Monday, August 18, 2014

Watch Your Back, Mickey Mouse




Sometimes the universe is just too generous. Sometimes you're browsing the internet with no real hopes of entertaining yourself when you come upon a Facebook post from friends who know you all too well urging you to abandon all duties and focus instead on acquiring a terrible shot-on-video Italian horror movie dubbed into earnest English about a haunted mummy theme park. 

You say to yourself, "sure, that SOUNDS great and all, but how do I know this "mummy theme park" movie is any good?


Then you find out that the title is, plainly and simply, "The Mummy Theme Park."

We live in a golden age. We really do. 

Quick Plot: Somewhere in Egypt, people are dressed in silly sparkly costumes and an earthquake happens. "One Week Later" (yes, there are quotation marks, the true sign of a lack of grammar knowledge/mind-game playing subtitler), a fashion photographer named Daniel and his horrid blond assistant are summoned across the world to document the opening of The Mummy Theme Park.


Yes, I did indeed just say "the opening of The Mummy Theme Park." You see, savvy reader, in addition to this being a movie about a mummy theme park and named so perfectly The Mummy Theme Park, the mummy theme park IN The Mummy Theme Park is called ever so succinctly, The Mummy Theme Park. Not Mummyworld. Not Mummy Studios or Mummy Center or Mummyland or Mummywood. Nope, nothing so misleading. It's just a mummy theme park. Why call it anything else but The Mummy Theme Park?



Obviously, I loved this movie.

I loved it even if it misused quotation marks and had a woman shaving her legs with a disposable razor and no shaving cream. Consider what else this movie has to offer:

- a fashion shoot that feels like a cross between Birdemic's extended model sequence and everything from every '80s movie ever


- every cast member that is Egyptian wearing copious amounts of glitter


- multiple girl fights

- a trying-on-clothes montage


The Mummy Theme Park in The Mummy Theme Park is, as you'd expect, adorably sad yet incredibly awesome. The concession stand features statue dispensers that let you tap a beer that pours out of a pharaoh's bronze beard. Because if there's one thing beer lovers ask for when they go to mummy theme parks, it's to drink a draft poured out of a pharaoh's bronze beard.


Such visual tricks are rather vital for a film that was apparently made without a screenwriter. We can thank Al Passeri for both producing and directing, but nowhere in the credits do we see the name of any man or woman cited as providing the story or script. There is, however, a brave soul who accepted the title of Dialouge Coach. No, I didn't mistype. There was a dialouge coach. 


Maybe that means something else in Egyptian or Italian.

High Point
Aside from EVERYTHING, the real MVP of The Mummy Theme Park is not actually the titular Mummy Theme Park but instead, the one uncredited actress who gets to play a super angry sexy dancer whose 'thing' is to constantly push the other harem girls out of her way and occasionally, smack them in such a manner that they swallow whatever they happen to be holding in their hands. This gal is all right.


Low Point
Really? It's The Mummy Theme Park. I refuse to answer that question

Lessons Learend
Egypt is rather a long way from the U.S.


When utilizing the adorable special effect that is the miniature, try to refrain from having full-sized actors and props anywhere near say, the miniature train set you have constructed if you're expecting your audience to believe it is life-size

Jars of dangerous acid are thankfully labeled 'dangerous acid' in mummy theme parks

The Winning Line
"It's time to put those skeletons back in the closet!”


Naturally, this is spoken when our hero(?) is battling a skeleton. It’s not the line itself that wins, but the conviction and pride with which it is spoken. Considering the film’s lack of a screenwriter or properly spelled dialogue coach, I have to believe that the poor uncredited voice actor dubbing the role was given something of free reign and came up with this triumphant pun with such excitement that I have to award it the victory.

Rent/Bury/Buy
Look, I’m not saying YOU should stop everything and find a copy of The Mummy Theme Park, but you--you know who you are, the one who’s been drooling ever since I revealed the name of the mummy theme park in The Mummy Theme Park was just The Mummy Theme Park--yeah, THAT guy should obviously stop everything and find a copy of The Mummy Theme Park. It’s exactly what you want from a movie called The Mummy Theme Park about a mummy theme park. Nothing less, nothing more. 



The universe is good.

5 comments:

  1. I am fairly certain I heard of this a few years back, but I had forgotten the title of the film, something of which seems a little insane considering the film's title. Unless, however, there's another insane late '90s-early 2000s mummy film that features such magnificent special effects. And there very well could be.

    In any event, you know I'm sold.

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    1. Oh Matt, this one has your name written alllllll over it. It's definitely from 2000 or so. I just can't comprehend how it hadn't made bigger rounds back then. Maybe it took that long to dub it?

      Can't wait to read your take!

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