Between the Worlds
The Mummy as an archetype of horror fantasy
An essay by Marcus Stiglegger
(First published in: Splatting Image No. 74 (June 2008), p. 43-47.)
For Alpha
A body of the past survived the millennia and appears in the present as the striking face of the living past. The mummy - the embalmed body of the dead and prepared primarily in the Egyptian tradition (but not exclusively) inspired each of her imagination. Magical powers were attributed to the enduring body, her dust as a medical powder brought to the people. But the continuity in the former being preserved body is what constitutes the enduring fascination of the mummy. In him we see ancient physiognomy, body techniques, and even fashions. Adolf Erman describes the mummification in the archaeological classic "The religion of the Egyptians" (1978): "In the treatment of the corpse the effort seeks to keep the body intact and to preserve its natural appearance to him: the soul is in him their usual stay and find it is to wake up again. Therefore, treat it with soda and asphalt and wraps all the links in ropes, on the face but you put a mask made of linen and stucco, which is to give a natural look as possible [...]. Then you put it, mummy 'as a sleeper on the left side on a headrest [...] and closes it in the coffin, a rectangular box made of stone or wood, whose strong walls to protect them from destruction. How is it that this coffin walls but the dead do not restrict it, as he still freely-one can go out and to see the sun, must not you want to understand: the supernatural is one of the areas. Meanwhile, the Egyptians themselves have felt a Wiederspruch here, because on many coffins, there are precautions that should help this difficulty. At the top end, on the side of the face of the mummy is facing, you paint the outside a few big eyes on [...], then sees the dead with those eyes, the Lord of the horizon, as he travels through the sky. On the casket wall, but sometimes you paint on a door, which then allows the dead man to leave his coffin "(Ermann, 2001, p. 260F).. The idea of eternal life, the undead is, after Ermann already inherent in the ritual of mummification.
The physical presence of a deceased proclaims at the same time thousands of years of past emotions, desires and errors. In his article "When the mummies awaken" (Escher / Koebner 2005, p. 178) notes Thomas Koebner to yet another aspect: "wisdom and self-denial are unknown to them, at least, over there 'not overgrown. Again brought back to level, they are so broken as it was when they differ. "The special inspiration that comes from the mummies, is thus linked to their disturbing life nearby. Each of these bandaged, sunken body tells its own story, seems of defunct empires and cultures of lost loved ones or even hatred will never triumph to tell. "There was also a very beautiful painting of the face masks: the open eyes, the eyebrows, which were to lead to the temples, the eyeliner, which carved out evenly faces awakened not only aesthetic charm, but also the impression that there is a dead man just the eyes had opened again, and could rise to almost youthful appeal from the sarcophagus "(Escher / Koebner 2005, p. 179-180). Closely associated with the mummy itself is also the myth of the curse of the mummy, which occurs with the opening of the tomb in force. Traps, dead ends and make mysterious substances to create the discoverers or grave robbers. Also in the archaeological reality of mysterious deaths have been reported, which are fueling the imagination further.
The Mummy phantasm itself is a phenomenon of the colonial period and therefore appears mainly in the dark romanticism of the late 19 Century. It was fed from the exoticism siècle fin-de, which was based on colonialism and its imports. With the conquest and occupation of foreign countries prospered and the exploration and exploitation of their cultural heritage, and it is hardly surprising that British scientists were able to profile, especially in Egypt. Central was the discovery of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amun 1922, which seemed to cost in the following years, some researchers life. Officially, a mysterious viral disease was identified as a reason. The myth of the curse of the Pharaohs became popular and spread in multiple variations. The decadent circles in Egypt already widespread cult merged in times of economic uncertainty, with dark fantasies of a return of the dead.
