The Mummy Demastered (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (Nintendo Switch)

2017's The Mummy was the attempt to kickstart a new movie multiverse, one that was to feature all the classic Universal movie monsters. It's fair to say it wasn't a success, with me stating in my 5/10 review "...all too often it came across as generic and a little bit dull". One good thing that the film spawned however was a video game, The Mummy Demastered. This was so called as rather than go for a high budget modern look, this instead styles itself on sprite based 2D metroidvanias of the nineties. 

The game has a similar plot to the movie, but here, rather than playing as Tom Cruise's character, you are instead in the boots of a nameless soldier. This takes place mainly underground around London, where the resurrected ancient Egyptian, Ahmanet is planning to cause untold misery by summoning Set, the Egyptian God of Death. That really is it for the simple story, with your progression linked to wherever Ahmanet has travelled to next. Each encounter with the mummified woman sees her summoning a typically room filling boss, before she teleports away.

This felt like an old school Metroidvania, something that would have been fine normally. Having just came off of the grand Blasphemous II, this felt a little archaic and generic to delight too much. One neat idea is that should your character die, you will respawn as a completely new soldier, with your first task to hunt down the zombified remains of the previous soldier, in order to takes his weapons and upgrades. This gave things a slight Soulsborne type feel.

This is more old school in that you don't earn any kind of XP as you play, enemies respawn should you leave the room they are in. There are various power-ups to help you access new areas, most useful is a rope that allows you to travel between areas, you also get the ability to run, jump super high, climb across ceilings, and my favourite, a dash move that lets you zoom off in any direction. There are health and ammo power-ups that give you more of each, but the game favours increased ammo over any other form of assistance. As expected this is one huge level, perhaps around a quarter smaller than Blasphemous II's map, and with areas that blur into one at many parts. There are caves, sewers, forests, and a sand covered city, with one late area, a giant Gothic clock tower that would not felt out of place in a Castlevania. There are fast travel points and save rooms, but even with those the game is cumbersome to get around thanks to the enemies.

Some of the smaller enemy types are fine, but in general the default enemies are bullet sponges, with even a bone throwing skeleton requiring lots of ammo to kill. The monster selection isn't that inspired, with spiders, rats and insects being the ones you will encounter most. By default you have a machine gun, with many more powerful weapons to find. Aside from the machine gun these other guns all require limited ammo to use, and so I saved them for boss fights. The bosses themselves are a highlight in terms of design, a huge scarab, a fight against a giant crocodile beast who is constantly chasing you through a level, and an undead magician were all fun. The problem is how much of a bullet sponge they all are. Bosses went on for far longer than it felt they should have done, with it being a battle of attrition to eventually kill them. Partly this was due to my path through the game. Up until three quarters of the way through I only had access to three different guns. After some exploration of old areas to find secrets I suddenly had lots more far more powerful weapons. Favourite of these was the plasma rifle and the quad rocket launcher, these made the final boss a cakewalk.

I think if I had played this first, The Mummy Demastered would have appealed a lot more. Coming off a more modern version of a Metroidvania I couldn't help but feel this felt a little too old fashioned, while the barebones unexciting story left a lot to be desired. This does capture the feel of a Metroid game in places, with this feeling more like that due to the gun combat, than a Castlevania, even if enemy design-wise, this has more in common with that. At just over four hours (with me having achieved 96% map clearance, this was perfectly adequate, if also uninspired.

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The Mummy: Resurrection (2022) - Horror Film Review

The Mummy: Resurrection is a British horror that comes from writer/director Steve Lawson (Jekyll and Hyde, Ripper Untold, Pentagram). Even if I hadn't known the director I would have easily been able to figure it out as this has an extremely similar style to his other films set in Victorian era London. Due to the similarities and a slightly wasted premise, this one didn't really do too much to excel.

