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Welcome back, listeners, to the introverted obelisk.
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I'm your host, Obi Knox.
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Well, we did it.
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We finally made it to October.
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Air's a little cooler, the nights are getting longer, and suddenly every store in America has decided that pumpkin belongs in absolutely everything.
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Which can only mean one thing.
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It's time to spend the month with the monsters that helped define horror itself.
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For the next several weeks, we're stepping back into the golden age of universal pictures.
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When castles always had thunderstorms overhead, every laboratory came equipped with dramatic electrical equipment, and the safest career choice was probably anything that didn't involve archaeology, medicine, or delivering mail to remote Transylvanian villages.
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These weren't just horror movies.
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They became the foundation of modern monster cinema.
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Long before slashers, zombies, and masked killers dominated the genre, audiences were meeting immortal vampires, stitched together creatures, invisible men, ancient mummies, and werewolves who simply had the worst luck imaginable.
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Nearly a century later, these films still cast a shadow over horror.
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Their characters have become legend.
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Their imagery is instantly recognizable, and their influence can still be found in everything from blockbuster movies to Halloween decorations.
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So all month long, we'll be revisiting the films that started it all, beginning with one of the most enduring monsters ever to emerge from the silver screen.
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The torches are lit, the castle doors are creaking open, and somewhere in the darkness, something has been waiting for us.
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Let's begin.
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Tonight, we're digging into The Mummy from 1932.
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Universal's third great horror monster after Dracula and Frankenstein, and their most left sick one to boot.
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And this is not the bandage-wrapped boogeyman you might picture shuffling through Scooby-Doo Rerun.
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Karloff's emotep is something else entire.
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He's an ancient priest cursed for daring to love across forbidden lines.
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Awakened by curious archaeologists and doomed to pursue his reincarnate princess across the centuries, he's not just out to scare, he's out to reunite with the only woman he's ever loved.
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No matter how many British colonists get in the way.
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Universal sold this film with the tagline, It Comes to Life, clearly trying to echo Frankenstein's thunderous, you know, it's alive.
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You see, the studio knew audiences craved monsters that stirred on screen with uncanny realism.
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But whereas Frankenstein gave us a creature shocked into being by lightning, the mummy gave us something older, quieter, and far eerier.
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A love that refuses to die, even when wrapped in linen and buried for 3,700 years.
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Now, to understand the mummy, you kinda have to understand the world of the 1920s and 30s.
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Archaeology wasn't just a science, like it was a pop culture phenomenon.
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When Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, the press went nuts.
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Newspapers printed lurid stories of quote the curse of the pharaohs, end quote.
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After several people connected to the excavation died under mysterious circumstances.
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Of course, never mind, that most of them died of fairly ordinary causes, you know, heart attacks, infections, or the usual maladies of the 1920s.
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The legend the mummy's curse had entered the bloodstream of popular culture, and Hollywood was not gonna let that go to waste.
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And, if you think that sounds wild, consider that for much of the late 19th and even early 20th centuries, Europe had a bizarre party fad.
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Mummy unwrapping evenings.
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You see, wealthy collectors would purchase actual Egyptian mummies.
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They were often either smuggled or looted, and then invite their friends over and ceremoniously would peel away the bandages like some grotesque parlor game.
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Guests would sip champagne while the host unwrapped a centuries-old corpse.
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Because apparently Schrade just wasn't doing it for him anymore.
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It was archaeology as spectacle, colonialism as entertainment, and well, desecration as dinner theater.
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So by the time Universal got to work on the mummy, the Western world was both fascinated and terrified by ancient Egypt.
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It was the perfect storm.
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Curses in the headlines, stolen artifacts in museums, and a public eager to believe that some things are better left buried.
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So Universal tapped Carl Freund to direct.
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Now Freund was a German cinematographer who had worked on Metropolis in 1927, and he shot Dracula in 1931.
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The film, not actual Dracula.
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He brought the expressionistic eye of Weimar Cinema, which is more like a uh slow creeping camera moves, heavy shadows, and dreamlike atmospheres, and then layered it onto Hollywood's fascination with Egypt.
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The result was something pretty much hypnotic.