William K. Everson said in his "classics of the horror film" follows: "[...] the legend of the mummy awakened to life is solely due to the zeal with which the Universal Karloff was looking for a role in its success Frankenstein would tie in "(Everson 1982, p. 97), he is mistaken, however, because both Bram Stoker's novel" Jewel of the Seven Stars "was published in 1903 already, and in 1909 appeared in Gérard Bourgeois' mummy film La Roi de changing the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses on. Other examples are When Soul Meets Soul (1912) by J. Farrell MacDonald, The Dust of Egypt (1915) by George Baker and The Undying Flame (1917) by Maurice Tourneur. Ernst Lubitsch directed in 1918, with Pola Negri and Emil Jannings The Eyes of the Mummy Ma, where the mummy but surprisingly lively young woman turns out to be, the mysterious Radu as a slave is held and at the end of the killed is him. So this means Schauermär related to the known elements of a sinister exoticism, this sparked some rather melodramatic.
The mummification in Egypt itself was a sacred act, which came mainly benefited the ruling caste. These were the giblets, heart and brain removed and added in separate containers to the grave. For the Western mummy imagination that is a kind of dilemma, and the very early mummies Movies solved this by using Im-Ho-Tep, a hearing of sacrilege convicted Egyptians into the center where the pain of living, mummification had been drilled. " He'd want his forbidden lover, the wife of the pharaoh as Osiris Iris once back from the dead, but were surprised at this attempt. With Im-Ho-Tep, we have a physical, full 'mummy before us, which rises immediately with the opening of the tomb of the dead. Also in the Isis / Osiris ritual of awakening again plays a role: first, formulated by an ignorant, of the mummy returns the life to another, as the living dead would immediately free the former lover of the dead. He often sees a woman in the present (usually an English woman), the reincarnation of the woman.
The first variant of this material filmed Karl Freund 1932 Boris Karloff as The Mummy / The Mummy for Universal. Archaeologists found the grave and the mummy of the ancient high priest Im-Ho-Tep (Boris Karloff), who come to life again, as is read aloud from one papyrus. The only witness to the resurrection goes crazy. One sees Karloff as a mummy in this sequence only at the beginning, and his bandages costume with mask Knitter's actually very convincing, so that not only was his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster into an icon, but his version of the mummy. The following is the revival of Im-Ho-Tep simulates a sun-browned Egyptians, who recognizes in a young Englishwoman (Zita Johann), the reborn soul of his former lover Anck-es-en-Amon. In order to win them for himself, he must compete against British scientists Whemple (David Manners) and the monster hunter Professor Muller (Edward Van Sloan). Karloff representation of the undead developed its own quality, which is often neglected in later films: "The dark eyes downcast, the highlight in many scharfgratige wrinkles furrowed face in close-a departure from life, by the almost surreal mask of immense age and the rapid decay but expresses infinite sadness and final renunciation. It therefore remains to be slowly creeping dark voice and measured by articulating a time traveler [...] the same time as the desperate Untimely longer in memory than any of his successors "(Escher / Koebner 2005, p. 184).
Bagatelles
Mummy movies are usually played down by the film history. Peter Nicholls writes: "Universal made five more Mummy movies, beginning with The Mummy's Hand 1940th Hammer Films made four, the best being Blood From the Mummy's Tomb. Various unknown Mexicans made at least seven, with the Aztec or Mayan mummies being "(Nicholls 1984, p. 205). Norbert Stresau agrees with this: "For the mass of the B-pictures, in which then had to prove the myth designed, the way of stylistic innovation, however, was an impracticable. Consequently searched The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Curse and all the other Mummy films from the forties refuge in ever more complex tales of evil Egyptians (from a distance by their Fez seen mostly), double reincarnations, Tana leaves, ancient swamps and the like hocus-pocus. The effect of the history course in pursuit of this muddled mess pretty quickly (...) "(Stresau 1987, p. 136f.).
Terence Fisher for Hammer Studios undertook, with great success a series of remakes of classic Universal horror undertook in turn, a remake called The Mummy (1959). Christopher Lee embodies him to awkwardly lurching manner and in a remarkable progress, make-up, hardly the sinister aura of Boris Karloff achieved performance. A quality of the film is the dreamy atmosphere that connects to friend film, but is monochromatic colors.