Felix (Melvyn Rawlinson), a famed archaeologist, discovers the hidden burial place of an Egyptian princess, whose sarcophagus is said to be cursed. Fast forward to six months later and the elderly man has summoned his two nephews to his London home to announce that he is soon to pass away. Archie (Rafe Bird) is a bookish man whose study of the sciences have gave him the knowledge to be able to resurrect the recently deceased. The other nephew, Everett (Chris Bell - Ripper Untold) is an unscrupulous waster who has gotten into deep debt with a local murderous loan shark. Felix explains to the two men that he has the cursed sarcophagus hidden in his basement, and that it is to be bricked up upon his death. After Felix suddenly dies that night, after accidental exposure to the sarcophagus, Archie realises that the Egyptian curse actually has a scientific explanation, and is down to a toxin the coffin is coated in. Meanwhile, desperate to raise money to pay off his loan shark, Everett decides to blackmail Archie into assisting him. Their bizarre plan is to use Archie's knowledge of bringing the dead back to life, in order to resurrect the Egyptian princess' body and put her on display.

The reason this film felt so similar to Lawson's others is the exact same type of method used to simulate the film taking place in Victorian London. The main way this is done is by only featuring exterior shots of buildings, typically the top corner of one. Aside from that, and one tiny scene set in an alleyway, the entirety of The Mummy: Resurrection takes place in dimly lit singular rooms. This gives it a unified look that made it look so similar to the other films that at a glance it would be near impossible to identify them. The plot here felt a little stupid, the protagonist Archie may be painted as a hero type, yet he is very morally grey even without Everett's blackmail. This made him hard to really root for, in their own ways they were as bad as each other. Then you have Archie's love interest, Felix's maid, strangely continuing her job as a maid despite forming an attachment with the scientist whose house she works at.

I was expecting a modern day B-movie about a killer mummy, and instead we got something that was far less than that. This felt like a mash-up between Frankenstein and a mummy film. Outside of a few nightmare sequences, the titular mummy only makes a living appearance deep into the third act. Before that, the perfectly preserved corpse (that looks nothing like the misleading cover art) just lays there. It wasn't that the film was terrible, more that the format began to feel extremely familiar. Where I was more lenient before in my reviews, here it just felt almost pointless making yet another in this ilk. I appreciate it probably saves a heck of a lot on cost using the same techniques and seemingly same locations to film, but it doesn't make for a memorable movie. Lawson showed promise with Pentagram, so he is able to come up with compelling ideas.

Despite my over familiarity with the look of the movie, there is something of a guilty pleasure to be had watching it. The performances were perfectly suited, Bell in particular played his role well, but the plot was a little silly, and it was mainly light on any type of horror. The Mummy: Resurrection was due for release at the start of this month, thanks to High Fliers Films. 

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The Mummy Rebirth (2019) - Horror Film Review

The Mummy Rebirth is a nonsensical horror that was co-directed by Khu (Snare) and Justin Price (The 13th Friday). Sometimes films can be so bad that they are good, and sometimes they are just so bad. This is a perfect storm of bad acting, bad special effects, and a bad story that was a confusing mess from start to finish.

From what I can gather; in ancient Egypt a priest named Sebek was murdered by guards of the Pharaoh due to having discovered access to a gateway between the world of the living and the underworld. Fast forward to present day and explorers Noah (Carter) and Daniella (Brittany Goodwin - Gears of War 3) are working for archaeologist Sager (David E. Cazares - The 13th Friday) who wants them to find Sebek's secret, which he believes is the location of a lost city. On their journey they end up betrayed by Sager and his men, and also accidentally resurrect Sebek, who is now in mummy form and is able to command the monsters of the underworld.

Try as I might I just could not follow the story going on here whatsoever. Partly that was my fault, I never got fully immersed in the film and so my mind kept wandering. Partly this was due to the terrible flow that led me to being permanently confused. There are a load of shoot-outs between the two heroes and soldiers of Sager, but these appeared to be happening long before they get betrayed, I'm not quite sure why they were fighting each other when there are also plenty of moments when they are just coexisting peacefully as well. Then there are the random scene changes that were quite disorientating. The locations in the film are as follows - cavern, museum, mansion, woodland, and then desert. All fine and good if there was any explanation for why characters are suddenly in different places, instead a scene ends and a new one begins with people in a different location with me clueless as to why they are there all of a sudden. This culminates in the ridiculous finale which picks up mid-battle. Noah and Daniella not two minutes ago were in a wood talking to each other, then suddenly they are caked in blood fighting a gigantic 60 foot tall CGI monstrosity for god knows what reason. It was all so confusing in a most off putting way.