The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 13: 7 Mummies
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.13.2007
Yes, it really is a zombie movie, despite the title. And believe me, that's the least of its problems.
7 MUMMIES (2006)
Directed by: Nick Quested
Written by: Thadd Turner
Country: USA
From Dusk till Dawn was a very good movie about evil men fighting even more evil monsters. I bring this up only because 7 Mummies is a very bad movie about evil men fighting even more evil monsters. Normally, I try to shy away from such comparisons in my reviews, preferring to judge a movie on its own merits. And yet here I feel the comparison is justified – I've just got to believe that at some point during the writing and planning of 7 Mummies, From Dusk till Dawn was probably brought up, and perhaps even held up as the standard to aspire to (if not completely rip-off).
Unfortunately, everything that writer Quentin Tarantino and director Robert Rodriguez did right in From Dusk till Dawn, writer Thadd Turner and director Nick Quested do completely bass-ackwards wrong in 7 Mummies - including a giant miscalculation that pretty much proves they had no idea how to make this movie as cool as they wanted it to be.
But more on that later.
For now, let me try to summarize this thing…if I can. You see, I might have a hard time of it, given that there were long sections of this flick where I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. I knew there were some living people, I knew there were some zombies, and I could tell that the two groups didn't really seem to like each other that much. Other than that, your guess was as good as mind. Needless to say, the plot is just a tad bit more complex than a straight-to-video cheese-fest about convicts vs. the living dead really requires. Still, I knew I would have to make some sort of sense of it for my review, so rather than try to watch the film a second time (yeah right), I instead turned in desperation to IMDB, where I discovered the movie's plot summary was apparently written and submitted by Thadd Turner himself, most likely because he's the only person who has any clue what this thing is about.
Anyway, here's the short and simple version (I hope): After the bus escorting them gets into a crash, a group of convicts, and the beautiful guard they take hostage (B-movie regular Cerina Vincent), are left wandering the Southwest desert. They eventually cross paths with a wise old Apache played by Danny Trejo…and let's pause here, because I know what you're thinking: Danny Trejo…playing an Indian? Now, I know it's not out of the question, or even uncommon, for actors to play different nationalities. But given that Trejo is pretty much famous for being the most bad-ass Mexican around, you can't help but be taken out of the movie a little when he starts chanting and dancing like a Native American.
Oh well. Trejo tells the group about a fabled treasure of lost gold buried somewhere off in the desert, and the guys not surprisingly decide to hold off their journey for the border and go look for it – even despite Trejo's warnings and ominous, extended laugh. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen one character laugh for as long as this guy does. How long does it last, you ask? He's still laughing at the end of the movie, and that's no joke!
So, then, our group of misfit "anti-heroes" head off in search of the treasure, only to eventually find themselves in the middle of a remote town apparently stuck in a sort of eternal purgatory. Here's a question: let's say you were traveling through the desert, and suddenly came upon a town that looked like it came straight out of the old wild west, complete with everyone dressed as if they lived in that time period. Wouldn't you find that odd? Wouldn't you openly wonder about what was going on? These yahoos in the movie don't even seem to notice! Or, if they do, they certainly don't comment on it, choosing instead to spend a little quality time at the town's local bar/brothel. If you've kept my From Dusk Till Dawn comparison in mind, then you've probably already guessed this is where everything goes to hell. Sure enough, the convicts are soon battling the vampire hookers and the town's evil zombie sheriff (the always creepy-cool Billy Drago).
This, I'm afraid, is where I must step back and admit I'm not sure what exactly is going on from this point out. I mean, the movie certainly gives us a lot of backstory and history involving the town, the gold, and the seven Jesuit priests who are forced to watch over it for all eternity. But it all comes so fast and furious that I couldn't really make head or tails of it, nor did I even bother trying to figure out where Drago and his posse fit into it, and why they also seem to be guarding the gold. I'm sure there are perfectly good explanations for all of this, and maybe you'll even catch them better than I did. I just felt like the movie was asking me to work a little too hard to understand it all.
Besides, how can I concentrate on figuring out the plot specifics when I'm too busy wondering why the evil sheriff and his men, when hunting the convicts all over the town, never seem to follow them into the buildings they enter. Or why the filmmakers decided on a highly inappropriate rap soundtrack. Or why they decided it would be a good idea to eventually cover Drago in zombie make-up, when the man's actual face is already so damn scary. Or why actor Noel Gugliemi has played "the wise-cracking Mexican guy" in every movie I've seen for the past 5 years.
Oh, as for those seven Jesuit priests, they do eventually make an appearance as well, and that means it's time for another question. If you were in a town overrun with evil zombies, and you stumbled upon a room full of coffins, would your first instinct be: A) get the hell out of there, or B) open those babies up! Take a wild guess which one these geniuses go for. As a result, they're soon surrounded by the Jesuit "mummies" (AKA zombies – let's not fool ourselves), who suddenly turn the movie into a low-rent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with their impressive knowledge of wire-fu. Granted, I'm no history major, but I had no idea Jesuit priests were so well-versed in the martial arts.
Oh, I promised to talk about the film's major problem, the one that I think sunk it right from the get-go, didn't I? Well, let me just say this: the film unfortunately provides us with the requisite "criminal with a heart of gold." What a shit idea this was, and not only because he's played by charisma-free Billy Wirth. What made From Dusk Till Dawn so cool was that it made no apologies for the fact that the Gecko brothers were two hardcore, evil, S.O.B.'s. It didn't excuse their actions, nor make them simply misunderstood. It just presented them as what they were, and expected the audience to side with them anyway (which of course we did, because at the end of the day I'll gladly fight alongside a vicious murderer if it means saving my ass from some undead hell-beast).
7 Mummies could have gone in this cool direction, as well, but instead it plainly marks the majority of the convicts as horrible bastards that we're not supposed to like, while also giving us the one who clearly doesn't belong with these guys. Not only is it a cop-out, it also makes it extremely obvious who will emerge as the film's main hero, and who will end up with the beautiful prison guard in the end. Oops, did I give it away? Sorry.
So, in summation, we have an overly-complex, misguided, and – worst of all – boring flick, with what should have been a can't-miss scenario. I'm all for watching some mean mother-f'ers take on some living dead. Just not when it's 7 Mummies.
Oh, wait, before I go, I just wanted to check on Danny Trejo really quick.
