Ouija boards and bandaged up Egyptian royalty weren’t a combination I thought I’d see on film. Given that there’s already been Ouijageist, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to see Ouija Mummy turn up. Is it a good combination, or is it a case of taking things to Pharaoh?
As Ouija Mummy begins, Cassandra Alexander (M. Catherine Wynkoop, Chaos A.D., Horrortales.666 Part 3) has just returned from an archaeological dig in Egypt. She’s brought a little souvenir with her, a necklace belonging to Ahhotep I. She’s soon seeing visions of Anubis (Eight The Chosen One, Morbid Stories) and hearing voices. At their direction, she swallows a bottle of sleeping pills.
Chase (Kii Hornick) and Natalie (Briana Wyman) have just bought a house. While unpacking Chase finds an expensive looking necklace and begins to hear voices. That doesn’t stop them from planning a housewarming party, or him giving the necklace to Natalie. If you’ve read the title you can guess what they mess with, and who it summons.
Director Sébastien Godin’s film Lycanimator was a fun, high energy romp and I was hoping for more of the same with Ouija Mummy. Unfortunately, the script by Dustin Hubbard is much more straight forward and restrained with almost none of the other film’s outrageous deaths or nudity. The result is a fairly standard Ouija film with deliberately cheesy effects in the last few minutes.
And I do mean the last few minutes. Ouija Mummy runs fifty-five minutes plus credits and they don’t start playing with the board until thirty-five minutes in, forty-five before the possessions start. What we mostly get is talk about the rift between Chase and his brother Paul (Sébastien Godin) and girl talk between Natalie and her bestie Becca (Sharla Darcus Moore). It feels like they intended to shoot a full-length feature but ended up having to scrap the last act.
The number of cameos also makes me think the film was meant to be longer. We get Joel D. Wynkoop (Taste Me: Death-scort Service Part 3, Dreaming Purple Neon) as a delivery guy, Brett Kelly (Ouija Shark, Konga TNT) as Chase’s uncle and Bob Glazier (The Hart-Break Killer, Zed’s Dead) as the mailman. Cayt Feinics (Wrestlemassacre, Naked Cannibal Campers) provides the voice of Ahhotep I but never shows her face, or her breasts, for that matter.
At least at only fifty-five minutes the film never truly drags. But I can’t really say it’s worth sitting through a normal film’s worth of build-up for a short film’s worth of payoff either. Ouija Mummy is available to stream from Wild Eye Releasing. DVDs will be released on October 27th. You can check the film’s Facebook page for more information.