Legion of the Dead | |
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Directed by | Paul Bales |
Written by | Paul Bales |
Produced by |
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Starring | Courtney Clonch Claudia Lynx Bruce Boxleitner Zach Galligan Chad Collins |
Distributed by | The Asylum [1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 83 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $500,000 |
Legion of the Dead is a 2005 American horror film produced by The Asylum. It stars Courtney Clonch and Bruce Boxleitner.
The film is a B movie based on Mummy legends, and was released in between two similar, more-successful films: The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001).
Two young men speed through the California desert on dirt bikes when one of them crashes through a hole in the ground. They discover the entrance to an Egyptian tomb and are both killed in boobytraps when they break the tomb's seal. Some time later, the site is being uncovered by archeology students led by Dr. Ari Ben-David. Molly Kirnan, a grad student, arrives on the scene and meets Ben-David who's working with her professor Dr. Bryan Swatek among others as they start their excavation of the site. Inside the tomb they discover the sarcophagus of Aneh-Tet, a mythical priestess who worshiped Set and was banished “across the great water” for claiming to be a living god. In her burial chamber, the sarcophagus is surrounded by six other mummies with crystals in their chests.
Later that night, Molly returns to the site alone having had a translating epiphany while reading and inadvertently read Aneh-Tet back to life. Before the mummy reanimates however, a security officer finds Molly and turns her over to Dr. Swatek. When she refuses his advances she leaves the site. Aneh-Tet then rises and leaves the tomb, draining the life from Swatek and the security guard. Inside the tomb, two of the six mummies surrounding Aneh-Tet's sarcophagus have the crystals in their chest lit up. The next day, as the students arrive, and discover Swatek and the security guard's mummified bodies while Molly waits for her sister Kevyn to bring her a change of clothes at her motel. When Kevyn arrives, they encounter a nude Aneh-Tet and Molly is able to communicate with her, bringing her back to the dig site with her.
At the tomb, Aneh-Tet is recognized by Ben-David who pledges his servitude to her if she spares his life and she claims a third victim (a police deputy). Molly has to go take care of Kevyn at the motel because she is partying with several of the other students from the dog. While she does this, Aneh-Tet kills two more victims (Axel and ) lighting up five of the six mummies in her tomb. She tries to attack Carter but he is able to escape to the motel with Molly. Instead, Aneh-Tet kills Justin while Ben-David kills Kara will a pickaxe for seeing too much. Together, Aneh-Tet and Ben-David resurrect her legion of six mummies and commands them to bring her “the Offering”.
The mummies descend upon the motel killing several patrons including the motel manager, being capable of reaching directly into peoples bodies and pulling out their organs. Molly and Carter are unable to find Kevyn and they realize the mummies have taken her as a virgin is needed for a final sacrifice so Aneh-Tet can begin world domination. Carter and Molly arrive at the tomb where they find Kevyn being prepped for sacrifice. Molly has armed herself with several sticks of dynamite (it's not revealed where she got the dynamite) and threatens Aneh-Tet with it allowing Kevyn to escape. Ben-David attacks Carter but is killed with a relic battle axe from the tomb. Several mummies chase after Kevyn as Sheriff Jones and acting deputy Sam arrive at the dig site, having found the bodies at the motel. Aneh-Tet instead uses Carter as a sacrifice, finding that he is a virgin and stabs him. The mummies attack the Sheriff's vehicle, killing him and Sam. Molly uses the sacrificial knife to stab Aneh-Tet before her ritual is complete causing her to return to her mummified state and her legion of undead to disintegrate. With Carter dead, Kevyn offers her virginal blood to Molly so they can bring Carter back to life with the ritual, which works and the credits roll.
Dread Central reviewed the film shortly after its release in 2005. The review makes note that the original title of the film was Unravelled which the reviewer argues is a much more fitting title for the misleading "zombie movie-sounding" Legion of the Dead and also points out the Egyptian mummy cover art inexplicably borrowed from Ancient Evil 2: Guardian of the Underworld. It states the film is even more misleading by giving the stars Bruce Boxleitner and Zach Galligan roles "so inconsequential to the plot that if they’d been dropped altogether it would have had very little impact on the rest of the film". The review goes on to say that while the film is not the worst, it brings nothing new to the genre of mummy-horror movies and ends up feeling predictable. [2]
FilmThreat.com gave the film a mostly negative review and did not recommend it to viewers. The review points out the many similarities between 1999's The Mummy and the plot of this film, also arguing that the movie does nothing original with the plot. The review makes mention that the DVD cover art lists that it "stars" Bruce Boxleitner and Zach Galligan, yet the two share barely 10 minutes of total screen time combined. It concludes by saying the film is ultimately "a badly diluted, horribly concluded, low budget version of a fairly decent movie". [3]
The Mummy is a 1999 American action-adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah and Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. It is a remake of the 1932 film of the same name. The film follows adventurer and treasure hunter Rick O'Connell as he travels to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, with librarian Evelyn Carnahan and her older brother Jonathan, where they accidentally awaken Imhotep, a cursed high priest with supernatural powers.
