Terror of the Crystal Skull Mummy...with Vodka

This is a week late, but it should be worth it. You'll understand. 

It's been wet in Los Angeles these days...not raining, not cold, but wet. The ocean looks like a gray mirror, unquietly rippling under its own glass, that runs all the way up to the Pacific Coast Highway, swallowing the beach and the sky as one. 

And my lower back felt like it was wrapped in barbwire all of last weekend, so, that was fun.

I am well versed in back pain at this point; this was not the pain which cripples you with thunderbolt spasms so that it feels like you're giving birth through your spine, merely a jovial state in which stabs of liquid electricity trickle from your lower back into your upper thighs, making the occasional pitstop at the groin to grab a couple packs of Cheetos and a Slurpee for the trip. Ethereal really. Nothing that a ton of asprin and some alcohol can't fix.

Which brings me to my point; my point that cannot be ignored for the moment. And it is this: yes Virginia, there IS Crystal Skull Vodka.

Crystal Head Vodka: Look on its works, ye mighty, and despair!

 I myself did not believe this amazing combination of two of my favorite things (alcohol and skulls), and yet, there it was, large as life. And the best part? It's endorsed by Dan Aykroyd.

Told you so. One wonders how such a thing could get better? Well, try adding some ice, a dash of orange juice and some mummy movies, and you pretty much have something I call "Friday night."

It seems that Turner Classic Movies is playing films from the British studio Hammer, which was infamous for their horror films (although they did make other movies, it's just that nobody cares these days) every Friday night in October (thus dating this article!).

It seems that I missed the first film of the night, The Mummy (1959), and thus missed out on the classic performances of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, both of whom were mysteriously absent for the rest of the night's festivities (as was director Terence Fisher, which means the "Big Three" of Hammer Horror were nowhere to be found).

So what I got to see instead was the tail end of Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), which culminated in a sewer battle.

This can't be sanitary...

Quite ancient Egyptian that...the only thing of note, and perhaps this was only because it was late in the picture, but damn if the folks at Scotland Yard weren't taking mummy attacks in such good spirits. One would imagine that stout men with Victorian sensibilities would be shocked, or filled with laughter, when ancient Egyptian sightings started turning up all over London, but nope, they showed up with a giant net to snag the monster. 

The vodka helped me to better appreciate these films, of course. Why was it that no one could escape the wrath of a practically prehistoric pharaoh who moved at a top speed of negative three miles an hour? How was tossing a net over the mummy and then just standing there going to stop him exactly? Damned if I knew, but this vodka is delicious!

Memory grows a little dim here, but the next movie was  The Mummy's Shroud (1967), whose focus seemed to around gypsies that were controlling the mummy. 

Clothes must be hard to come by in Egypt.

Gypsies, who were essentially Arabs (neither of which, you'll notice, are Egyptians) controlling the undead corpse of a slave that looks like he was bound in free medical tape was fun, but beyond that, the movie wasn't a THAT much fun...and besides, the TV was starting to trip out. The color was changing frequently, and the pixels were scattering, creating a visual representation of physical reality finally breaking down. At first I thought it was the vodka, but it was just the cable breaking up.  

One thing that was not the vodka, however, was this amazing thing, which I did NOT imagine, but actually experienced, in my living room: 

Oh shit, it's a mummy with an axe!

 Hell yes. Ancient Egyptian magic meets modern know-how in one of the deadliest combinations the world has ever seen! Let that sink into your brain...now let a couple shots of vodka sink into your brain...terrifying, no?  

Anyway, the only movie of the night that was honestly worth talking about was Blood From the Mummy's Tomb (1971): 

And there's more to the movie than Valerie Leon...

In addition to the very buxom performance of Miss Valerie Leon (who is famous from the English "Carry On" films, which carries a world of meaning if you know what the movies are), Blood From the Mummy's Tomb was actually a decent picture.

A bizarre, almost Arthur Machen-style plot (well duh...rather than another rehash, this one was based on a novel by Bram Stoker, The Jewel of Seven Stars) involving cosmic reincarnation and the sexual allure of evil. It also had a couple of jolts (the madhouse scene was not bad at all, and actually left me wondering why some people have trouble building suspense in low budget horror), and some of the finest talent of Hammer's "other boys," most notably Andrew Keir, who was in the excellent Quatermass and the Pit (1967). 

Besides, how can you hate a movie with a marketing campaign like this? 

Okay, so maybe I'm slightly biased. The point is, Blood was best mummy movie I'd seen all night, and Crystal Head Vodka may not have been the smoothest vodka on earth (and it has an odd sweetness at the back of it, but maybe you'll appreciate that more than me, dear reader), but the skull makes a fun keepsake, and helped keep the evening of mummies fun. Sorry I can't go into more depth about said movies, but as I said, somewhere between a bad back, the cable going out, and a sweet gift from Dan Aykroyd, it was hard to keep everything in my head that evening. 

Except for this, as it will haunt my nightmares. Forever.