Print Page - The Mummy's Ghost (1944)

In Egypt, the High Priest of ~~Karnak~~Arkan gives his slightly disbelieving disciple, Yousef, the task of going to America to capture the mummy Kharis and use him to find the Princess Ananka. Yousef does so but runs into a snag. Ananka's mummy crumbles to dust before he can reanimate it as has been done to Kharis. It seems that Anaka's soul has been reincarnated. Well, darn. Yousef need not fret, however, for Anaka's current form just so happens to be in the very same town where he and Kharis are holed up. Yousef and Kharis capture Amina, Ananka's reincarnation, but Yousef decides to take her for his own bride. Had Yousef paid just a little more attention to the old High Priest, he's have realized that Kharis might take exception to that ...

This is basically the same movie as The Mummy's Tomb, obviously rushed out when the former film turned into a startlingly huge hit. It's ... okay. If you liked The Mummy's Tomb you should like this, too. You'd probably be better off just watching the other movie again, though.

The Mummy's Ghost has a few points of distinction compared to its progenitor. Someone seems to have informed the screenwriters that Karnak is a place, not a god, so the bad guys have suddenly become the Priests of Arkan (or ArkaM, depending on whether its George Zucco or John Carradine saying it). Yousef, unlike his predecessor Mehemet, was not raised from birth to carry out the will of ~~Karnak~~Arkan, so the old High Priest has to fill him in on the plot. Yousef doesn't seem to strictly believe what he's hearing but grudgingly agrees to go to American to find Kharis and Ananka. (Yousef's less than devout adherence to the strictures of ~~Karnak~~Arkan/m will actually come into play later, somewhat surprisingly.)

This brings us to the second point of distinction. Kharis, for some reason, doesn't require constant infustions of tana leaf tea to remain animated; he's up and about all the time. Still, he's addicted to the stuff after a couple thousand years of dependence, so if someone brews some he'll home in on it. This will have one of two effects: if Yousef brews it, Kharis will do whatever he commands so that Yousef will give him his precious tea. If anyone else brews it, Kharis will kill the s**t out of them and guzzle it down.

Our third point of distinction is that The Mummy's Ghost brings back a plot point from the 1932 The Mummy: the female lead is actually the titular mummy's mortal love, reincarnated. Much like The Mummy's Tomb influenced every monster and slasher movie for the next 50 or 60 years by inventing the scene where two teenagers see the monster but are too busy making out to pay any attention to it, The Mummy's Ghost made it pretty much impossible to find a mummy movie that didn't use this plot device. The Mummy's Ghost puts the cliche to excellent use, too. Whereas Mehemet got sidetracked from his mission because he got a hardon for some random chick, Yousef actually does capture Princess Ananka. But remember he's not the strictest adherent to his religion. Why should he put a hot chick like Amina to waste turning her into an immortal mummy like Kharis when he could just bone her? In the last movie, Kharis may not have been able to defy Mehemet but here, things are different. Yousef isn't about to get pervy with some random woman, this is Ananka, the woman Kharis has loved for thousands of years in undeath! Cue the ass-whipping.

Yep, Kharis does end up being the de-facto hero by the movie's end. Lord knows Amina's worthless boyfriend isn't up to the task. Hell, some random dog turns out to be more useful than him!

All in all, this movie is ... okay, like I said. I wanted to like it more than I actually did.

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