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Less jump scares, more slow dread, with an ancient world pressing in on the modern one.
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Now for makeup, Universal once again turned to Jack Pierce, their resident monster maker.
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Pierce had already created Frankenstein's iconic square head and scars, and now he was tasked with making Boris Karloff look like a 3,000-year-old corpse.
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Boy did he.
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The process took eight hours, and it was layer upon layer of cotton, clay, collodion, spirit gum, and linen wrappings that were then baked onto Karloff's skin.
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His face was painted with dust and decay, and his eyes rimmed in black.
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And through all of it, Karloff endured it stoically.
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He laid motionless in the wrappings, barely able to even breathe, for hours at a time while the cameras rolled.
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And I gotta tell you, the result was absolutely unforgettable.
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Because when Emotep first opens his eyes on film, the effect is so startling, you almost believe the curse was real.
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Now, mercifully, once Emotep sheds the wrappings and assumes the identity of Ardeth Bay, Karloff's daily makeup ordeal dropped to a mere two hours.
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But the image was burned into history.
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The image of Karlov's desiccated mummy rising from his coffin became one of horror cinema indelible moments.
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The film opens in 1921, with a British expedition digging into the sands of Egypt.
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Right from the start, the mood is textbook universal.
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An eerie silence, heavy shadows, and a sense that the desert itself resents being disturbed.
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We're shown the coffin of Emoteb, who is the priest of ancient Egypt, who was also condemned to the most unpleasant form of capital punishment possible, being buried alive in bandages, and with a curse carved on his tomb that essentially says, Tamper with this, and you're asking for eternal damnation.
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Which is precisely the sort of thing guaranteed to make men in pith helmets absolutely curious.
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Enter Dr.
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Mueller, played once again by Edward Van Sloan, whose whole career in these early horror films was basically guy with glasses who warned you not to mess with the supernatural.
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So he tells the archaeologist, point blank, do not open the box.
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Of course, naturally, this warning lasts about ooh 30 seconds.
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Ralph Norton, the over-eager assistant, ignores every scrap of good advice and immediately starts fiddling with the forbidden scroll.
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If Horror Cinema has one iron rule, it's this don't read the ancient text out loud.
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If you find yourself in a dusty tomb and the manuscript contains words like, you know, eternal torment or punishment beyond the grave, just put it back.
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Like, just put it back.
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Ralph and the hand does not.
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He in fact straight up reads it.
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And then comes one of the most effective horror moments, I believe, to be of the entire 1930s.
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Karloff's eyes open, and we're talking achingly slow.
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His hand, still wrapped in dry linen, stretches toward the scroll.
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We don't see him fully rise, because Freund knows less is more.
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But we see Ralph's face twist in horror as the camera lingers on a trail of bandages dragging itself across the floor.
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Ralph breaks into laughter, and it's not the funny kind, but the hysterical kind.
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He screams he went for a little walk.
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And basically is instantly reduced to just absolute madness.
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And the camera doesn't show us Karloff's first steps, because it doesn't have to.
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What our imagination fills in is worse than any stumble shuffle universal stage.
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Fast forward ten years, of course not for Ralph, who's probably still laughing in an asylum somewhere, the expedition has moved on.
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But another group of archaeologists has arrived.
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This time, conveniently shepherded by a tall, unsettling figure in a fez, one Ardith Bay.
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He's none other than Emotep in disguise, though disguise is kind of generous because you know Karloff in this makeup looks like he's been embalmed for about several centuries and then lightly dusted for display.
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His face is gaunt, his eyes hollow, his hands tremble with age and unspeakable patience.
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Now, unlike Legosi's Dracula, who goes for hypnotic flourishes and accent thick pronouncements, Karloff barely moves.
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He speaks in a whisper, and each syllable is weighted with like ancient dust.
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Ardenth Bay points the diggers toward a site that, shockingly, turns out to be the tomb of Princess Noxinamun, the woman he once loved, and was cursed for trying to resurrect.
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The British archaeologists marvel at his uncanny knowledge, chalking it up to local color rather than wondering why, you know, a random Egyptian dude just happens to know exactly where a royal tomb is.
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But, you know, heck, colonial blindness at its finest.