A late version of the theme is the remake of The Mummy Lives / Mummy - Valley of death (1993) of the sex film producer Harry Alan Towers, directed by Gerry O'Hara. The comedians Abbott and Costello made already in 1954 because issue in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy / Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy by Charles Lamont for parody, with the major attraction is that Abbott as a disguise is mummy itself and constant confusion provoked the actual mummy.
The Hammer Studios ties similar to Universal twenty years before their first success, and turned to The Mummy's Shroud / The Curse of the Mummy (1966), an adventure film with horror elements, an important source of inspiration for Stephen Sommers later international success The Mummy / The Mummy (1999 ) was. However, the undead and not the Pharaoh himself, but the grave keeper of Kahto-Bey, who defends the dignity of his dead men.
Bram Stoker, author of the epistolary novel "Dracula" had with "The Jewel of the Seven Stars / The Seven Fingers of Death" (1903), a less known but nonetheless important contribution to the fin de siècle Mumienmythologie created. This straightforward horror story tells of an Egyptian ruler who aspires to the opening of her tomb by British archaeologist after reincarnation. Film was the story three times: Seth Holt and Michael Carreras as of Blood from the Mummy's Tomb / The grave of the bloody Mummy (1971) for Hammer Films, Mike Newell as The Awakening / The Awakening of the Sphinx (1980) and in 1997 by Jeffrey Obrow unspectacular rather than Bram Stoker's Legend of the Mummy. All three films put some different priorities and vary the later theme of unhappy love. In particular, Newell film stresses that the Kara Feudalherrscherin 4000 years ago such a cruel government argued that its name was later deleted from the inscriptions. breaks as the archaeologist Corbeck (Charlton Heston) Karas grave, his wife suffered a miscarriage at first, but at the moment, as Corbeck touched the mummy, the child begins to live again. Kara is reborn and begins to build their bloody rule again. Played the mummy, even in these films only a minor role, she awoke in The Curse of King Tut's Tomb / The Curse of Tut-Ench-Amun (1980) did not even by Philip Leacock. The deadly curse shall enter into force, the discoverer of the royal tomb in the shape of animals. In the same year was fulfilled in Franklin J. Schaffner 'Sphinx / The Curse of the Sphinx (1980), the curse of the archaeologist Erica Baron (Lesley-Anne Down) in the form of very human grave robbers. In the nineties, staged in New York with Christopher Walken, Michael Almereyda with Trance (1992) is a Scottish variant in which a two thousand years old Celtic Druidenhexe in a young woman wants to reincarnate.
As part of the zombie wave turned Frank Agrama in American-Italian-Egyptian co-production of the splatter film Dawn of the Mummy / The Mummy of Pharaoh (1980), which is already the original title of George A. Romero 's Dawn of the Dead / Zombie (1978) modeled and appear next to the 3,000 year old reincarnated Pharaoh also a lot of cannibalistic zombie servant, can decimate the staff of the film. Here is the mummy theme, however, nothing more than the pretext for a low-budget effects orgy. The same goes for Fred Olen Ray's Scalps (1982), but the curse of a mummy is about the American Indian, the representative can avenge their grave desecration. The Billigfilmer filmed with The Tomb / The secret of the tomb on the Nile (1985) Bram Stoker's novel, finally, new.
Mummies global
Other cultures in Japan or Latin America know the mummification process, and not least you have preserved bog bodies are present at a similar phenomenon. Generated from such contexts are similar fantasies of the Mummy story astonishing. Kiyoshi Kurosawa turned Loft 2006 a Japanese version of the mummy of substance: To gain new inspiration, draws the best-selling author Reiko (Miki Nakatani), on the advice of their lecturer from Tokyo to the countryside, where she relates a small house. Even before she has a vision to vomit black mud. She does not at first that is recovered near their new house a 1,000-year-old body out of the swamp and is examined in the house next to her by a mysterious archaeologist. While approaching the two unequal neighbors, dim mysterious phenomena of the atmosphere. The curse of the mummy once unhappy in love, the mud swallowed in order to preserve their beauty seems to Reiko transfer. As it is customary for the films Kurosawa, it does not stop at this very classical oriented storyline in the tradition of Western Mumienphantasmen but another dead drives her worst, and their fate with the mummy, the archaeologists, the editor and Reiko seems intertwined. At the climax of the movie the mummy wakes up and actually attacked the archaeologist, for which she is fast becoming the nemesis. At the end of the mummy is again immersed in the lake, but she takes the man with the depth and meet the foreboding. For Kurosawa, these fantastic elements at the same time only the visual expression of an inner desire that can not break ground on time and, ultimately, must remain unsatisfied. - In Europe appears motif on it: In Andrzej Zulawskis apocalyptic drama Szamanka (1996) found a Polish ethnology professor the mummified corpse of a prehistoric Healer, by shaman possessed was a turn - another unhappy love what he scientists in a drug vision incarnate the reported.
