Customer Reviews

Bram Stoker's The Mummy

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Spurred on by previous experience with 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', we elected to rent this title (thankfully, we didn't purchase it).

The most artful aspect of this movie is the cover illustration. The plot was painfully predictable, the acting was soap opera quality (shallow, transparent characters), the special effects were sadly lacking. The complaints that my family continually uttered were the only thing that kept me awake.

If you expect a movie similar to the quality of 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' - don't waste your time here. By comparison, 'Army of Darkness' was a true classic.

Faithful third film adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel Of Seven Stars (following Blood From the Mummy's Tomb and The Awakening) doesn't deliver all it promises, but it delivers enough to be worth watching.

Archaeologist Lloyd Bochner is attacked in his locked study, and has left very specific instructions about how he is to be guarded while unconscious - the attack plainly did not surprise him too much, and police inspector Mark Lindsey Chapman wants to know why. Chapman thinks Bochner's estranged daughter, Amy Locane, had something to do with it. His suspicions aren't helped any when other people in the household begin suffering accidents, and Locane always just happens to be the only one nearby.

Locane and her Egyptology student boyfriend seek out Bochner's old colleague Louis Gosset, Jr., presently an outpatient at the local asylum. Gosset was with Bochner when he made his most stupendous find in Egypt, the tomb of Tara, a sorceress queen so feared that her name was erased from history. He knows - as does Bochner - that the attack was somehow engineered by Tara's ancient black magic, and that there's more where that came from...

The production on this movie is really quite handsome. It's dark and rich and colorful, with a wonderfully atmospheric music score. The sets and set pieces seem more authentic than usual for this kind of film. The performances range from good to adequate. The script is actually pretty decent, and the style refreshingly low-key (though there are a couple of splashy special-effects lapses). It's rather slow, and stretches credibility a bit, but you have to expect that in a movie with dusty mummies walking around strangling people - and the mummy is pretty creepy, at that.

All three versions of this story are pretty good. This isn't the best, but it's imminently watchable and attractively packaged throughout.

Unless you can laugh along at horror schlock, are a huge fan of Louis Gossett Jr., or are a fan of Richard Karn (Al from "Home Improvement"), you probably will not like this movie at all. It drags along at a pace slower than a snail in hibernation. The dialogue is really, really, bad. This is one of those movies that you know that the only reason the actors, directors, producers, and anyone else associated with the film did it was because of the money. Richard Karn provides a few laughs as a swinging, single, archeologist and LG Jr is a bit frightening at times (not because of his character, but because of his over-emoting). However, most of the time everyone in the film have these "how did I end up here" or "I can't wait until I'm done with this" looks on their faces. By the way, did I mention there really isn't much plot until half-way through the film? What makes this film worse is that it actually portrays itself as a serious scary movie. Give me a break! Roger Corman knew he was making schlock and Ed Wood really did believe he was making good movies. The makers of this film can't plead either case. All in all don't waste your time with this film, rent some other mummy movie.

I am probably one of the world's foremost biggest fans of the Mummy genre. I have damn near every one available on VHS and even a few recorded off of that old show Saturday Night Dead. But this film was the biggest waste of money, time and energy I have ever encountered. I guess they thought that if they marketed it as 'Bram Stoker's Mummy' that it might have the same shelf appeal as the Dracula re-release. It doesn't. It is trash. The actors are trash. The script is trash. The special effects would have been trash too if the production crew had decided to pool a few bucks together to give the film any. Read what others have to say and take it to heart. Rent Howling V instead, you'll be much happier, you know what I'm saying?

As if to cash in on 'The Mummy' franchise, this 'Mummy' was released with the name of Louis Gossett Jr. on top. And it claims that it was based on Bram 'Dracula' Stoker's lesser novel 'The Jewel of the Seven Stars.' Forget these things now, and see 'Blood from the Mummy's Tomb' (1971) or 'The Awakening' (1980), both of which are based on the same novel.

Amy Locane plays Margaret, the daughter of an eminent Egyptologist who was found in a coma. On his body are found seven fresh scars, and the perplexed daughter calls in a help from her ex-sweetheart Robert (Eric Lutes). Then the things get out of control, for Margaret starts to see weird things (ala Rachel Weisz in 'The Mummy Returns'), and so one guy Corbeck (Gossett Jr.) is also called in, who is last seen in some institute (not again, please).

