UNWRAPPING THE MUMMY ON THE
UNIVERSAL BACKLOT

The Halloween season is upon us and on Monday night Universal Home Video held a party on the backlot of their Universal Studios to celebrate the home video release of this summer’s blockbuster “The Mummy”, as well as to unveil one of the Halloween attractions of the theme park here in Holylwood.

Creating a nice Egyptian-themed atmosphere with camels, horses, veiled beauties, bare-chested servants and fierce adventurers, Universal went to quite some lengths to make sure its guests were comfortable and in a good mood for the celebration. Culinary oriental delicacies were offered all over the place from small bazaar-like stands and all sorts drinks were handed out in others. The drink of the night was “The Curse”, a special mix of desert-dryness and Egyptian superstition, so to say. But also many of the classic Universal monsters roamed the backlot, and it could happen all too easily that Dracula would sneak up on you and bite your neck before

you even knew what happened, while the Frankenstein creature and his bride strolled by nonchalantly.

But Universal had also invited some of the film’s stars for the event and we had the chance to catch up with Arnold Vosloo before the event for a chat to follow up with him on our recent interview, as well as the film’s director Stephen Sommers. Sommers was in a particular energetic mood that night, seeing his film finally come to home video, but also because Universal used the occasion to unveil one of their Universal Theme Park attractions for this Halloween season. It was “The Mummy Maze” that was co-designed by Stephen Sommers, but more on that later. It was great to catch up with them and chat about the film, and their plans, but also to see how much they enjoy the success the film has had.

After that it was time to unveil the new theme park attraction. Officially opening on October 15, “Halloween Horror Nights III” will feature five brand-new mazes.
There will be “The Thrilling, Chilling World Of Rob Zombie”, a succession of strange and progressively more horrifying rooms in a psychotic ride of demonic dementia. “Clive Barker’s Hell” will douse guests in the heat of Hades, engulfing them in the fiery flames of the horror master’s very own Hell. “Cleaver’s Meat Locker” is a bizarre attraction that takes you into a meat processing plant led by a salivating pack of inbred cannibals. Then there will be “Classic Creature Features”, the home of classic monsters like the Frankenstein creature, Dracula, The Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Phantom Of The Opera nad others. And finally, there will be Stephen Sommers’ “The Mummy Maze”, a labyrinth that will unleash the curse

Once the crowd had moved to the entrance of the them park attraction, Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr ceremonially opened the Maze and all assembled guests were dared to enter the ghoulish maze. Together with an extremely upbeat Stephen Sommers and Oded Fehr we had the chance to set our feet into the Stygian darkness of this labyrinth.

What followed was a thrill-ride through original movie props from the film, accompanied by tortured, scarab-eaten souls, walking mummies and of course the Army of Skeletons from the film. Sometimes designed to give you a good view on the elaborate movie props and decorations, the attraction sometimes also leaves you in pitch-black environments without any clue of direction with plenty of shock-like scares. After all, it was a fun ride that works very well with the stylistic elements of the movie.

Once everyone had seen the attraction, the crowd thinned out a bit while the members of the film faced an eager crowd of photographers and interviewers from the press. It was a great and fun event, and the folks at Universal did a splendid job to create both a Halloween atmosphere, as well as an ambience the matched the movie. We are of course resistant to the Mummy’s curse, but in order to shake it off completely, I need to pass it on to someone... hence... I curse you all! Go out and buy “The Mummy”... and tell the clerk, “The Mummy” sent you.