La Leyenda Del Fantasma

After putting a mummy in a local museum goes through the cat-scan, a metal object in it's brain reacts adversely to the procedure, thus freeing the spirit,or phantom if you will, of the mummy, Belphegor. Due to convenient circumstances, Lisa, who lives close to the museum finds herself possessed by the evil spirit. Soon enough she's stealing the museum's Egyptian treasures out from under their nose. Detective Verlac comes out of retirement to catch the supernatural thief.

This is a serviceable enough, if you haven't seen any other incarnations of "Belphégor" before. If you have, I recommend skipping this particular version as it can't help but pale in comparison to the others despite the nice locals and scenery.It plays out like a (slightly) higher budgeted Sci-Fi Original film, and I don't really mean that as a compliment.

Eye Candy: Sophie Marceau shows ass & side boob

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: none

I saw this movie only because Sophie Marceau. However, her acting abilities it's no enough to salve this movie. Almost all cast don't play their character well, exception for Sophie and Frederic. The plot could give a rise a better movie if the right pieces was in the right places. I saw several good french movies but this one i don't like.

A confusing, senseless script with plot holes the size of the Eiffell Tower. Terrible acting by all involved - no exception! Laughable and cheesy dialogue. Lame attempts at humor and romance. Extremely cheap special effects. All this makes for a giant mess of a film, you'd best avoid.

Before to be this movie, Belphegor was a novel and a movie (1926) and a tv serie (1965). The producers have done the same disaster that others did with "the avengers" or "wild wild west". Belphegor reminds more "the mummy" (1999) than the novel or the tv serie. Only the Bruno Coulais soundtrack can be saved, and some apparitions of the egyptian ghost in the museeum of Louvre. The ghost in the original version was a woman, here it is really a phantom. Belphegor could have been more suspenful, but lacks of time to create fear and emotion. the script is weak, yet the idea of an egyptian mummy was not bad at all. The tv serie in 1965 was not shot at the louvre (but in studio), this one though having the benefice of the museum, is missed. Some exciting scenes are not enough to do a movie.

It´s all my fault. They all told me I should avoid seeing this movie because I´m a huge fan of the old TV-series. They were right. While production values are good and the actors themselves (including "don´t look now") Julie Christie aren´t that bad, the whole film displays a cheekiness and self-conciousness that clearly is without any justification. A comparison between the Karloff "Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns 2000" comes to my mind. In fact Belphegore 2000 owes much more to the new Mummy films than to the old series. But then, scripting is terrible, speed there is none and sometimes the film is full of unintentional jokes (The first scene in the tomb looks plain stupid), with cats clearly being thrown when they´re supposed to jump (landing with their backfeet first). Belphegore moves around like a statue on wheels neither impressive nor scary and the psychological drama that unfolded in the old tv series when the heroine had to learn that she´s a villain is completely neglected. This movie is so WASTED (wasted money, wasted actors, wasted blueprint) that it hurts. It´s a below-par Mummy-rip off that´s only good for some laughs but has nothing at all to do with the Greco classic (She has a small role in this movie too - on the graveyard).