Watch Your Back, Mickey Mouse

Sometimes the universe is just too generous. Sometimes you're browsing the internet with no real hopes of entertaining yourself when you come upon a Facebook post from friends who know you all too well urging you to abandon all duties and focus instead on acquiring a terrible shot-on-video Italian horror movie dubbed into earnest English about a haunted mummy theme park. 

You say to yourself, "sure, that SOUNDS great and all, but how do I know this "mummy theme park" movie is any good?

Then you find out that the title is, plainly and simply, "The Mummy Theme Park."

We live in a golden age. We really do. 

Quick Plot: Somewhere in Egypt, people are dressed in silly sparkly costumes and an earthquake happens. "One Week Later" (yes, there are quotation marks, the true sign of a lack of grammar knowledge/mind-game playing subtitler), a fashion photographer named Daniel and his horrid blond assistant are summoned across the world to document the opening of The Mummy Theme Park.

Yes, I did indeed just say "the opening of The Mummy Theme Park." You see, savvy reader, in addition to this being a movie about a mummy theme park and named so perfectly The Mummy Theme Park, the mummy theme park IN The Mummy Theme Park is called ever so succinctly, The Mummy Theme Park. Not Mummyworld. Not Mummy Studios or Mummy Center or Mummyland or Mummywood. Nope, nothing so misleading. It's just a mummy theme park. Why call it anything else but The Mummy Theme Park?

Obviously, I loved this movie.

I loved it even if it misused quotation marks and had a woman shaving her legs with a disposable razor and no shaving cream. Consider what else this movie has to offer:

- a fashion shoot that feels like a cross between Birdemic's extended model sequence and everything from every '80s movie ever

- every cast member that is Egyptian wearing copious amounts of glitter

- multiple girl fights

- a trying-on-clothes montage

The Mummy Theme Park in The Mummy Theme Park is, as you'd expect, adorably sad yet incredibly awesome. The concession stand features statue dispensers that let you tap a beer that pours out of a pharaoh's bronze beard. Because if there's one thing beer lovers ask for when they go to mummy theme parks, it's to drink a draft poured out of a pharaoh's bronze beard.

Such visual tricks are rather vital for a film that was apparently made without a screenwriter. We can thank Al Passeri for both producing and directing, but nowhere in the credits do we see the name of any man or woman cited as providing the story or script. There is, however, a brave soul who accepted the title of Dialouge Coach. No, I didn't mistype. There was a dialouge coach. 

Maybe that means something else in Egyptian or Italian.

High Point

Aside from EVERYTHING, the real MVP of The Mummy Theme Park is not actually the titular Mummy Theme Park but instead, the one uncredited actress who gets to play a super angry sexy dancer whose 'thing' is to constantly push the other harem girls out of her way and occasionally, smack them in such a manner that they swallow whatever they happen to be holding in their hands. This gal is all right.

Low Point

Really? It's The Mummy Theme Park. I refuse to answer that question

Lessons Learend

Egypt is rather a long way from the U.S.

When utilizing the adorable special effect that is the miniature, try to refrain from having full-sized actors and props anywhere near say, the miniature train set you have constructed if you're expecting your audience to believe it is life-size

Jars of dangerous acid are thankfully labeled 'dangerous acid' in mummy theme parks

The Winning Line

"It's time to put those skeletons back in the closet!”

Naturally, this is spoken when our hero(?) is battling a skeleton. It’s not the line itself that wins, but the conviction and pride with which it is spoken. Considering the film’s lack of a screenwriter or properly spelled dialogue coach, I have to believe that the poor uncredited voice actor dubbing the role was given something of free reign and came up with this triumphant pun with such excitement that I have to award it the victory.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, I’m not saying YOU should stop everything and find a copy of The Mummy Theme Park, but you--you know who you are, the one who’s been drooling ever since I revealed the name of the mummy theme park in The Mummy Theme Park was just The Mummy Theme Park--yeah, THAT guy should obviously stop everything and find a copy of The Mummy Theme Park. It’s exactly what you want from a movie called The Mummy Theme Park about a mummy theme park. Nothing less, nothing more. 

The universe is good.

I'm a Manhattan Baby

There’s something about the title “Manhattan Baby” that just SCREAMS Big Broadway Musical. Once you learn that this actually applies to a typical gooey piece of slightly surreal, slightly just messy Lucio Fulci horror, it positively BEGS for the deluxe Andrew Lloyd Webber treatment.

Quick Plot: While on work vacation in Egypt, the Hacker family experiences a few unhappy events that probably won’t make the annual slideshow recap. Father George, an archaeologist, explores a pyramid only to be blinded by lasers (it’s just like when the airport loses your luggage, only you’re blinded by lasers) while daughter Susie is gifted with a sparkly, eeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiil amulet by a blind old woman.

Back home in New York, Susie quickly shows symptoms of demonic possession by an ancient Egyptian evil. Or, more precisely , signs that she’s in a movie helmed by Lucio Fulci.

Observe the following touchstones:

-a blind woman with no pupils

-the very hard-working electronic score

-dubbing!

-a character named Emily

-a plot that kinda makes sense, but also really doesn’t

-portals to netherworlds

Far less beloved than The Beyond or City of the Living Dead, Manhattan Baby sees Fulci coasting on his landmarks but still having some fun. Take, for whatever reason, a supporting character who just happens to insist upon playing with goofy magician props in every one of his few scenes. Perhaps it’s necessary since his disappearance gives us such lines as “He’s a frivolous guy but this is serious!”