While the snail-paced story attempts to scare us with various familiar tricks, we know exactly what will happen next, well, because the film is called 'Mummmy' after all and you will see some poor guy wrapped in dirty brown bandage will resurrect from the dead, in this case in the dismal basement room of the sun-shining West Coast residence.

By chaging the location to America, and the time to the present-day, the film lost almost all the good things about the original Stoker novel, which belonged to the time of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula. Now, adding to this already criminal deed, the filmmaker seems to have been very reluctant to prepare enough budget. Consequently, the 'Mummy' here is no better than an extra in ragged cloth, which looks so cheap, yes, a cheap mummy you can buy for your kids.

Plus, acting ranges from so-so to terrible. Maybe I shouldn't name names, but you may remember the sad fact that Louis Gossett Jr. is actually an Oscar-winner who must be now living down the memories of doing this film. We want to forget this film, and that fact about Oscar, as much as he does.

Final verdict. Avoid at any cost.

Lou Gossett, Jr.----didn't he win an Academy award for OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN? Hmmm...think of F. Murray Abraham, Ben Kingsley, and others who after winning their awards ended up second bananas in rather trifling movies. Lou joins the lot, and overacts so badly, he should really be ashamed of himself. But, he's not the only bad thing in this movie. Based on a Bram Stoker story, this version is handsomely mounted, but at times is so confusing, one never really knows what's going on. Eric Lutes is an engaging hero, but sometimes he looks like he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing; Amy Locane is luscious, but doesn't possess the range to go from the darling daughter to the vindictive mummy; Mark Lindsay Chapman who used to claim "Dallas" as his home, is laughably agreeable as the private investigator who gets bugged to death. Lloyd Bochner is wasted in his small role, and the whole movie seems thrown together, rather than orchestrated. Not a truly bad movie, but not a truly good one, either.

BRAM STOKER'S THE MUMMY delivers much more than any other MUMMY movie released. The 1999 MUMMY movie had excellent special effects, but over all the movie's plot stunk skunks to death. Starring Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr. (JAWS III) and a very strong cast. The acting is straight, never stupid. I did minus one star for having a very slow begining, but heck once you got into it, say a half an hour in the movie began to role. Based upon the novel THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS by BRAM STOKER.

After seeing the average rating for this film (2 stars) I wasn't expecting much but having been in a Mummy movie mode lately (I just finished THE MUMMY LIVES w/ the recently departed Tony Curtis), I decided to give it a try. I guessed from the title that this was a remake of one of my favorite Bram Stoker novels (THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS) which is essentially the source of all Mummy movies and in particular, Hammer's 1971 BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB and Mike Newell's 1980 film THE AWAKENING with Charlton Heston. This fact seemed to have escaped most of the reviewers who thought it was a ripoff of Stephen Sommer's THE MUMMY with Brendan Fraser although it was made 2 years earlier. Therein lies the problem. A literary adaptation is not going to please a mainstream horror audience for whom actions speak louder than words.

Of the 4 versions of Stoker's novel (there's also a 1970 made-for-TV movie), this one is the most faithful so far even retaining the original characters' names and sticking more or less to the original storyline. The one exception, and it's a major one, is to set the film in present day (1997) California rather than Victorian England. This makes the dialogue seem archaic and overly theatrical and the same can be said for the performances. As a result it went straight to video without a theatrical release. Louis Gossett Jr, who is clearly enjoying himself, gives a wonderfully OTT performance as do a few of the others which is what you have to do with this material. While not in the same league as the other two mentioned films, my number one expectation for a grade B movie like this is that it entertain me and that it did. It's always a treat to be pleasantly surprised.

This movie had a good story. The movie would have been better if the story hadn't been taken out of it's originally intended setting. I haven't read the book, granted, but from the characters, and lines, I got the gist of it that the story was originally set in a mansion in England. To me, the setting and portrayals of characters did not fit the story. Otherwise, the story itself was good, it was the presentation that left some to be desired.

If your thinking about buying or even watching this on telivision, STOP. This movie has bad acting,poor script,dull special effects and the most stupid ending scene ever made. Louis Gossett isn't the worst actor in the movie eighter. Dont By it and I will be forever happy.