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.

The Greatest Movie Since Gangland

Of all the movie monsters lurking in the vaults of your local horror section, mummies tend to fare the worst. Perhaps any sense of terror was destroyed by The Monster Squad, which reminded us that essentially, those ancient Egyptian beings are really just a mega Price Club pack of toilet paper draped over the 6’ frames of lumbering moaners.

Hence, I didn’t expect to be frightened by 2005’s 7 Mummies. I also didn’t expect to be so giddily entertained.

Quick Plot: A pair of prospectors (maybe) uncover a box of gold (not chocolate) coins, smiling through squinty sunlight only to then get sliced up by a shadow on horseback. Cut to a lone tarantula crawling over the desert as extended opening credits roll. 

Stock footage can go a very, very long way.

Now to our main characters, a van filled with prisoners in transit and their two inept police guards. The cons shoot one and make a hostage out of the other, mostly because she’s a hot female and they maybe have plans to do something with that. “Something” means nothing really, though the grizzled ringleader does beat up one of the lesser cons who attempts to rape her. So I guess they’re good guys, except they’re also supposed to be jerks with intense criminal records. It’s all quite confusing.

Anyway, much like that fine Tales From the Crypt episode of decades past, the crew starts hoofing it through the desert under the hungry eyes of vultures. There they meet Apache, a giggling and talkative Native American played by none other than Danny Trejo. He laughs. A lot. And if you’re human, you will probably laugh too.

A lot.

Eventually, they reach a ghost town populated by extras wearing whatever was in the studio’s costume closet marked “Old West.” Oh, and Billy Drago, who has an unhealthy amount of fun as a preacher-y town sheriff. He also gets about 2 minutes worth of maniacal laughter, probably to ensure in his contract that he would be getting the same treatment as Danny Trejo. Trejo, however, gets the last laugh of the film because for whatever reason (really there’s none), 7 Mummies ends with a flashback to Trejo...laughing.

I realize this review is making little sense, but I can only work with the material given to me. I’m not a magician--hahahahahahahahhhaaaaaaaahaaaaaahahahahahahaaaacoughcough

Sorry. I just felt left out.

Right, so in the Old Westy saloon, the cons get their grind on with a bunch of free, well-groomed, and artificially busty prostitutes. Billy Wirth, looking exactly the same as he did 20 years ago (i.e., exactly like Luke Wilson today) does not grind though. He has to look serious, because that’s how Billy Wirth rolls. Also, he might be hitting on the female corrections officer named Lacey, which is about the least believable name for a highly unbelievable corrections officer ever laughed out loud.

The hookers are vampires, or something. And there’s hidden gold that the grizzled con leader really wants to find, even though it might mean releasing kung fu flying mummies. 

Yes, that was not an impressive typo. This movie has KUNG FU FLYING MUMMIES. And they’re dressed like Jawas.

Also, a guy that shoots himself in the foot while arguing with the sun. And a race between a motorcycle and horse that rages from night to day to a different dimension. Oh, and best of all, a rumored $5 million budget that explains where that tarantula footage came from.

High Points

Any film that ends with an extended “Noooooooooooooooo!” will instantly earn four stars from me (maybe that’s why I didn’t like The Fighter?)

Low Points

I’m not asking for character development in a film that features KUNG FU FLYING MUMMIES, but when you have the chance to play with prisoners as your antiheroes, why not take advantage of that by making them actually tough or interesting? 

Lessons Learned

Breast implants, tattoos, and hoop earrings were popular choices for 1880s saloon prostitutes

Your first and last drink are always free. You should have no reason whatsoever though to think that there’s any relationship between the two

Time traveling in the desert happens sometimes, so there’s really no point in spending any time considering the fact that you’ve just time traveled

Rent/Bury/Buy

7 Mummies is a film I’d compare to Gangland, that kickboxing block of cheese that tried hard, just never at anything that would make it a good movie. At around 80 minutes, it’s an easy bit of fun on Instant Watch that makes for a giggly good time unworthy of even .3% of your brain cells. Queue it up with some liquor or friends and laugh maniacally like the cult movie character actor you know you want to be.