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The fact that every expedition in these films is stocked with tweed-wearing dudes who can't recognize supernatural red flags is the only reason Universal's monsters get any work done.
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So, enter Helen Grossenber, played by Zita Johan, and suddenly the film totally shifts from archaeological caper and straight into Gothic romance.
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Helen is of mixed heritage.
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She's half British and half Egyptian, which in Universal Shorthand means she's destined to be hypnotically drawn to the past.
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Well, the moment she appears, Ardeth Bey locks eyes with her and knows this is Anoxinamoon reborn.
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Johan plays Helen like she's caught between two worlds, her modern life and some ancient calling whispering in her blood.
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And she doesn't just faint, though this, you know, to be fair, is a 1930s horror film, so fainting is part of the job.
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She swoons as though the desert itself is pulling her back into another life.
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What makes these scenes absolutely pop is Karloff's restraint.
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Dew doesn't storm or hiss or threaten.
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He simply looks at her with centuries of yearning carved into his face.
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His voice, which is a gravelly rasp, sounds like it's been waiting a thousand years for her to arrive.
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When he touches relics from her tomb or speaks of their past life, it isn't with like, you know, menace, but just total devotion.
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Which makes the whole thing even creepier, frankly.
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I mean, Dracula wants your blood, Emotep basically wants your immortal soul.
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So of course, Dr.
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Mueller starts putting the pieces together.
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He figures out Art of Bay is no ordinary antiquarian and suspects the scroll of Thoth is still in play.
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You see, the scroll is Emotep's tether to unholy power.
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It's the thing that lets him walk the earth.
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So Mueller pleads with everyone to destroy it.
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But if horror movies have taught us anything, it's that destroying the obvious evil object always happens about thirty minutes too late.
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So instead, the archaeologists blunder around while Emotep quietly orchestrates his plan.
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Which is to kill Helen's present self so he can resurrect her fully as a Nox in a moon.
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This is where the film digs into its central tension.
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Because again, Imotep isn't a monster who feeds on flesh or blood.
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He's just a lover who refuses to let go.
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His desire is both tragic and horrifying.
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Like to him, Helen isn't truly Helen at all, but an incomplete version of his lost princess.
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And to restore her, he must destroy who she is now.
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It's romantic devotion twisted into like existential violence.
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A love so absolute it erases identity.
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And Zita Johan leans into it, like giving Helen an almost trance-like acceptance.
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Part of her wants to resist, but another part of her actually leans toward him, drawn by memories she doesn't even have.
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The climax brings all this to a head.
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Emotep lures Helen to his temple, preparing the ritual that will erase her modern life and restore his ancient love.
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The atmosphere here is pure Karl Freund.
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Shadows ripple across stone walls, statues loom in judgment, incense curl like smoke from another w Karloff's chants echo through the chamber, and Helen, equal parts terrified and entranced, submits to the ceremony.
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She is ready.
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Or at least is too hypnotize a protest, who can tell.
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But then, divine intervention kicks in.
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As Emotep lifts the scroll and begins the final incantation, Helen prays to Isis, the goddess of love and motherhood.
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And in one of those gloriously metalodramatic universal effect shots, the statue of Isis glows, comes to life, and zaps the scroll with supernatural fire.
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Emotep recoils, suddenly aged not by years, but by centuries.
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His stolen vitality is evaporated.
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His skin crumbles, his face hollows, his entire body collapses into dust.
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He's not slain by men with guns or mobs with torches, but by heartbreak, denied once again the reunion he's crossed time itself to achieve.
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This ending is what sets the monk up.
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Dracula killed with a stake, Frankenstein's monster with fire.
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Ematep, although, is in fact undone by love itself.
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Not Helen's love for him, but her appeal to a higher divine love that says, This union is not meant to be.
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It's a monster story that resolves not through violence, but basically through rejection.
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Through the tragic truth that sometimes, some people cannot be brought back, no matter how desperately we want them.
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And when the dust of Ematep settles, so does the film.
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Helen's left alive, shaken but freed.
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The archaeologists breathe a sigh of relief, probably not still not entirely sure what happened, and the audience in 1932 leaves the theater with a haunting image of Karloff's face collapsing into nothing.