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The Mummy is a 1959 British horror film, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It was written by Jimmy Sangster and produced by Michael Carreras and Anthony Nelson Keys for Hammer Film Productions. The film was distributed in the U.S. in 1959 on a double bill with either the Vincent Price film The Bat or the Universal film Curse of the Undead.
The tomb of Tutankhamun, also known by its tomb number, KV62, is the burial place of Tutankhamun, a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb consists of four chambers and an entrance staircase and corridor. It is smaller and less extensively decorated than other Egyptian royal tombs of its time, and it probably originated as a tomb for a non-royal individual that was adapted for Tutankhamun's use after his premature death. Like other pharaohs, Tutankhamun was buried with a wide variety of funerary objects and personal possessions, such as coffins, furniture, clothing and jewelry, though in the unusually limited space these goods had to be densely packed. Robbers entered the tomb twice in the years immediately following the burial, but Tutankhamun's mummy and most of the burial goods remained intact. The tomb's low position, dug into the floor of the valley, allowed its entrance to be hidden by debris deposited by flooding and tomb construction. Thus, unlike other tombs in the valley, it was not stripped of its valuables during the Third Intermediate Period.
Thutmose I was the third pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He received the throne after the death of the previous king, Amenhotep I. During his reign, he campaigned deep into the Levant and Nubia, pushing the borders of Egypt farther than ever before in each region. He also built many temples in Egypt, and a tomb for himself in the Valley of the Kings; he is the first king confirmed to have done this.
Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is a 1971 British horror film starring Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon and James Villiers. It was director Seth Holt's final film, and was loosely adapted by Christopher Wicking from Bram Stoker's 1903 novel The Jewel of Seven Stars. The film was released as the support feature to Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
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The Mummy's Hand is a 1940 American horror film directed by Christy Cabanne and produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Studios. Shot in black-and-white, the film is about the ancient Egyptian mummy of Kharis, who is kept alive with a brew of tana leaves by The High Priest and his successor Andoheb. Meanwhile, archeologists Steve Banning and Babe Jenson persuade magician Solvani to finance an expedition in search of the tomb of Princess Ananka. They are joined by Solvani's daughter Marta, and followed by Andoheb who is also the professor of Egyptology at the Cairo Museum. Kharis is ordered to kill off expedition members Dr. Petrie and Ali, while Andoheb becomes attracted to Marta who he plans to kidnap and make immortal.
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The Awakening is a 1980 British horror film directed by Mike Newell in his directorial debut and starring Charlton Heston, Susannah York, and Stephanie Zimbalist. It is the third film version of Bram Stoker's 1903 novel The Jewel of Seven Stars, following the 1970 television adaptation as The Curse of the Mummy for the TV series Mystery and Imagination, and the 1971 theatrical film by Hammer, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb. It was released by Warner Bros.
The curse of the pharaohs or the mummy's curse is a curse alleged to be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, is claimed to cause bad luck, illness, or death. Since the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that the curse is 'real' in the sense of having scientifically explicable causes such as bacteria, fungi or radiation. However, the modern origins of Egyptian mummy curse tales, their development primarily in European cultures, the shift from magic to science to explain curses, and their changing uses—from condemning disturbance of the dead to entertaining horror film audiences—suggest that Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not scientific, phenomenon.
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House of Fears is a 2007 American horror film, directed by Ryan Little. It stars Corri English, Sandra McCoy, Michael J. Pagan, Corey Sevier and Alice Greczyn. The film was released Direct-to-DVD on April 27, 2009 in the UK. The DVD release in the United States was distributed by Your Indie Films. The movie features a cameo from American actor Jared Padalecki.
Tomb of the Lost Queen is the 26th installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Amateur and Master sleuth modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the plot of the game. The game is loosely based on the book Secrets of the Nile (1995).
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Mummies are commonly featured in horror genres as undead creatures wrapped in bandages. Similar undead include skeletons and zombies.