O Segredo da Múmia

A totally off-the-wall low-budget Brazilian horror-comedy about a mad scientist (Wilson Grey) who revives an ancient mummy Runamb (Anselmo Vasconcelos) who starts immediately killing men and kidnapping women. Further adding to the character gallery are the professor's frustrated blonde wife Gilda (Clarice Piovesan), his deranged assistant Igor (Felipe Falcao), a horny maid named Regina (Regina Casé) and two journalists investigating the crime spree.

I'm not sure if the craziness is intentional stylization or just ineptitude, maybe both? Technically it's hardly high quality: the film keeps alternating between colour and B&W, always staying very faded and grainy throughout. The story keeps jumping to and fro using various techniques from colourful flashbacks to old newsreel footage of a totally unrelated beauty contest, the pacing is seemingly random, the plentiful nudity is exploitative and the acting is laughable. Still, the movie is funny as hell! Bizarre, psychedelic, trashy... Perfect midnight movie experience!

Unlike most of American horror comedies of the 80's this Brazilian gem delivers. "Secret Of The Mummy" will also threaten your sanity: yes, there IS a mummy but also a mad scientist sidekick, Igor, who's absolutely deranged (and horny)! Like Mexican horrorfilms Brazil also believes in overkill, this flick includes stockfootage of an old Miss Brazil contest, cannibalism + nudity and sex galore. Cardoso was a assistant director to Jose Mojica Marins (Coffin Joe) which explains the creative resourcefulness to the material. If you're unfamiliar with South American Trash Cinema this one will blow your mind! And it's funny, too!!

This is delirious! I hear it attracted big crowds when it first came out. The masses are right, folks: this is fun! Movie buffs will recognize the director likes movies of all kinds, from popular to post-modern. Fans of Trashy Horror Comedies will laugh out loud.

Who knew one day the Brazilian cinema would undertake on Mummy franchise, well this day came in 1982 when Embrafilme, Mapa filmes and Super 8 Produções teamed up in this fresh project due just the iconic Coffin Joe already had produced Horror pictures, actually he made a small appearance on early sequence, however O Segredo da Mumia as expected had a humor oriented having a great casting of famous Brazilian actors.

The plot essentially is quite usual as a notorious Professor-scientist Expedito Vitus (Wilson Grey) mocked by the media by research the secret of immortality thru a kind of elixir of life, so he stolen a four-piece of a treasure map of the tomb Runamb, into possession the fully map Prof. Expedito headed to Egypt with small crew members of explores to try find out the chamber of the mummy, after a successful assignment he is back and starts bring to life the ancient Runamb thru a special serum developed by him.

Sure enough the mummy comeback to life, aftermaths at large instead kill randomly such undying monster strikes at unusual spot to bringing gorgeous girls at motel, girl dating at night and even grabbing unfaithful wife, aside the odd production the movie brought Marilyn Monroe's Brazilian doppelganger Clarice Piovisan, the veteran Wilson Grey a recorder-holder in our cinema plays a poker face Prof. Expedito, a low budge had a massive use of old footage also interspersing black & white and color photography, awfully bad and hilarious as well.

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First watch: 1994 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 5.5.

A dying man divides a map revealing the location of the tomb of Runamb between members of his family; each recipient is consequently killed for their fragment of the ancient document. With the map in his possession, Professor Expedito Vitus (Wilson Grey) locates the mummy of Runamb and revives it using his elixir of life. In ancient Egypt, Runamb was a killer, murdering women during sex; now he is free to continue his reign of terror.

The Secret of the Mummy is listed on IMDb as a horror/comedy, but I didn't find it the slightest bit frightening or funny. Brazilian director Ivan Cardoso was an associate of José Mojica Marins, and his film is every bit as bizarre as one of Marins' movies, albeit very different in tone, but it definitely isn't edge-of-your-seat scary or a barrel of laughs. There's none of Marins sadism and torture, but the scrappy plot and offbeat characters (maid Regina and assistant Igor reminded me of Magenta and Riff-Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show) still make the film a very unusual and confusing experience. Cardoso sloppily combines colour and black and white photography with archival footage, giving his film a random, unfocused look and feel.

The unorthodox film-making techniques and weird characters make for a tough watch, and if it hadn't been for a constant stream of gratuitous nudity and a smattering of gore (I enjoyed the decapitation by shovel), I may well have struggled to finish the film in one sitting.