Livewrite: Ancient Evil Scream of the Mummy

This is a snapshot of the opening credits which have been going on for… two minutes and thirty-eight, nine seconds as I type this.. And still now, at… 3:16, I will record when they end and the film begins.

Well, coincidentally - or eerily - the credits finished at three minutes and thirty-three seconds in. Perhaps a spell is being wrought here tonight. The opening scene frames a handful of characters unboxing a mummy in some lab.

“I didn’t think it was standard Aztec procedure to mummify people.”

Straight away we enter to the announcement that this is no ordinary mummy, oh no.

“So what, was he king or something?” 

The audience already desperate to know the answer, the question is asked by AESotM’s jock-rogue character.

Turns out no.

Talking to a female character who like, loves mummys or something: “your hair looks really nice today,” says the brainy weirdo who is also, naturally, a pervert. 

“I’ve been watching you a lot… I mean I’ve noticed you a lot.”

Establishing characters in swift, brutal arcs of the pen.

“It might change your entire perception of the Aztec culture.”

This is important shit people.

“The servant would only ever obey the high priest, and the high priest wasn’t preserved, sooo…”

My bet as to the thing that has to be mentioned but not talked about too much because it turns out to be some shite-wrought facsimile of a deus ex machina needed to bring about a positive ending. Long sentence.

“I know about as much about this stuff as I do about brain surgery.”

More character development, this is the rough and ready rouge of a lad character. He’s designed to be likable, he’s got a checkered shirt on, replete with worn jeans and a face hatted by slicked-back black hair.

Not sure how much more of this I’ll be able to take you know.

The jock-rogue has come to see the mummy-liking chick in the park, they flirt around a white and blue bandstand. She is knowledgable, he is a twat and has stolen something from the mummy in order to impress her. They discuss his and her impressions of each other.

“I dunno, maybe I just got a short fuse…” says the XY.

“I think you’re really just some sweet dork who just likes to act tough for your buddies,” replies the XX.

“I thought you were just some stuck up bi… snob!” Mr Cool Dude has a silver tongue, “I was just tryin’a prove how much I liked you, it was a dumb move, but it was worth the risk,” and then they kiss.

Oh my fucking gods, the mummy woke up with a blade in his hand. He already looks really pissed off. He hunts. It was the geeky guy who woke him up, he was watching MartyMcFly-aged-and-bent-by-poorly-imagined-traitexpression-and-forged-stupid-by-underpaid-or-underimaginative-writers and the mummy-liking girl having it off at the bandstand.

“This is what I get for staying after hours.”

The stalked character is drinking from a hip flask. She is a professor; Norman the geek has entered, “I didn’t mean to frighten you”, says Norman. The professor, however, wittily ripostes with, “I wasn’t frightened, I was merely surprised.”

Now this guy is claiming to be the last in a, “line of aztec priests of Tlailoc.” He is backed up by the mummy, the professsor is shitting it. It wields the blade with unconvincing jerkiness, oh and she’s dead in one fell swoop.

Cut to a dorm-room, populated by three bored “teenagers,” one of whom is the aforementioned Marty-, he has dark hair, so do the other two… I care not to learn their names.

“Sounds like someone ain’t getting any in the lurrrvv department,” said the streetwise kid. But he’s not just streetwise, see, because, “[he] already know everything, [he] don’t need to study.”*

“What do you propose we do?” One kid is a third-wheel in the role of a sidekick type of guy; he is neither prepared for his role as a character in the story, nor as an actor in a film production. Well perhaps that’s harsh, I’m sure it’s not easy to work on a film when half of its title contains the words, ‘Ancient,’ ‘Evil,’ and ‘Scream.’ In that order.

“He probably wants us to panty raid the girls’ dorm-room,” the streetwise kid chimes in again with more urban wisdom.

“Assholes from Chi-Alpha-Vega,” and again.

I’ve watched 38 minutes of this now and I’ve not turned it off yet, possibly because I’m able to yammer about it. I’m not really watching, just catching strange phrases like:

“I nearly peed myself first time I came in here.”

“Ooh, someone naked and wet, in my shower, just what I like.”

But oh no, the person in the shower is dead; killed by the mummy, her blood-drenched arm flops through the shower curtain, as the mummy steps out from wherever it was hiding in the bathroom. Somewhere really obvious I hope, like stood with only its face obscured behind the extend-o arm shaving mirror.

And that’s it, fuck it, sod the world, I’m going to sleep.

*Punctuation twisted for execution of crap joke.