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A visual metaphor for love's futility when it collides with time itself.
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It's impossible not to see the blueprint that Dracula laid down for this years before.
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You see, both films use Edward Van Sloan as the voice of caution, both star David Manners as the bland love interest whose greatest talent is existing in frame, and both feature an immortal outsider fixated on a woman who embodies a century-old romance.
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But where Legosi's Count is a predator feeding on the living, Karloff's Emotep is a mourner clinging to the dead.
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One wants to drink you, the other just wants you to remember him.
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And the difference gives the mummy its unique melancholy flavor.
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And I have to say that melancholy is what lingers.
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Like Dracula may have the cape and the fangs, but Emotep has the heartbreak.
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The real monster here isn't the curse of the tomb.
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It's the refusal to let go.
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The inability to accept death and the dangerous yearning to live forever in a past that can't be reclaimed.
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Universal dresses it up in sand and scrolls and bandages, but the emotional engine of the mummy is the grief that refuses burial.
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Now, the mummy was successful for Universal, and it absolutely cemented Karloff as a star after Frankenstein.
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Critics praised his quiet menace, his expressive eyes, his ability to make stiffness terrifying.
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And Jack Pierce's makeup became legendary.
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Even if audiences only glimpse the fully wrapped mummy briefly.
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Universal tried to recapture the magic with sequels in the 1940s, but those turned the mummy into more of a lumbering bandage zombie than, you know, a tragic priest.
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And then we get the Hammer Studios, later revived him in the 1950s with Christopher Lee, bringing some menace but dropping most of the romance.
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Then, decades later, Stephen Somers rebooted the franchise in 1999 with Brendan Fraser, turning it into an action-adventure rum.
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Fun, absolutely, but you know, far removed from the eerie, mournful tone of 1932.
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Still, Karloff's Emotep remains the definitive mummy for me.
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Not because he was the scariest, but because he was the most human.
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His story wasn't about power or conquest, it was about love.
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Forbidden, tragic, and eternal.
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Alright, folks, that's the mummy.
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A film that reminded audiences that sometimes the scariest thing isn't the monster and bandages, but the desperate heartbeating beneath them.
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Emotep wasn't chasing power, the dude was chasing love.
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Across centuries, across lifetimes, and ultimately into the dust.
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Well, this has been the Injurted Obelisk.
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I've been your host, Obi-Knox, reminding you that if you ever stumble across an ancient tomb with a warning carve over the entrance, it probably isn't decorative.
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And if someone hands you a scroll that promises unspeakable consequences to anyone who reads it aloud, maybe let it remain unread.
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So until next time, keep your curiosity intact, your archaeology strictly supervised, and remember, some things are buried for a reason.
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Good night.
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Enroll credits.
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Welcome back, listeners, to the introverted obelisk.
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I'm your host, Obi Knox.
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Well, we did it.
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We finally made it to October.
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Air's a little cooler, the nights are getting longer, and suddenly every store in America has decided that pumpkin belongs in absolutely everything.
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Which can only mean one thing.
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It's time to spend the month with the monsters that helped define horror itself.
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For the next several weeks, we're stepping back into the golden age of universal pictures.
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When castles always had thunderstorms overhead, every laboratory came equipped with dramatic electrical equipment, and the safest career choice was probably anything that didn't involve archaeology, medicine, or delivering mail to remote Transylvanian villages.
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These weren't just horror movies.
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They became the foundation of modern monster cinema.
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Long before slashers, zombies, and masked killers dominated the genre, audiences were meeting immortal vampires, stitched together creatures, invisible men, ancient mummies, and werewolves who simply had the worst luck imaginable.
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Nearly a century later, these films still cast a shadow over horror.
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Their characters have become legend.
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Their imagery is instantly recognizable, and their influence can still be found in everything from blockbuster movies to Halloween decorations.
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So all month long, we'll be revisiting the films that started it all, beginning with one of the most enduring monsters ever to emerge from the silver screen.
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The torches are lit, the castle doors are creaking open, and somewhere in the darkness, something has been waiting for us.
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Let's begin.
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Tonight, we're digging into The Mummy from 1932.
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Universal's third great horror monster after Dracula and Frankenstein, and their most left sick one to boot.
