IMDb Bottom 100 Review - Number 64 Seven Mummies

Mummies in the Arizona desert, Danny Trejo laughing an obscene amount of time, a Spanish gold treasure and people who govern a town seemingly inhabited by mummies. Not your every day movie content. Or is it? I don't know if it is, but tonight we are looking at a movie in which it is the only content. It's a wacky ride fraught with death and a B100 first: Female mammary appendices of an unclad variety. Yes, I can't believe it finally happened. You, as a mere reader, won't get to actually SEE anything, obviously, as the medium of this blog is text. But I did, and I'm far the better person for it. So waste no time in finding out how the bare naked female chest affected my review of...

Jesuit Monks are not about having their gold stolen. Time to open ancient cans of sandy whoop ass

Seven Mummies (2006)

I had no real idea what to expect going into this film. I mean besides being bored out of my poor unfortunate mind. I didn't know anything about it. Granted, I don't aways know a lot about these movies, because why the hell would I? (spoiler alert: Because I run a blog on shitty movies). This one seemed extra anonymous for some reason. No Paris Hilton for starters. I can't decide if this is a plus or a minus. The cover photo used in my media center for this movie was French for some reason. Not a good sign, when an American produced, directed and released movie has a French cover. That's perhaps prejudice, but I don't really care. It's my blog. When you have your own B100 review blog, you can have your own opinions. The French cover led me, will ill deserved trustworthiness, toward the erroneous assumption, that the movie was kind of like Zodiac Killer – a foreignly produced movie, that had somehow found both American funding and crew as some sort of fancy tax funded way for people who shouldn't, to get their movies made. The good Lord knows, we've seen that happen more than once. However, it turned out everything was perfectly North American about Seven Mummies. Again, this is neither a plus nor a minus. But at least I didn't need subtitles to watch it. I took 3 years of French, but it was back in the 90s so you can't really fault me for not recollecting too much. Or perhaps you can, I don't know. But if you are faulting me right now, there's really no way for me to know. An erroneous assumption the movie title didn't lead me toward, was that the movie wasn't about zombies. If you're thinking I inadvertently fell victim to the use of a double negative, you are wrong. The movie was about zombies. I had expected this.

Frank Motherhumpin' Nitti. In the wildest of wests. Contemporarily wild anyway. 

The plot of Seven Mummies is really exceedingly simple. No, it really is. Prison transport goes awry, prisoners escape after killing male guard and abducting inappositely attractive female prison guard. Since the prison transport apparently found it necessary to both transport an inappropriate amount of prisoners in a small cramped truck AND take a seemingly desolate and unnecessary route through a vast desert, the prisoners find themselves lost in the blazing hot sun. Unsure of the best course of action, they star wandering in a random direction. So far, so good. Or so OK. I don't know. I can believe everything happening up until now. Almost. The de facto leader of the outfit, is the stoic ruggedly handsome dusty blond buffed up prisoner who looks way too much like Chris Hemsworth for it to be an accident. But Thor didn't come out until 5 years after this film, and Chris hadn't really done much before that movie, so... perhaps Chris Hemsworth saw Seven Mummies and based his looks on the lead character? I'm going with that theory. Also, I'm going to call the lead character Chris, because I can't remember what the movie labeled him. Chris doesn't take shit from the rest of the prisoners, and when one of them tries to rape the prison guard right there in the sand, Chris has had about enough. A kerfuffle erupts and the group splits into two factions one of which consists of just one dude who apparently things he stands a better chance traversing the desert by himself. Chris doesn't care. During the spat, another distinct personality emerges. A stoic ruggedly handsome dark brown haired buffed up prisoner that has this mysterious air about him, that kind of wants us to believe, that perhaps he had been wrongfully imprisoned this whole time. This shows in the fact, that he doesn't at any point try to rape the female guard. She takes to him in the way Anna takes to her captors in Predator. A Stockholm syndrome subplot, if you will. This whole aspect isn't really explored further. We are content knowing he is better than the rest.

We should dig for water right here. Because of reasons. Oh an amulet? Well what do you know?

