the moonlight and Arkam magic have a drug like effect on her to achieve this state), and I will applaud the film for subverting this imagery to henceforth establish Cajun Joe as a very strong and moral character.  It actually contextualizes why the beginning of this film is structured so that we start in Tante Berthe’s with him and not with the remaining priests of Arkam as per usual.  We have already seen the Mummy and the priests, but there is still suspense to be had in establishing the dynamics of these new townsfolk.

 

Next, Kharis finds her and kills Tante Berthe, the fleeing Ananka winding up with Halsey, Betty and Dr. Cooper, but, before I get into that, I would like to finish discussing Ananka as a character.  As I mentioned, her catatonic and absentminded moments tend to correspond either to nighttime (a good plot justification for setting the action during the scarier nighttime) or odd circumstances involving Arkam priests that said priests take credit for (her mind goes blank when she sees Ilzor during the next day, and he claims that he was trying to lure her back to Kharis in that moment).  During the day, specifically when the sun is up, she shows greater humanity, as she is an agreeable and knowledgeable person that can help Halsey out by identifying and dating Kharis’ wraps because the wrappings were different in Amenophis’ era than after apparently. 

 

The film treats this like Ananka surfacing, but Ananka would only know the Amenophis wrappings and not be able to compare across the centuries, right?  We have never seen Arkam cultists talk about the specifications of the wrappings; it is Amina that associated closely with Egyptologist Professor Norman and checked out books from the college.  (That said, it is possible that Ananka, however long her spirit was in the Scripps Museum, may have observed figures like Steve Banning or Dr. Ayad in their studies, but if she can’t remember either earthly existence, why would she remember her ghostly one?)

 

The Mummy’s Curse

 

The scenes of Kharis chasing her and their dueling motifs make for very interesting cinema to analyze.  She is at her strongest in the sun but still cannot remember herself (or ultimately escape her fate of being recaptured and magically mummified), and Kharis is at his strongest during the moonlight but is a slow-moving slave to his tragic pursuit of love.  There are moments where Ananka or the people protecting her are right in his grasp, but they move on without even noticing he was there.  Moments like that work well for tension because we have already seen his sheer power and brutal effectiveness, but it also communicates a pathetic tragedy, otherwise called “The Mummy’s Curse”.  He’s almost more of a ghost than a man and very out of focus in this film by comparison to the last while still carrying out his will where it intersects with the priests (though still also a downgrade in autonomy).  

 

The focus of this chase scene is on Ananka, engulfed in almost total darkness, an effectively scary scene because we, like Ananka, cannot see much of anything and do not know the layout, but Kharis is still out there, far closer than we realize.  When she ends up with Halsey and Betty, they step into more important roles and each survive confrontations with Ragheb and Kharis respectively, while all Kharis gets is a few more kills, an only somewhat frustrating climactic choice and finally to be buried and eventually put on display at the Scripps Museum.

Leading up to the climax, Kharis kills Dr. Cooper and destroys Betty’s tent to abduct Ananka, while Cajun Joe helps out in a search party for Ananka, Ragheb leads Betty into a trap, and Halsey follows Kharis to find Ragheb killing Ilzor (because Ragheb rather abruptly wants to take on Betty as a sinful bride).  Kharis can really play only the role of predator here; Chaney really isn’t given a chance to act much opposite Ananka, but his murders are fine.  I dislike that he ends up killing Cajun Joe for how much I actually appreciate the character, but Joe wasn’t really the lead of this ensemble, just the character who did the most for others, so his death means more than Achilles, the bartender or Goobie would.

 

Climax

 

Once the remaining core characters are all at the monastery, Ragheb and Halsey fight, and, first, I will just say this might be the most obligatory final fight between a designated protagonist and designated antagonist in any of these Classic Universal Monsters films.  Halsey and Ilzor had a connection, and Halsey grew suspicious of Ilzor briefly when he was trying to lure Ananka to Kharis, but this finale can proceed as if those scenes did not happen, a very bizarre choice.  Rather than flowing from a movie’s worth of buildup, Halsey and Ragheb are fighting because of only the most recent plot points, which is still logical, just not cathartic.

 

The more important part of this sequence is when Kharis turns on Ragheb, and, again, it makes sense in context but does not have much foreshadowing.  I like the idea that Kharis is so fed up with these priests failing, that he’ll kill them when they fall to temptation even when their temptation isn’t Ananka, and I also kind of like the idea that Kharis will be out of focus for most of this movie as part of the tragedy of his character, but I don’t think the film’s execution in weaving these plot threads together is exceptionally good.  Ragheb has no chance from the moment Kharis goes after him, meaning this ending is entirely reliant on the spectacle of the monastery falling around them (which is admittedly well done).  It is just also strange for Kharis to single out Ragheb, when Ragheb is the only person there that isn’t trying to take Ananka and Kharis back to the museum (this is Halsey’s whole reason for being there, and Ilzor should have told Kharis, while the denouement reveals that Betty plans to go with Halsey).

 

Making Ilzor the one to go after Betty would already make the climax more personal for Halsey (because the film decided for some reason he should be the lead instead of Cajun Joe), but it also would for Kharis, since Ragheb was only being instructed on how to care for Kharis by Ilzor, and it was Ilzor that demanded far less of and seemed for helpful to Kharis than any previous master.  For Kharis to lose that at the same time as Ananka (who he barely interacts with in this climax) and have to fight his way out would be very interesting.  

 

What we have is serviceable because Kharis still does lose the most benevolent and powerful master he had ever had, but I think it is undeniable that it would have been more interesting for Ilzor to be the final foe based on the same reason it was most interesting for Edelmann to be the final foe in House of Dracula: inserts an extra layer of tragedy while also engineering a scenario where our hero monster is the underdog.  Imagine for a moment a polished version of The Mummy’s Curse where Ilzor, as in the film, very carefully navigates his cult’s calling with satiating Kharis, feeding Kharis and trying to help him find Ananka while using his magic only on Ananka for that goal, until he does yield to his temptations and then does have to fight Kharis. The fight between an Arkam cultist at full power and Kharis, technically the weakest he has been in this series but the most motivated, not only carries proper tension and is based on the natural momentum of this series but also is the kind of fight I would expect to lead to a destroyed monastery, Ananka somehow becoming mummified and all the nearby tana leaves being destroyed.  As is, those just kind of happen, with the shallow justification that this is the final film.  

 

I don’t want to spend too much time here pitching a different film, because that isn’t really film criticism, but unless I am missing some important symbolism, the filmmakers choosing this ending over any other possibilities really weakens the foundations of this story and makes it seem less interesting.  Do you, the reader, still remember or care as much about the tense Cajun Joe subversion now that the film has decided he, our introductory character, is not important enough to have a stake in the climax?  If I hadn’t brought up the differing styles of Ilzor to previous High Priests, would you remember that when the final image the director Leslie Goodwins chose to show us was Kharis turning on Ragheb after the latter’s temptation was more abrupt than Yousef Bey’s (which itself required an act of god)?

 

Conclusion

 

If any one of these films qualifies as a cash grab, it would be The Mummy’s Curse.  If any one of these films would most benefit from polishing, additional drafts and a longer runtime, it would be this one (and that is saying a lot since that is true of all of these Kharis movies).  And, as I’ve already mentioned, this film is the odd one out, the Ship of Theseus, but it still does enough interesting things with the mythology of Kharis and Ananka (the sun and moon contrast is very simple but also really interesting) and the tragedy of both to have a place in this series.