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And this is not the bandage-wrapped boogeyman you might picture shuffling through Scooby-Doo Rerun.
00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:36.240
Karloff's emotep is something else entire.
00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:41.599
He's an ancient priest cursed for daring to love across forbidden lines.
00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:53.919
Awakened by curious archaeologists and doomed to pursue his reincarnate princess across the centuries, he's not just out to scare, he's out to reunite with the only woman he's ever loved.
00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:56.879
No matter how many British colonists get in the way.
00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:05.360
Universal sold this film with the tagline, It Comes to Life, clearly trying to echo Frankenstein's thunderous, you know, it's alive.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:11.919
You see, the studio knew audiences craved monsters that stirred on screen with uncanny realism.
00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:22.000
But whereas Frankenstein gave us a creature shocked into being by lightning, the mummy gave us something older, quieter, and far eerier.
00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:29.680
A love that refuses to die, even when wrapped in linen and buried for 3,700 years.
00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:35.199
Now, to understand the mummy, you kinda have to understand the world of the 1920s and 30s.
00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:40.719
Archaeology wasn't just a science, like it was a pop culture phenomenon.
00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:47.840
When Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, the press went nuts.
00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:54.159
Newspapers printed lurid stories of quote the curse of the pharaohs, end quote.
00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:59.840
After several people connected to the excavation died under mysterious circumstances.
00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:09.120
Of course, never mind, that most of them died of fairly ordinary causes, you know, heart attacks, infections, or the usual maladies of the 1920s.
00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:16.160
The legend the mummy's curse had entered the bloodstream of popular culture, and Hollywood was not gonna let that go to waste.
00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:25.759
And, if you think that sounds wild, consider that for much of the late 19th and even early 20th centuries, Europe had a bizarre party fad.
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:28.720
Mummy unwrapping evenings.
00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:33.759
You see, wealthy collectors would purchase actual Egyptian mummies.
00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:43.120
They were often either smuggled or looted, and then invite their friends over and ceremoniously would peel away the bandages like some grotesque parlor game.
00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:47.839
Guests would sip champagne while the host unwrapped a centuries-old corpse.
00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:50.800
Because apparently Schrade just wasn't doing it for him anymore.
00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:59.120
It was archaeology as spectacle, colonialism as entertainment, and well, desecration as dinner theater.
00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:06.639
So by the time Universal got to work on the mummy, the Western world was both fascinated and terrified by ancient Egypt.
00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:08.079
It was the perfect storm.
00:05:08.319 --> 00:05:15.680
Curses in the headlines, stolen artifacts in museums, and a public eager to believe that some things are better left buried.
00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:19.040
So Universal tapped Carl Freund to direct.
00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:29.040
Now Freund was a German cinematographer who had worked on Metropolis in 1927, and he shot Dracula in 1931.
00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:31.439
The film, not actual Dracula.
00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:45.839
He brought the expressionistic eye of Weimar Cinema, which is more like a uh slow creeping camera moves, heavy shadows, and dreamlike atmospheres, and then layered it onto Hollywood's fascination with Egypt.
00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:49.279
The result was something pretty much hypnotic.
00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:55.759
Less jump scares, more slow dread, with an ancient world pressing in on the modern one.
00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:02.079
Now for makeup, Universal once again turned to Jack Pierce, their resident monster maker.
00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:12.399
Pierce had already created Frankenstein's iconic square head and scars, and now he was tasked with making Boris Karloff look like a 3,000-year-old corpse.
00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:13.680
Boy did he.
00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:25.839
The process took eight hours, and it was layer upon layer of cotton, clay, collodion, spirit gum, and linen wrappings that were then baked onto Karloff's skin.
00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:30.639
His face was painted with dust and decay, and his eyes rimmed in black.
00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:33.920
And through all of it, Karloff endured it stoically.
00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:40.879
He laid motionless in the wrappings, barely able to even breathe, for hours at a time while the cameras rolled.
00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:44.959
And I gotta tell you, the result was absolutely unforgettable.
00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:52.720
Because when Emotep first opens his eyes on film, the effect is so startling, you almost believe the curse was real.
