LogFAQs > #930179065

20. Mummies (21.5 points)
Nominated by: Anagram (0/5 remaining)
https://imgur.com/a/XUphjdE

Importance: 10
Fear: 5
Snake: 6.5

Mummies are probably one of the most iconic generic horror monsters in the business. They're one of the oldest examples too, getting their start around 1827, with the landmark science-fiction novel, The Mummy! or A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century. In this novel by Jane Loudon, the Egyptian mummy Cheops is brought back to life in the year 2126. It's the first English story to feature a reanimated mummy, starting a trend that would continue all the way into our current decade with no signs of slowing down. It was written as a response to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and sparks a science vs. faith debate instead, and though Cheops is horrifying in appearance, he's rather well-spoken and easy to befriend. The novel also has a large focus on future technology and progressive feminist ideas, almost unhead of at the time. It's one of the more interesting starts to any horror monster, that's for sure.

The concept of the Mummy would continue to be used through the 1800s, one of the most influential examples being She: A History of Adventure, one of the best-selling fictional stories of all time. Written by H. Rider Haggard, it depicts a lost world ruled by a woman named Ayesha, who reverts to a Mummy like state by the end of the book. Like many similar Mummy-related novels of the time, it more deals with concepts of fantasy, adventure and romance rather than horror, but as always you can totally see the building blocks leading towards the bandaged, slow-walking, curse-fueled mummies we know today.

Bringing us close to this is the Universal Monsters classic, The Mummy from 1932. Easily the most famous incarnation and the origin point for undead Mummy films, it starred Boris Karloff as Imhotep, revived as a mummy in present day as he attempts to mummify a reincarnation of a princess who he loved in Ancient Egypt. Interestingly however, Imhotep isn't really the image we associate with mummies, still much more in line with the 1800s Gothic novels. That honor would go to 1940's The Mummy's Hand, which at last fully features a bandaged, shambling corpse of a mummy, mute and a near mindless brute known as Kharis, who would go on to feature in several sequels. With this iconic image established, this would go on to be the mummy's default mode of operation in fiction for years to come.

Despite their great influence on horror, I've always found mummies one of the least interesting horror monsters in fiction. Often I feel they're used just because they're an easy stock character when you need a generic enemy or something, and I way prefer the old style romantic mummies, which at least had some meaning behind them. Outside of horror however, they're a tad more frightening. Mummification was a process used by many cultures, and it's uncanny how well-preserved some of these are. It's no wonder how they inspire such spine-tingling fiction for many authors. You have, of course, the whole "curse of the pharaohs" thing too, especially with Tutankhamun's curse which has been claimed to have taken many lives of the years. It's a case of the truth being scarier than fiction here, but hey, mummies are here to stay so might as well embrace this importance slice of horror history before you find yourself succumbing to a similar curse!

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What I am about to do has not been approved by the Vatican.
https://imgur.com/MmrKwGZ - https://imgur.com/ntWVGyh