An alcoholic American couple travel to Ireland with their son so he can meet his grandmother but they walk in on their crazed uncle who is in the midst of reviving a centuries-old Druid witc... Read allAn alcoholic American couple travel to Ireland with their son so he can meet his grandmother but they walk in on their crazed uncle who is in the midst of reviving a centuries-old Druid witch.An alcoholic American couple travel to Ireland with their son so he can meet his grandmother but they walk in on their crazed uncle who is in the midst of reviving a centuries-old Druid witch.
- Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations
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Did you know
- TriviaPrior to hiring Michael Almereyda, Trimark paid a substantial amount of money to secure the rights to Bram Stoker's 'The Jewel of Seven Stars' without realizing the novel was in the public domain.
- GoofsAll entries contain spoilers
- Quotes
[first lines]
Alice: In the beginning of the world, the earth and the sky were one creature, and it was the hardest thing to tear them apart. They loved each other so much. And that's why it rains. Because the earth and the sky are always trying to get back together. Mrs. Ferriter told me that, after my mother died, a long time ago, before I met Nora and Jim.
- ConnectionsReferences The Six Million Dollar Man (1974)
- SoundtracksShe was a Good Looking Woman
Written by Albert Hammond (as Hammond) and Mike Hazlewood (as Hazelwood)
Performed by Joe Dolan
courtesy of Castle Copyrights Ltd
by arrangement with Celebrity Licensing
published by Chrysalis Music
The plot concerns Nora (Elliott), a young American woman of Irish origin who, well, lives up the stereotype of her people and is a bit of a lush. She and her equally inebriated husband Jeff (Harris, who played Dracula's son in "Nadja") are coming home from their latest drunken binge one night when Nora takes a tumble down the stairs of their New York apartment building. Nora survives the fall, but is soon visited by headaches, nosebleeds and hallucinations for her trouble.
Determined to dry out for the sake of their young son, the couple head to Ireland (not *exactly* the best place to give up the sauce) where they pay a visit her grandmother and Uncle Bill (a typically gaunt and creepy Chris Walken) in their huge, labrynthinian mansion. Uncle Bill harbors a dark and fascinating secret in the basement: the perfectly preserved, mummified remains of a Druid witch; one of those fascinating "bog-men" you might have read about in National Geographic or seen on the Discovery Channel. Only this one is considerably livelier than your average bog-person and, as it happens, turns out to be a distant ancestor of Nora's.
Poor old Uncle Bill quietly explains to her that the druid witch was neither good not evil in her life, but more like a force of nature. But he and we learn different when the mummy gets her groove on and sets out to steal the body, soul and identity of her hapless descendant.
One of the things I like about Almereyda's neo-Gothic-monster movies is the fact he doesn't shy away from the kitschier and pulpier elements inherent to the genre. On the contrary, he rushes to embrace them for his own purposes. During the last reel, our heroes try to burn, break, stake, and even ELECTROCUTE the Druid bitch in an orgy of retro mayhem reminiscent of old 50's Sci-Fi horror epics like "The Thing".
It's a damn shame this clever cross between a mummy movie and a witchcraft thriller didn't get the theatrical release and critical attention it deserved. Like Stuart Gordon's ghastly gem "Castle Freak", this is a DTV release well worth the rental. It has all of the atmospherics and snappy dialog of "Nadja" without any of the annoying and pretentious Pixelvision crap. Here's hoping Alemereyda takes a shot of re-vamping werewolves next! The boy got game.
- BaronWolfgangVonSchreck
- Dec 28, 1999
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- Michael Almereyda's The Mummy
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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- Budget
- $4,000,000 (estimated)