00:06:52.959 --> 00:07:01.519
Now, mercifully, once Emotep sheds the wrappings and assumes the identity of Ardeth Bay, Karloff's daily makeup ordeal dropped to a mere two hours.
00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:04.000
But the image was burned into history.
00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:11.600
The image of Karlov's desiccated mummy rising from his coffin became one of horror cinema indelible moments.
00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:17.120
The film opens in 1921, with a British expedition digging into the sands of Egypt.
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:20.399
Right from the start, the mood is textbook universal.
00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:26.560
An eerie silence, heavy shadows, and a sense that the desert itself resents being disturbed.
00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:47.040
We're shown the coffin of Emoteb, who is the priest of ancient Egypt, who was also condemned to the most unpleasant form of capital punishment possible, being buried alive in bandages, and with a curse carved on his tomb that essentially says, Tamper with this, and you're asking for eternal damnation.
00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:53.040
Which is precisely the sort of thing guaranteed to make men in pith helmets absolutely curious.
00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:54.079
Enter Dr.
00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:05.279
Mueller, played once again by Edward Van Sloan, whose whole career in these early horror films was basically guy with glasses who warned you not to mess with the supernatural.
00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:10.480
So he tells the archaeologist, point blank, do not open the box.
00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:14.079
Of course, naturally, this warning lasts about ooh 30 seconds.
00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:21.680
Ralph Norton, the over-eager assistant, ignores every scrap of good advice and immediately starts fiddling with the forbidden scroll.
00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:28.160
If Horror Cinema has one iron rule, it's this don't read the ancient text out loud.
00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:36.879
If you find yourself in a dusty tomb and the manuscript contains words like, you know, eternal torment or punishment beyond the grave, just put it back.
00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:38.879
Like, just put it back.
00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:40.879
Ralph and the hand does not.
00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:43.200
He in fact straight up reads it.
00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:50.480
And then comes one of the most effective horror moments, I believe, to be of the entire 1930s.
00:08:50.799 --> 00:08:55.039
Karloff's eyes open, and we're talking achingly slow.
00:08:55.279 --> 00:09:00.240
His hand, still wrapped in dry linen, stretches toward the scroll.
00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:05.279
We don't see him fully rise, because Freund knows less is more.
00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:12.720
But we see Ralph's face twist in horror as the camera lingers on a trail of bandages dragging itself across the floor.
00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:17.440
Ralph breaks into laughter, and it's not the funny kind, but the hysterical kind.
00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:20.240
He screams he went for a little walk.
00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:24.399
And basically is instantly reduced to just absolute madness.
00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:29.120
And the camera doesn't show us Karloff's first steps, because it doesn't have to.
00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:34.799
What our imagination fills in is worse than any stumble shuffle universal stage.
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:42.480
Fast forward ten years, of course not for Ralph, who's probably still laughing in an asylum somewhere, the expedition has moved on.
00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:45.919
But another group of archaeologists has arrived.
00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:53.759
This time, conveniently shepherded by a tall, unsettling figure in a fez, one Ardith Bay.
00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:04.480
He's none other than Emotep in disguise, though disguise is kind of generous because you know Karloff in this makeup looks like he's been embalmed for about several centuries and then lightly dusted for display.
00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:10.960
His face is gaunt, his eyes hollow, his hands tremble with age and unspeakable patience.
00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:19.919
Now, unlike Legosi's Dracula, who goes for hypnotic flourishes and accent thick pronouncements, Karloff barely moves.
00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:25.279
He speaks in a whisper, and each syllable is weighted with like ancient dust.
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:36.159
Ardenth Bay points the diggers toward a site that, shockingly, turns out to be the tomb of Princess Noxinamun, the woman he once loved, and was cursed for trying to resurrect.
00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:47.679
The British archaeologists marvel at his uncanny knowledge, chalking it up to local color rather than wondering why, you know, a random Egyptian dude just happens to know exactly where a royal tomb is.
00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:50.879
But, you know, heck, colonial blindness at its finest.
00:10:51.279 --> 00:11:01.440
The fact that every expedition in these films is stocked with tweed-wearing dudes who can't recognize supernatural red flags is the only reason Universal's monsters get any work done.
