Petrified – review

Director: Charles Band

Release date: 2006

Contains spoilers

Sometimes you just need some nonsense… I was going to say cheesy sleazy nonsense but this one added in some sleaze (we’ll get to it) but then really pulled back from it. Did I mention it’s a Charles band film… and it is pure B.

Just to be clear, by the way… this is a mummy movie… and an alien movie… but it is also a vampire movie given the mechanics that Band throws in and rightly has a place here.

ressurection

So, it starts with the illegal sale of an antiquity. There is a big old crate and one of the bad guys, Buzz York (Roark Critchlow, Vampyre Nation), brings a small case. The antiquarian (Darrow Igus) buying the stuff seems delighted but bad guy Reggie (Nick Stellate) double crosses him and shoots him in the back. He turns on Buzz, who grabs the case and runs. Before Reggie and his moll can go after Buzz the crate explodes outwards with green light and two arms break through. A mummy (Christopher Bergschneider) emerges and his red fiery eyes turns the two crooks to stone.

old red eyes is back

Ok… so, Buzz has a ridiculous name but he is not a baddie really – he is actually undercover FBI. Also, the mummy’s eyes are only red when he turns you to stone and otherwise they are black and he has a mouthful of fang like teeth. As the film progresses it is apparent that Buzz knows the mummy was the desiccated remains of an alien who crash landed (he was the co-pilot, the small case contains the hand of the pilot – which somehow also comes to life and crawls around trying to strangle folks). It is confirmed that it is the blood that resurrected the mummy and it is suggested he might need to take blood to survive.

Roark Critchlow as Buzz

Buzz – not yet knowing the mummy is revived – gets to a nearby private clinic, lets himself in and phones for extraction (which will take an hour). He meets a woman who claims to be the doctor, Helen Noel (Jessica Lancaster), but is soon revealed to be the sister of one of the patients, Suze (Kimberly Dawn Guerrero), and wants to rescue her as she thinks the clinic is ropey. The clinic treats nymphomaniacs (which is where the film veers off to sleaze and then spectacularly fails to deliver) and she is right; the real doctor, Horatio Von Gelder (Ozman Sirgood), is not trying to cure the girls but actually trying to find a youth serum using the elevated pheromones of the nymphomaniacs. He’s succeeded too, making 61 year old Cory (Dana Lastrilla) young again – and still horny. This is all padding around a very thin film.

melting

As thin as it is, and poor, and short (70 mins) and rubbish – there is something amusingly B about the movie. The filmmakers have thrown the kitchen sink at this… if they can crowbar it in they will do. How Buzz knows the mummy has to maintain eye contact to turn you to stone and thus covers his face when attacked in that way, is unknown. Perhaps they’ve resurrected one before? The film ain’t saying. Eventually they work out that salt will kill the creature, when all else fails, and when it dies the final victim un-petrifies (though what happened to the others isn’t revealed).

Rubbish – but amusing. 3.5 out of 10 reflects me walking the line of knowing how terribly pants this was and yet somehow still thinking it was worth the effort of watching it.

The imdb page is here.