ABSTRACT
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and tales of its curse carried Egyptomania into a new century. The media enriched the curse legend, establishing it as a guaranteed seller of books and newspapers. They were fast becoming the paramount influence upon public perceptions of ancient Egypt, wresting control from academics and shifting attention away from the minutiae of archaeological practice, towards sensational discoveries and mummies’ vengeance. Media domination of Egyptomania and mummymania was fully realized in the new medium of cinema. During the quarter century beginning in 1899, more than forty mummy films were produced, mostly comedies and fantasies (Lupton 2003:36-7). Then came The Mummy (Freund dir. 1932). Released by Universal Pictures ten years after the Tutankhamun discovery and starring Boris Karloff, it stunned and terrified viewers and is still regarded as one of the finest horror films ever made. Its novel depiction of an ambulatory mummy, rather than invisible forces, as the means by which a curse is executed ensured its lasting influence, along with its status as the first mummy ‘talkie’ (Lupton 2003:37). The Mummy’s popularity prompted Universal to produce more, albeit inferior, mummy films. Hammer Studios later created its own, based partly upon Universal’s series. While twentiethcentury mummy literature perpetuated a nineteenth-century romantic theme (ibid.:30), cinema’s principal mummy theme was horror. To this day, no mummy film, fiction or product escapes the influence of the Universal and Hammer films.1