00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:13.679
So, enter Helen Grossenber, played by Zita Johan, and suddenly the film totally shifts from archaeological caper and straight into Gothic romance.
00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:16.159
Helen is of mixed heritage.
00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:23.919
She's half British and half Egyptian, which in Universal Shorthand means she's destined to be hypnotically drawn to the past.
00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:31.600
Well, the moment she appears, Ardeth Bey locks eyes with her and knows this is Anoxinamoon reborn.
00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:38.960
Johan plays Helen like she's caught between two worlds, her modern life and some ancient calling whispering in her blood.
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:45.440
And she doesn't just faint, though this, you know, to be fair, is a 1930s horror film, so fainting is part of the job.
00:11:45.679 --> 00:11:50.080
She swoons as though the desert itself is pulling her back into another life.
00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:54.320
What makes these scenes absolutely pop is Karloff's restraint.
00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:57.120
Dew doesn't storm or hiss or threaten.
00:11:57.279 --> 00:12:01.360
He simply looks at her with centuries of yearning carved into his face.
00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:08.080
His voice, which is a gravelly rasp, sounds like it's been waiting a thousand years for her to arrive.
00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:17.360
When he touches relics from her tomb or speaks of their past life, it isn't with like, you know, menace, but just total devotion.
00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:19.919
Which makes the whole thing even creepier, frankly.
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:24.720
I mean, Dracula wants your blood, Emotep basically wants your immortal soul.
00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:25.759
So of course, Dr.
00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:27.440
Mueller starts putting the pieces together.
00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:34.240
He figures out Art of Bay is no ordinary antiquarian and suspects the scroll of Thoth is still in play.
00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:37.759
You see, the scroll is Emotep's tether to unholy power.
00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:39.759
It's the thing that lets him walk the earth.
00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.320
So Mueller pleads with everyone to destroy it.
00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:49.919
But if horror movies have taught us anything, it's that destroying the obvious evil object always happens about thirty minutes too late.
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:55.919
So instead, the archaeologists blunder around while Emotep quietly orchestrates his plan.
00:12:56.159 --> 00:13:01.840
Which is to kill Helen's present self so he can resurrect her fully as a Nox in a moon.
00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:04.559
This is where the film digs into its central tension.
00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:08.559
Because again, Imotep isn't a monster who feeds on flesh or blood.
00:13:08.799 --> 00:13:11.759
He's just a lover who refuses to let go.
00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:15.279
His desire is both tragic and horrifying.
00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:22.159
Like to him, Helen isn't truly Helen at all, but an incomplete version of his lost princess.
00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:25.679
And to restore her, he must destroy who she is now.
00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:29.840
It's romantic devotion twisted into like existential violence.
00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:33.279
A love so absolute it erases identity.
00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:38.960
And Zita Johan leans into it, like giving Helen an almost trance-like acceptance.
00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:47.279
Part of her wants to resist, but another part of her actually leans toward him, drawn by memories she doesn't even have.
00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:49.919
The climax brings all this to a head.
00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:56.240
Emotep lures Helen to his temple, preparing the ritual that will erase her modern life and restore his ancient love.
00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:59.759
The atmosphere here is pure Karl Freund.
00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:14.399
Shadows ripple across stone walls, statues loom in judgment, incense curl like smoke from another w Karloff's chants echo through the chamber, and Helen, equal parts terrified and entranced, submits to the ceremony.
00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:16.080
She is ready.
00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:19.519
Or at least is too hypnotize a protest, who can tell.
00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:22.559
But then, divine intervention kicks in.
00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:30.639
As Emotep lifts the scroll and begins the final incantation, Helen prays to Isis, the goddess of love and motherhood.
00:14:30.879 --> 00:14:41.039
And in one of those gloriously metalodramatic universal effect shots, the statue of Isis glows, comes to life, and zaps the scroll with supernatural fire.
00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:46.000
Emotep recoils, suddenly aged not by years, but by centuries.
00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:48.639
His stolen vitality is evaporated.
00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:53.440
His skin crumbles, his face hollows, his entire body collapses into dust.
00:14:53.679 --> 00:15:02.399
He's not slain by men with guns or mobs with torches, but by heartbreak, denied once again the reunion he's crossed time itself to achieve.