The little group come upon an outpost, inhabited by just one guy: Danny fucking Trejo. Yes. It's him. Trejo is legit. His role in this film isn't. But you can't really say anything, because it's Danny Trejo. You expect the unexpected with him. He plays an Indian here I think. That isn't explained either, or why the fuck he decided to set up shop in the middle of the desert. But he did. He acts out some weird ritual, and despite being just himself, the prisoners aren't immediately beating him to death to steal all his stuff. I guess there is decency in the world still. During the kerfuffle earlier, one of the prisoners found a medallion in the sand, while digging for water (yes, randomly diggin for water. With his hands). Danny Trejo knows a story or two about this medallion, and talks of a fabled town filled with some gold treasure, that monks blah blah. The usual story. Chris immediately abandons his plan for returning to civilization and instead decides he wants to find the gold. Everybody is ok with this. They leave Trejo's outpost, where we are treated to possibly the longest maniacal laugh during a fade between two scenes I have ever witnessed. Trejo laughs for easily 45 full seconds, while we see both his face, that the prisoners walk away. I don't understand why the hell this was a thing, but I can only assume they wanted to capitalize on the fact, that Trejo had somehow thought it OK to be a part of this film.

ERHMERGERD GOLD!

The rest of this is pretty much just the prisoners rolling into a weirdly anachronistic western style town, getting hot and heavy with the local prostitutes before the sheriff turns the whole damn town into Zombies. Chris, stoic dark haired dude, and female guard fight their way through throngs of angry zombies, find the gold, battle what I think are martial arts touting Jesuit zombie monks, while their little ragtag gang of prisoners are slowly, but surely, picked off. Even faction guy from earlier finds his way to the town and gets his comeuppance. I'd like to tell you more, but it's pretty clear by now, that there isn't much more to say.

Zombie Nitti talking mad shit to an innocent bystanding horse. 

Overall I guess I should state, that of all the movies I've seen so far, this was definitely in the higher end quality wise. The dialogue was mostly stupid, the acting was mediocre at best and lots of stuff didn't really make sense. But it wasn't AS stupid as most of the other ones I've had to sit through, and it only bored me to the point, where I just texted my girlfriend a little bit. That's huge, guys. I'm always torn between using the movies as background noise while I do something else, and feeling bad for not dedicating my full attention to them. For art's sake, you know. You don't know? No, neither do I. Lest I watch it dedicatedly I would feel bad. Like I failed you lot. Yes, novel concept, but I'm an extra mile kind of guy. Locations in the movie aren't super impressive. Desert mostly. I guess it's cool that they seem to have a whole western style town set going, but I believe there are many an abandoned town across the western states one could roll into. In any case, lots of extras and fucking around with costumes and what not. Budget wasn't in the high end, so I'm impressed. Damn I hate saying that. But credit where credit is due and all that.

"Bwahahahaha..... hahahahahaha.... bwaaaaahahahaha.... are we done yet? No? Bwaaaaahahahaha"

Besides the Chris Hemsworth looking guy, and Danny Trejo, I noticed a few familiar faces on the cast list. The sheriff looked eerily familiar right off the bat, but it took me a few moments to recognize old Billy Drago's weirdly scared face. He was, of course, Frank Nitty in The Untouchables. He played the sheriff, Drake, with gusto. He wanted gold, afterall, or two protect it. I didn't quite get that. Or perhaps it wasn't there to get. I don't know that either. We also chanced upon Noel Gugliemi, who most of you will know from... that movie involving a recognizable latino looking dude. He has been in some big productions like Training Day and The Dark Knight Rises but also is found in shit like Seven Mummies as the goto latino prisoner dude who swears a lot, is dissatisfied with everything, and snuffs it near the end. Hey, we all gotta live, right? Glancing over the cast list, I see Danny Trejo is entered as playing 'Apache'. So native American was right then. Explains the snakes and simple patterns on rough wooly ponchos. Good stuff.

Chris Hemsworth and the gang. And some woman who apparently is a prison guard. 

Seven Mummies wasn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it had an edge on the rest of the ensemble we deal with on an almost weekly basis. Denny Trejo beats Paris Hilton any day of the week, and we all know it. Plenty of plot holes in this one, and shit that just dosn't make any sense, but it seemed like a little more genuine effort had been invested in this, as opposed to stuff like The Hillz or Body in the Web. And then somebody got naked. It makes precisely zero difference to anything, but they managed to squeeze in a spot of nudity. I don't know if this is a plus or a minus either. Seems to happen a lot with this movie. But it is noteworthy, that it was the first time that had happened. Sure Body in the Web had apparently been a lot more raunchy before being cut for the prudish American market, and the version I saw was precisely that one, but it doesn't really count. I would have thought, that these bottom dwellers would be stuffed to the hilt with naked people, because as we know, if you have ten minutes you don't know what to do with in a film, you can always stick in slow motion nudity. It just gets the job done. So yes, I'm surprised, perhaps pleasantly, that this isn't the case. Granted, I still have like 60 movies to go, but if this trend continues, I will be able to count on a few hands, the number of times this will occur.