Reviewing The Mummy, The Mummy, The Mummy, and The Mummy

My first memories of The Mummy are parody. It feels like every syndicated cartoon had an episode with a pyramid and an angry zombie in bandages shambling after the heroes. It's one of the aesthetics up there with Dracula's fangs and cape, or Jason's machete and hockey mask, that you know some store will try to sell you every October.

But I'd never actually seen the movies that popularized the concept. To end my Halloween List this year, I visited the four big Mummy movies: the 1932 original, Christopher Lee's 1959 remake, the Branden Fraser 1999 action film, and Tom Cruise's most recent mistake.

Friends, there were surprises.

The Mummy (1932)

Bathroom Monologue: Christopher Lee is Not Dead

Dear Twitter,

Please stop scaring me into thinking Christopher Lee is dead.

We both love his infernal majesty. His grace, his voice, his simultaneous humanity and inhumanity - he is the most charming stuff of nightmares. And he has a new metal album coming out, which is very funny and apt and other adjectives.

Yet you must understand that when you talk about him, he trends worldwide. And when any aged celebrity trends worldwide, I presume they've died.

Bill Cosby has died at least five times. It's been very hard on my nerves.

With Lee shooting up the social media ranks over and over for his album and popular interviews, I've been terrified to think our lord of darkness in cinema had passed twice just this week. On Tuesday I got remorse whiplash and had to start wearing a brace on my empathy.

And yes, I know that Christopher Lee can't really die, only explode into a cloud of bats. But don't be so semantic. You're killing me.

Sincerely,
John Wiswell