Wrestling with TALOS, THE MUMMY (1998)

TALOS, THE MUMMY (1998) a.k.a. TALE OF THE MUMMY might be one of the least discussed horror films of the 1990's. Most of the few people who have seen it might think there's a good reason for that - they probably think it sucks! And that would be a completely valid view except that, unfortunately, the version of the film they have seen is missing about thirty minutes! That is a whole lot of story to be chopped out of any narrative but especially one this over plotted. Plus it is pretty confusing with Egyptian mythology and psychic mumbo-jumbo being crossed with a police procedural and apocalyptic babblings. But, in the first ten minutes Christopher Lee gets chopped in half! That's worth seeing.

I can remember watching this on VHS around 2000 and wondering just what the Hell was going on. There were a dozen actors of note running around trying to deal with an ancient Egyptian Mummy curse, which I found intriguing. But it was impossible to follow the plot or understand the relationships between the characters. One of the many improvements the longer cut of the film makes is in clarifying who these people are and what they are doing. You know - like a proper story should!

Possibly the biggest problem the film has (at least in the two hour cut) is that in certain scenes the CGI seems unfinished. This is true most especially in the opening in which Christopher Lee is reduced to half his normal height - or length, really. This is unfortunate because the practical effects work by KNB is spectacular. They're called on to visualize some very interesting mummy effects although their actual mummy doesn't appear until the last third of the story. For most of the running time they bring the mummy's supernaturally mobile wrappings to life and their work is excellent. But the matching CGI work is often pretty dodgy making some shots a bit jarring and less impressive overall. This is a shame as the film is very well shot with some beautiful, moody cinematography and very nice sets in which all the creepy things happen.

Earlier I mentioned the cast and this group is well worth talking about. The film is populated with a combination of (at the time) established character actors and younger folks who would soon be big stars. Besides Sir Christopher Lee we have Honor Blackman as a police official; Shelley Duval as a psychic; Michael Learner as one of the doomed archaeologists and the great Jon Polito as a British (!) scientist. Among the up and coming actors who would soon make their marks in Hollywood we have Jack (Pirates of the Carribean) Devenport; Sean (Gotham) Pertwee; Louise (CSI) Lombard and Gerard (every bad action movie for the past decade) Butler as a jerk boyfriend that doesn't make it past the thirty minute mark.

The oddest casting choice, though, was Jason Scott Lee playing police detective Riley. Mr. Lee is very American but there he is anyway playing a Scotland Yard cop leading the investigation into the various deaths surrounding the mummy shenanigans. The script makes a half-hearted attempt to justify this bizarre choice with a quick line about Riley being a former LAPD police officer now working in London. WTF? Was the star of DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY (1993) and THE JUNGLE BOOK (1994) really seen as someone with so much drawing power that he should lead this film? No disrespect to Mr. Lee, because he is quite good in the role, but wouldn't an English actor have fit the part just a little bit better? Or, given his name, an Irish one? Why further complicate this very busy tale with an obvious American in a very British role?

I know I'm probably alone in my interest in this mostly forgotten film. When I call for a Blu-Ray special edition with all versions of the movie and a pyramid full of extra features I'm sure I'm shouting into the abyss. But I'm also sure that - at it's longer length - this film could become a favorite with horror fans. It's far from perfect but there is a lot that is very good in this overlooked effort. Should I start a writing campaign to get Scream Factory interested? Or am I wasting my time? Does anyone else out there share my fascination with this one?