The commercial highlight of the mummy movie directed by Stephen Sommers with his fantasy-adventure spectacle The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns / returns The Mummy (2001), just as non-horror work, however, but instead the idea of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones trilogy, fast-paced action scenes with picturesque surroundings and digital effects combined horror. Here it is the Egyptologist Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) who discovers her brother and an adventurer (Brendan Fraser) is the grave of the priest Imhotep in the fabled city of the dead Hamunaptra. The corroded by Scarabäen Imhotep wakes and feeds on the life energy of many people, which he regained his physical form. The second part stelt clear that Eveleyn is not the reincarnation of his former lover Anck-su-Numan, but its rival, which must now sacrifice. To the earlier attempts to outdo the genre finally, diving right here on several decayed corpses, adjust the protagonists. The supernatural forces Imhotep culminate in a sand storm and a wall of water that bears his face - the highlights of the post experienced moderate effect cinemas. Also, the old Egypt revived in intricate computer animation, and offers plenty of room for post-colonial exotic Phanatsmen. Similar to the global success of the Pirates of the Caribean series can be which, however, hardly as long missed Triumph classic genre concept cheap one, but it must assume that the mummy theme effectively as McGuffin for a PC-Game-like spectacle use was at best here.
A parody endpoint under the mummy theme continued Don Coscarellis pensioners horror Bubba Ho-Tep (2006), an American nursing home reported in which the submerged Elvis (Bruce Campbell) and an African American handicapped, the for John F. Kennedy keeps must include in the fight against seelensaugende an Egyptian mummy named Bubba Ho-Tep. The plays are the advanced age of the protagonist in accordance off at a leisurely pace and has the traditionally awkward and scherfälligen movements reawakened mummy account. The mummy is accompanied here by aggressive scarabs, mutate impressive.
That the living mummy still has a certain aura, the two successful films by Stephen Sommers prove without doubt, and also the interest of the audience seems unabated in exhibitions mummified body. What began as a colonial fantasy, can be revived itself as a popular myth forever. Thus we see today with anxious fascination with the mysterious, leathery face of these relics to help them wrest the best kept secrets at last ...
Bibliography:
CW Ceram: Gods, Graves and Scholars. Roman Archaeology [1949], Stuttgart, Hamburg 1964
Robin Cook: The Curse of the Sphinx [1980], in Bergisch-Gladbach 1995
Anton Escher / Thomas Koebner: Myth Egypt, Remscheid 2005
Adolf Erman: The Religion of the Egyptians. Her birth and death in four millennia [1978], Berlin / New York 2001
William K. Everson: classic horror film, Munich 1980
Ronald M. Hahn / Rolf Giesen: The new lexicon of horror films, Berlin 2002
Robert Moss: The classic horror film, Munich 1982
Peter Nicholls: The World of Fantastic Films. An Illustrated Survey, New York 1984
Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson: The Valley of the Kings. Mysterious realm of the dead of the Egyptians, Augsburg 2000
Geor Seeßlen / Claudius Weil: cinema of the fantastic, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1976
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Bram Stoker: The Seven Fingers of Death, Bergisch Gladbach 1981
Norbert Stresau: The horror film. From Dracula to the zombie shocker, Munich 1987
