In 1948, in the Valley of the Kings, Sir Richard Turkel (Christopher Lee) is leading an expedition looking for hidden tombs. The team finds the tomb of a man called Talos. Inside the opening of the tomb, they find a curse and a warning to anyone who tries to enter the tomb. When the tomb is opened a force is expelled. The force begins killing anyone in the tomb turning them into dust. Sir Richard, realizing what is happening, falls on the plunger of a detonator and blows up the access to the tomb.
In 1999, Sir Richard’s granddaughter, Sam Turkel (Louise Lombard), unaware of the danger, is continuing her grandfather’s research, with the help of Professor Marcus (Michael Lerner), and locates the tomb again. Wearing hazmat suits, the team enters the tomb and finds the sarcophagus of Talos suspended from the ceiling. When they open the sarcophagus, they find that the mummy had disintegrated, and the only thing left are some wrappings. The sarcophagus is taken to England where it is put on display at the British museum.
Everything is fine until something happens at the museum. The case containing the sarcophagus explodes and a guard is killed. Detective Bartone (Jack Davenport) and Detective Riley (Jason Scott Lee) are assigned to the case. Riley is attached to the American embassy in England. Away from the museum more strange killings start happening.
Bradley Cortese (Sean Pertwee) had been on the expedition that brought the sarcophagus back to Britain. The experience had an effect on Cortese and now he is convinced that Talos is planning on being resurrected. The only thing the ancient mummy is waiting for is a rare alignment of the planets that will be happening soon. At that time, Talos will be reconnected with his disintegrated internal organs and achieve immortality. Cortese is mistakenly convinced that Sam is the reincarnation of Talos’ wife, Nefriama and that he must kill her in order to save the world. Convincing anyone else is a challenge for Cortese, who everyone thinks is insane. In the meantime, Talos is killing those he believes are reincarnations of his former followers in preparation for his regeneration.
“Tale of the Mummy” AKA “Russell Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy” AKA “Talos – the Mummy” was released in 1998 and was directed by Russell Mulcahy. It is a U.S. German Canadian and Luxembourg co-production horror film.
It got a lot of criticism for being a rip off of Brendon Frazier’s Mummy movie even though “The Mummy” was released a year later. Still, mummy snobs may have a problem with the film. I actually liked it. I found it inventive and fun to watch. Sure, there are some standard tropes and plot lines, but there were plenty of jump scares and strange murder methods that amused me. The mummy is just a bunch of wrappings, but they manage to kill a lot of people and in interesting ways. It was certainly different from the usual shuffling, stiff mummy that one normally sees in films.
The special effects were, to me, rather impressive. I especially liked when the mummy monster was crawling along the ceiling. Yes, there were some continuity issues. The film takes place mostly in London and many have commented that it didn’t look like London. I didn’t care.
I’m not sure who though that a Hawaiian Chinese actor could play an Irishman but, I guess the powers that be decided he was the guy for the job. Sean Pertwee is the son of Dr. Who’s Jon Pertwee. Yes, Christopher Lee is in the movie, but he gets killed off quickly.