Legion Of The Dead: Another mummy movie sucking life from decent actors

Don

I watched Legion Of The Dead because it listed Bruce Boxleitner as one of the stars. I managed to sit through the whole thing, but it's not worth ever watching again.

The main things that drag it down for me is the nudity for the sake of nudity, and the gore for the sake of gore. Both are lazy fallbacks when there's not enough of a plot or clever enough characters, so the writers think they should insult the viewer's intelligence and try to titillate them or gross them out to keep their interest. If they'd left out the gore, and not had Claudia Lynx strip at every opportunity, the story would have interested me much more.

It's not all that original, but at least it had potential. An Egyptian tomb is discovered in California, and dated well before the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The theory was that a trade route had been established between the Incans and the Egyptians, and when Egyptian hieroglyphics referred to 'the great sea', it wasn't the Red Sea as originally thought, but the Pacific Ocean. The tomb dates back 3,000 years earlier than other burial sites, and contains the mummy of a banished priestess named Aneh-Tet. She was banished for declaring herself a living god, and tried to ensure her immortality by being mummified surrounded by six warriors to serve her, and various rites that if read out loud by a modern priestess would bring Aneh-Tet back in human form. Her goal then would be to procure the souls of six young men to revive her six warriors, sacrifice a virgin (which she finds with shocking ease even in California-2 of them in fact!), and bring her father back to life so they could rule the world together.

This could have been a very interesting, intense story. However, the writers chose to go for the nudity and the gore, and skim over details that could have engaged the viewer instead of letting them yawn and wait for it all to be over.

It's not all bad. The six mummies wandering through town trying to find the virgin for their priestess had some funny moments. There was the requisite line of "Where is my mummy!" when Aneh-Tet is resurrected and wanders off. However, these refreshing moments of humor were few and far in between, so by the time you get them, it's a feeling of 'too little, too late'.

One actor I must point out is Chad Collins. He doesn't shine brightly in this role, but he does go on to be the hero in one of my favorite Sci Fi 'not so original' movies of late, Rock Monster. I highly recommend a viewing of that cheese fest if you get the chance, as it will wash the bitter aftertaste of Legion Of The Dead away.

For mummy movies I still prefer Stephen Sommer's The Mummy, as well as Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy. You don't need gore, you don't need nudity. You just need good writing, decent acting, and a dash of humor. Legion Of The Dead didn't learn that lesson, so it is going into my mental pile of movies that should only be suffered through once. Not even for Bruce Boxleitner will I watch this thing again.