00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:04.480
This ending is what sets the monk up.
00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:08.879
Dracula killed with a stake, Frankenstein's monster with fire.
00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:13.120
Ematep, although, is in fact undone by love itself.
00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:20.320
Not Helen's love for him, but her appeal to a higher divine love that says, This union is not meant to be.
00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:25.279
It's a monster story that resolves not through violence, but basically through rejection.
00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:32.320
Through the tragic truth that sometimes, some people cannot be brought back, no matter how desperately we want them.
00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:36.000
And when the dust of Ematep settles, so does the film.
00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:39.200
Helen's left alive, shaken but freed.
00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:51.600
The archaeologists breathe a sigh of relief, probably not still not entirely sure what happened, and the audience in 1932 leaves the theater with a haunting image of Karloff's face collapsing into nothing.
00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:56.159
A visual metaphor for love's futility when it collides with time itself.
00:15:56.399 --> 00:16:00.879
It's impossible not to see the blueprint that Dracula laid down for this years before.
00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:17.759
You see, both films use Edward Van Sloan as the voice of caution, both star David Manners as the bland love interest whose greatest talent is existing in frame, and both feature an immortal outsider fixated on a woman who embodies a century-old romance.
00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:25.840
But where Legosi's Count is a predator feeding on the living, Karloff's Emotep is a mourner clinging to the dead.
00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:29.840
One wants to drink you, the other just wants you to remember him.
00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.759
And the difference gives the mummy its unique melancholy flavor.
00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.240
And I have to say that melancholy is what lingers.
00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:41.279
Like Dracula may have the cape and the fangs, but Emotep has the heartbreak.
00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:44.399
The real monster here isn't the curse of the tomb.
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:46.559
It's the refusal to let go.
00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:52.559
The inability to accept death and the dangerous yearning to live forever in a past that can't be reclaimed.
00:16:52.879 --> 00:17:01.519
Universal dresses it up in sand and scrolls and bandages, but the emotional engine of the mummy is the grief that refuses burial.
00:17:01.759 --> 00:17:08.480
Now, the mummy was successful for Universal, and it absolutely cemented Karloff as a star after Frankenstein.
00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:14.880
Critics praised his quiet menace, his expressive eyes, his ability to make stiffness terrifying.
00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:17.839
And Jack Pierce's makeup became legendary.
00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:21.039
Even if audiences only glimpse the fully wrapped mummy briefly.
00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:29.839
Universal tried to recapture the magic with sequels in the 1940s, but those turned the mummy into more of a lumbering bandage zombie than, you know, a tragic priest.
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:39.440
And then we get the Hammer Studios, later revived him in the 1950s with Christopher Lee, bringing some menace but dropping most of the romance.
00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:47.519
Then, decades later, Stephen Somers rebooted the franchise in 1999 with Brendan Fraser, turning it into an action-adventure rum.
00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:54.160
Fun, absolutely, but you know, far removed from the eerie, mournful tone of 1932.
00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:57.920
Still, Karloff's Emotep remains the definitive mummy for me.
00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:01.920
Not because he was the scariest, but because he was the most human.
00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:05.119
His story wasn't about power or conquest, it was about love.
00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.079
Forbidden, tragic, and eternal.
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:10.079
Alright, folks, that's the mummy.
00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:17.599
A film that reminded audiences that sometimes the scariest thing isn't the monster and bandages, but the desperate heartbeating beneath them.
00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:21.599
Emotep wasn't chasing power, the dude was chasing love.
00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:26.559
Across centuries, across lifetimes, and ultimately into the dust.
00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:28.880
Well, this has been the Injurted Obelisk.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:37.279
I've been your host, Obi-Knox, reminding you that if you ever stumble across an ancient tomb with a warning carve over the entrance, it probably isn't decorative.
00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:44.960
And if someone hands you a scroll that promises unspeakable consequences to anyone who reads it aloud, maybe let it remain unread.
00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:54.079
So until next time, keep your curiosity intact, your archaeology strictly supervised, and remember, some things are buried for a reason.
00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:56.000
Good night.
00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:58.079
Enroll credits.
