Warning: lots of spoilers!!
Pharaoh's Curse
Set in 1902 during an uprising in Egypt, the film follows a squad of British soldiers (led by Captain Storm) sent out to an archaeological dig to retrieve the expedition before the public gets wind of it. Joining the team is Sylvia Quentin, the wife of the expedition leader.
Along the way they are joined by a strange native woman named Simira, who seeks to save her brother Numar who has also joined the expedition. It's obvious from the start she's hiding something, demanding they take a different (faster but more dangerous) route. Her untiring nature and impractical dress suggest she's something supernatural herself. They ignore her and soon water and food goes missing. Oases vanish and eventually her magical mischief results in Sylvia suffering a scorpion sting. With the medical kit missing, they have to take the Simira's path to save Sylvia.
All this trouble turns out to be for nothing as the expedition opens the cursed tomb before the soldiers arrive. Inside they find a mummy. When they cut away the bandages, Numar suddenly grabs his face and collapses.
Then the spirit of the mummy possesses him. A scar resembling the slice on the mummy appears on his face and he begins to age rapidly. As the others take care of Sylvia (who is here mainly to break up with her husband), Numar vanishes and stalks the expedition. He devours the blood of his victims. The mummy also vanishes, removed by something with cat-like prints.
Quentin, the husband, meanwhile is focused on finding the true tomb of the Pharaoh. For him it's all about the glory.
The team hunts for Numar, exploring secret chambers and passages and running into an older and older Numar. Eventually he is little more than a walking mummy with powdery flesh and wisps of hair.
Simira however remains enigmatic. Her shadow resembles that of the Bast statue from the tomb. She only wishes to confront her brother alone.
In the end the mummy isn't that dangerous. Our hero accidentally removes an arm and it only manages to kill three men and a horse. The last one of course is Quentin who chases Numar to what he thinks is the Pharaoh's tomb. Instead he is crushed by rocks.
As the survivors resolve to leave, Simira vanishes leaving only her Bast amulet behind. The mummy returns in its coffin, but this time they discover it looks exactly like Numar under the wrappings. They determine that the mummy was that of a priest, Nu-Ma, who sacrificed himself to protect the tomb. He is destined to reincarnate to protect it.
Which begs the question why did Bast/Simira care to stop them? Nu-Ma was doing his duty. Also given the Egypt-mania of the time period, Numar was doomed. Somebody (or more likely several somebodies) would find the tomb, triggering the trap. Though I guess the next expedition probably would only need to face a child mummy.
Overall the film has some interesting ideas but is a bit dull in execution.
Gaming Ideas
A couple of ideas come to mind looking at this movie. First is a monster concept: an ancient spirit that jumps from body to body but which rapidly ages its host until consumes enough life force to compensate for its advance age. I think that would be fairly original and the idea of following a trail of mummified serial killers sounds cool.The second idea was sparked by considering one of my general criticisms of the mummy monster in general. Thousands of mummies were ground up to make mummia, in a 19th century version of the Oriental ivory trade. Given that, how come only one or at most a handful arise as undead in fiction? It seems like plenty of angry mummies should be out there. Even if we assume only high priests are so doomed, we have 3000 years of high priests to choose from.
So let's turn that on its head. Maybe the real reason for the British Empire lasted so long was that they powered themselves mystically by grinding up and consuming remains of previous empires.
Halloween (2007)
Warning: this film features plenty of nudity and violence (though I suppose you should have guessed the later).
The film takes a much different tack than the original, giving a background to the sort of monster Michael Myers grew up to be. It is less supernatural horror and more a picture of the ultimate psychopath. The result I would argue is more of a different movie than a weaker one.
The film portrays Myers's home life as fairly horrible with an abusive alcoholic father, strained relations between his parents, a dismissive sister, and rough times at school. We see his sociopath tendencies already at work as he kills his pet rat and tortures local animals.
Dr. Loomis arrives too late, hoping to help the child. Instead Myers flees once his psychopathy is revealed. He finds his schoolyard bully and murders him. The beginning of his mask fetish also appears, in that he only kills while his face is hidden.
As to his iconic mask, that apparently belonged to his sister's boyfriend. He adopts it as he turns on his family.
The film makes me wonder what was the final tipping point for Michael? Was it the bullying? The discovery of his sociopathic tendencies?
In any case, he easily murders his step-father, bludgeons the boyfriend and then stabs his older sister to death. Each successive murder is less sensible than the last, each victim more a target of opportunity and less a form of revenge. Michael Myers is not a serial killer, he's a spree killer with a knife.
He stops before killing his little sister, taking off his mask and waiting on the front steps for his mother and the police to arrive.
The movie then flips between black and white footage, news pieces and live scenes, giving us a sense of movement and time. His time at the asylum starts off well enough. He blocks out the murders, befriends a janitor, and begins building masks. But slowly he shuts down, withdrawing and relating to others only through violence. His mother destroyed by the tragedy around her commits suicide. His little sister vanishes, for now.
We pick up 15 years later. Loomis is leaving, having profited from his study of Myers but no closer to actually helping him. Even the janitor is retiring. Myers sits in his room, the walls decorated with masks.
As one expects, things go wrong. A new guard mistreats him and leaves him a gaping opening. Myers kills everyone in the asylum. Even his old friend.
He steals a truck and heads for his old home to get his old knife and mask. If this looks like a plot hole, it's not the remakes fault. The original film similarly had Myers somehow learning how to drive despite a lifetime of incarceration.
At this point things begin to follow the pattern of original movie. His sister, growing up under a new name (Laurie Strode) and with no idea of her connection to Myers, is babysitting on Halloween while her friends make out with their boyfriends. Myers stalks and kills them before moving in on Laurie. Loomis pursues Myers but is always a little too late.
Eventually Myers catches Laurie and tries to connect to her, to tell her in his own silent way that they are family. She doesn't get it and flees through the old family home. Loomis arrives and shoots him seemingly dead. Of course it is too early for that.
My favorite line has to be when the pair are just about to drive off and Myers smashes the window. Loomis shouts, “Jesus Christ! What the hell?” Which is the appropriate response to the monstrosity that is Myers.
Eventually though the film comes down to a struggle between Laurie and her brother. His sister unloads Loomis's revolver into Myers's head. Loomis is badly injured but survives.
We then end with some family footage from the Myers home.
I liked the switches between documentary/home video style footage and the 'current day'. The action was done well without too much gore and with eerie menace. The movie pays homage to the original but is clearly its own beast. My only issues with the film are that it is a remake and that by explaining Michael it loses some of the power of the original. But it is well worth watching.
Gaming Thoughts
There's an adventure seed in World of Darkness; Urban Legends where candy infused with traumatic experiences gets given out to children. Early on in the film, I wondered what sort of story could be crafted out of candy filled with the rage and murderous desires of a serial killer? Child serial killers, both victim and monster, might be a touch too dark though.Not quite a gaming thought, one thing I loved about the original series was watching how Loomis grew more and more scarred as the series progressed. There was a sense that he was almost as indestructible as the monster he faced. It occurs to me that it is not too dissimilar to how a high experience monster hunter might look after a long campaign. It might form the climax of a Hunter: the Vigil game focused on Slashers as the group, now grizzled and scarred, must face the return of an early foe.
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