Lucio Fulci is rarely considered a master of the genre. While I will go to my grave arguing the merits of his underrated giallo Don’t Torture a Duckling, his films are generally riddled with laziness, be it stories that don’t add up, blatantly homemade special effects, and dialogue written and spoken by a first level ESL student. That being said, there’s also a whole lot of entertainment to usually be had. Yes, crunchy pipe cleaner tarantulas are funnier than they are scary, but I’ll take them over slow dragging cinema any day. 

Seriously, THIS HAPPENS

High Points

You can never fault Fulci for featuring dull deaths. Reanimating taxidermied vultures for a true birdemic with visible wires? Yes please

Low Points

Perhaps it’s that Manhattan Baby has a more straightforward plot than something like The Beyond, but there’s something about the story that just drags in a way that screams for more shots of venomous snakes alternated with shots of an actress screaming even though it’s clear they’re never in the same room

Lessons Learned

Don’t ever forget that the scorpion is a symbol of death

If you’re an actress playing a babysitter and your name is Jamie Lee, you will be okay. If you’re a character babysitting NAMED Jamie Lee, you should find new employment or make a thorough will

When filming, even with a low budget, it’s important to notice the little things, like when a large piece of hair is stuck to the center of your camera and therefore visible in several key scenes

Rent/Bury/Buy

Manhattan Baby is a "Long Wait" on Netflix, so it's worth putting toward the top of your queue just to ensure you get it before it becomes unavailable (trust me: I've been burned before). That being said, you're far better off watching Fulci's more famous melty movies, so this one should be reserved for true enthusiasts. Yes, there are lasers and zombified birds pecking out eyeballs, but there’s also a lot of muddled exposition in between. 

Dawn of the Not Zombie

The biggest problem with mummy movies is the sheer fragility of those ancient bodies. How can anybody fear a monster that’s as easy to destroy as a home-knit Christmas sweater?

Dawn of the Mummy makes a valiant attempt to change this, namely, by cashing in on another early morning titled cult favorite from the late 1970s. Not a bad approach. Not a not-fun movie.

Quick Plot: 

In ancient Egypt, a high priestess enslaves a bunch of servants in an undead allegiance to an entombed king. I think. 

Flash forward to “the present day” where a trio of bandits led by a very tall white guy (Barry Sattels) who finds everything hysterical seeks to rob the familiar pyramid of its gold. They laugh. A lot.

Meanwhile, a group of NYC models with less personality than a bottle of foundation and their jerky photographer head overseas for a sandy fashion shoot. Eventually--and I stress that word ever so much--they stumble upon the tomb being inconsistently guarded by the maniacally laughing giraffe of a thief and his googly limbed sidekicks.

Having watched my share of America’s Net Top Model (by share, I mean the entire series and I’ll thank you not to judge), I know that any wacky locale makes for great editorial shots. Seriously, Tyra’s minions once posed lowered in coffins, on top of elephants, and inside a meat locker while wearing nothing but raw steak. It was amazing.

So the movie. Well...to be honest, the first hour is a tad more compelling than Tyra Banks’ performance in Halloween: Resurrection. Nothing really happens, save for awkward photo shoots featuring close-ups of the camera lights slowly melting open mummy pores. There’s a weird hesitation to venture into exploitation territory. Pretty models skinny dip, but no skin is shown. A woman faints, is carried to safety, and later awakened by the man who caught her lurking in her bedroom. They kiss. End of scene. For the film’s time and nature, it’s surprisingly tame.

At the same time, director Frank Agrama stages some visually stirring moments of shambling monsters against the cinematic skyline of Egypt. Why the mummies rotate between limping, speed walking, and shooting across time and space to beat frantically fleeing jeeps isn’t quite explained, but quibbling with details in a zombmummy hybrid is a waste of time. This, coupled with the overenthusiastic dubbing, is WHY we love these kinds of buried treasures.

By the time we come to Dawn of the Mummy’s climax, i.e., the wedding feast to put all cocktail hours to shame, we can’t not be content. Yes, we had to suffer through an incredibly dull first half, but the film’s tail end offers one of the better noshing attacks I’ve seen in a while. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s great; just that I haven’t seen many man-eating zombie mummies onscreen.

High Points

As just mentioned, the wedding feast to inspire any Egyptian a quiet elopement is wonderfully executed

A rather messy paper mache-ish dummy who gets axed is...

wonderful.

Low Points

Aside from Rick, not a single character has any real discernible personality (unless you count clipping your toenails and being offended by the clipping of toenails)

Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead shares this irk: why is it that the undead’s faces rot like fruit left for a month on a heater, while their torsos seems to have the impenetrable strength of a Twinkie?

Lessons Learned

Seducing a model is incredibly easy, providing your have dangerously blue eyes and a hyena-like laugh

Comforting a model is almost as simple: just cradle her head, then roll it back and forth with the soft touch of a polar bear

Do I really need to tell you to always heed the warning shouted ominously by the black toothed witch woman who just happens to hang out near the undead?

Egyptian weddings are a great time as long as you don’t invite the flesh-eating mummies

Rent/Bury/Buy

Here’s a sample from the notes I kept while watching this film: 

disco AND folk music....yay...and ugh

lyric: “there’s a rainbow that suits the color in your eyes”

wow
something happen, please
dude laughs a lot
huzzah! feast!

That sums up a lot of Dawn of the Mummy. Awful for many reasons, and yet somehow charming for its time (1981), subject matter, and shy approach to exploitation. The DVD includes an entertaining and self-aware commentary from director Frank Agrama, but overall, this is probably more of a one-time rental to pop on when you need some low-grade cheese. Enjoy it for what it is. In the right mood, you won’t be disappointed.