The Mummy's Ghost

Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Robert Lowery, Ramsay Ames, George Zucco
Directed by: Reginald Le Borg
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Horror
1944

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An Egyptian priest travels to America to retrieve the mummy Kharis.

Review:

Tim: After the disappointing The Mummy's Tomb, Universal's bandaged monster returns in a film that improves on the previous one. I did enjoy this one better, although it's still flawed in many ways. Still, this movie moves the franchise in the right direction. I really enjoyed how this film managed to continue the story from the previous movie, even though most of the surviving characters don't appear here.

The film starts with the Professor from the previous film, who has continued to study Egyptology after the events of the previous film. He stumbles upon the secret of the tana leaves, which calls up Kharis. I thought this was remarkable in how poorly it was handled. The mummy burned in the last film, and yet, he appears here. I know there's a quick "explanation" in the very beginning of the film, but the whole thing was ridiculous. We needed more of a reason for the mummy to be back, unburned and no worse for the wear. It didn't make sense.

I did like that this film moved away from the Banning family and focused on new characters. The most central are young Tom and Amina, college students who get mixed up in this crazy mummy business. I didn't love either one, but the change of pace was welcome. I felt like it helped differentiate this film. I also liked how the story focused more on the plot of the Egyptian priest and Kharis to try and resurrect the mummy of Ananka. We get a cool scene at the Scripps Museum out of it, as well as the major dramatic plot- that Ananka's soul has inhabited Amina's body. How anyone figures this out is beyond me, but that's what happened. Tom obviously would prefer his girl not to become the mummy's wife, and our major conflict arises.

I thought the subplot of the Egyptian priest falling in love with Amina was a bit forced. Don't these guys realize that you can't mess with Kharis? This sequence came out of anywhere, and while it resulted in a cool end for the priest, it didn't really seem very plausible to me.

I do have to say that I loved the ending of the film. It was unexpected and quite spectacular. I've seen enough horror movies from the 1940s to have a pretty good idea of the formula and how they end- I never saw this ending coming. I was quite impressed with the shocking conclusion- it's probably my favorite part of the entire film. That really helped the film's quality a lot- it's always good to end on a high note.

Great ending aside, The Mummy's Ghost was still not a great film (it's not even particularly good). I'm still troubled by the explanation for how Kharis was still around. There's so many gaps of logic and plot holes throughout the film that it's hard to take seriously. Characters act stupidly throughout the movie. While I disliked the movie, this is an improvement over the previous film, The Mummy's Tomb. While I wish Universal would put out a good mummy sequel, at least this filmed moved in the right direction.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Mummy (1932), The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, Dracula, Frankenstein