Trance

...these are the words that came to mind after watching 1998's "THE ETERNAL Kiss of the Mummy," originally titled "Trance" and written & directed by Michael Almereyda. The story is about an alcoholic couple who travel to the wife's country manor in Ireland, supposedly to sober up and give their son the opportunity to meet her ailing grandmother. They discover that her weird uncle (Christopher Walken) has a 2000 year-old mummy of a Druid witch in the basement, which he's curiously trying to revive!

This is Gothic horror in the modern day and struck me as a Hammer flick if it were released in more current times. Alison Elliott is fetching in the starring role of the alcoholic wife. You can tell she has a sweet figure, but you'll only catch a glimpse here or there (not that I'd want to see nudity or sleaze; I'm just saying that there's a way to film beautiful women like Alison and this movie doesn't deliver enough on this front, but it does a bit).

"THE ETERNAL" is not your typical modern horror schlock. It doesn't shoot for conventional horror and gore, but it IS pretty creepy in a Gothic sense. I saw "Big Bad Wolf" (2006) before I viewed this one and, although "Big Bad Wolf" is thrilling and ultra-gory, it's not scary, mainly because the filmmakers & cast cop a semi-campy vibe. "THE ETERNAL," by contrast, plays it completely straight and the foggy Irish moors & centuries-old mansion add to the haunting ambiance.

There's also a quality soundtrack with a few stand-out alternative rock numbers, like the one that plays during the end credits, "My Head Becomes the Sky" by Tara Baoth Mooney.

Anyway, there's a Gothic beauty to the movie, which makes it a pleasure just to watch even if the story is "sluggish," as some criticize. It's clear that the writer/director was aiming for art more than common horror thrills. I'd compare it to "The Mothman Prophecies" (2002) in this sense, albeit not as good. It was limited by an obvious modest budget, which shows through here and there with awkward, amateurish filmmaking.

After viewing, I reflected on the seemingly nonsensical story, particularly the perplexing events in the third act, and certain things started to make sense: This is only a story about a Druid witch coming back to life on the surface; and all that might be figurative. It's really about a woman in bondage to alcoholism who comes face-to-face with her lower nature, her self-destructive side (her "id" or "flesh"), not to mention confronting her incestuous uncle, and trying to prevail. Going back to her heritage, her roots, enables her to see WHY she turned to alcohol for succor in the first place.

In essence, this is a Gothic tale about the purging of one's fleshly demons.

The film runs 95 minutes and was shot in Connemara & Dublin, Ireland; New York; and Miami Beach, Florida.

GRADE: B-/C+

I came to this for two reasons, both of these reasons were people.

The director made one of the best "Hamlets." This is a non-trivial achievement. It was not particularly adventuresome visually, but it really worked for me. How in the world he turned Julia Stiles into an effective Cordelia is a wonderful mystery. Bill Murray turned inside out. Wow.

The lead actress here blew me away in "Wings of the Dove," and does every time I see it.

The effect of this on me was unexpected. It is not generally liked, because not much transformative happens. Christopher Walken has a small role in the middle is oddly bad. If you think of it as a genre film, it simply fails because it touches the bases from unexpected but uninteresting directions and sometimes not at all.

But I liked some elements of the story. Nominally it is a "Curse of the Mummy" sort of thing.

However, you can approach this as a "Naked Lunch" sort of thing. We have the guy who is the writer. He and his wife are substance abusers of a high degree. Her name is Nora, a name that carries huge associations from James Joyce. Predictably, his name is Jim. Together they booze into an alternative story, in Ireland of course, situating deep in the bog.

Its about sex, magic and story. Each of James and Nora has a doppelganger. In Jim's case it is his son, also Jim who is our designated observer. In Nora's case, it is a magical being with hypnotic sexual powers. Much is made of the relationship between this sort of addictive sex and creation. Natch.

The guide through this wonderland is a newly pubescent girl named Alice. There are characters that surround these, but they are there only to explain things to us. Walken's character has the most overt and ridiculous lines.

So you can see that the shape is pretty well imagined. And in fact it maps almost directly to the sort of thinking used to reimagine an film Hamlet as a film student. But that shape is wasted on what in all other respects is a bad movie. Nora here is not redheaded except in the most sexually charged scenes where a red light is used.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

The weirdest thing about this odd little movie is that its labelled a remake of The Mummy (1932) (And subsequent remakes).

But instead of a mummy we have a witch.

And instead of Egypt it's Ireland.

And instead of being good, its terrible.

Starring Christopher Walken and Jared Harris, even a decent cast couldn't turn this one around.

The plot is thoroughly confuddled, the script is dire and the only thing that the movie has going for it is the finale but even that is recycled.

The Eternal (Otherwise known as Trance) is a hard one to pigeon hole. It's not exactly a traditional horror, more a supernatural thriller maybe?

One thing is for sure, the movie isn't as smart as the creators clearly thought it was and falls under the category of instantly forgettable.

The Good:

Walken and Harris do fine

The Bad:

Messy score/soundtrack

Walken is wasted

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Getting knocked out twice within the space of a few minutes has to have a lasting impact right?

A good cast and they do their best with what they're given, but the story makes no sense, the characters' actions are inexplicable, and there are too many moments of unintentional humor, as when a man is killed by being pierced with pieces of a phonograph record or when they get the witch drunk to a hip hop beat and then hit her over the head with a bottle and she grabs her hostage and pouts off. The scene when the two witch and her victim (played by the same actress) are in the house together sets up like a 3 Stooges routine, and the plot begs the question: if the witch wants to possess this other woman's soul, why doesn't she just do it instead of leading these people on this elaborate chase? Not to be missed is Christopher Walkin's eyeglasses and his automotive explanation of the afterlife (paraphrased): "The ancient Egyptianas - they wee materialists. They expected the body to last through eternity, like a used car that you souped up. But the Druids, they knew you couldn't drive in the afterlife. You had to get out and walk." Huh? The ending is absolutely indecipherable. Seems like they just ran out of film.

Upon concluding my viewing of "Trance," or "The Eternal," or whatever the producers are calling this film, I wondered to myself, "Out of all of the bad movies I could have seen, couldn't I have at least seen one that was entertaining?" Even if a film is not well made in terms of acting, directing, writing, or what have you, it can at least be fun, and therefore worthwhile. But not only is this film bad in artistic value, it's incredibly boring. For a plot of such thinness, it moves awfully slowly, with little dramatic tension. At the very least, in a low-brow attempt at entertainment, the deaths of the characters could have been cool and/or gory, but the creators of this dreck failed in that department as well.

What does this movie have going for it? Pretty much nothing, unless you get entertainment out of watching Christopher Walken, who is capable of being brilliant, put so little effort into his acting that he falls into self-parody mode (WHY did he decide to do this film anyway?).

I give this film 3/10, because, God help us, there actually have been worse movies made before.