Hellah Horrah’s Midnight Movie Pick: The Mummy

Written By Tya Alisa Anthony

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Trilogy – Sand, Screams, and Sweetheart Brendan Fraser

Darlings of the dark, dust off your sarcophagi and get ready to unwrap one of my all-time guilty pleasures—The Mummy series. That’s right, tonight we’re traveling back to ancient tombs, treasure-laden crypts, and the Hollywood glory days when Brendan Fraser was everyone’s swashbuckling dreamboat.

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The Mummy

(1999)

Ahhh, the one that started it all! Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell—charming, reckless, and absolutely adorable—teams up with the brilliant and bookish Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) to take on the resurrected high priest Imhotep. What follows? A perfect cocktail of action, horror, romance, and CGI sandstorms that still make me swoon.

This movie is pure magic: part Indiana Jones, part Universal Monsters, and 100% campy fun. And let’s not forget Benny—the sniveling sidekick who betrays everyone and steals every scene with his cowardly cackles. Admit it, my fiends, you yell at the screen every time Benny shows up too!

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The Mummy Returns

(2001)

Bigger, louder, and packed with even more undead chaos. Rick and Evelyn are now married with a son, which ups the stakes as the O’Connell family faces Imhotep again—this time with the Scorpion King lurking in the shadows. Yes, that’s right, The Rock makes his big screen debut with a CGI scorpion body that’s… horrifying in ways Universal probably didn’t intend.

But the movie works because it doubles down on the camp. Adventure set pieces, creepy reincarnations, and a wild finale that feels like riding a cursed rollercoaster through hell. It’s over the top, it’s silly, and it’s everything I want in a popcorn horror-adventure.

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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

(2008)

Now here’s where the curse starts to show its cracks. Rick and his grown-up son take on Jet Li as the Dragon Emperor in China. The idea is juicy: terracotta warriors brought to life, frozen curses, and a new mythology beyond Egypt. But Rachel Weisz didn’t return, and the spark between Rick and Evelyn was sorely missed.

Still, Brendan Fraser’s heart-of-gold charisma carries the movie. Even when the plot stumbles, he keeps us watching with that boyish grin and action-hero earnestness. Plus, undead armies battling across China? Yes, please.

🕷️ Final Shriek

The Mummy trilogy is proof that horror-adventure can be equal parts spooky and swoony. Brendan Fraser gave us a hero who wasn’t just muscle—he was funny, kind, and absolutely irresistible. The mix of creepy curses, ancient mythologies, and laugh-out-loud moments make these films endlessly rewatchable.

So if you hear me shrieking at the TV, don’t worry—it’s just me screaming at Benny one more time.

🖤 With cobweb kisses and cursed treasures,

Hellah Horrah – Mistress of the Night

Tya Alisa Anthony

Tya Alisa Anthony is an American artist, photographer, writer, and independent curator whose work explores memory, mythology, ancestry, and the quiet ways people leave themselves behind in the objects they touch. For more than twenty years, her practice has existed at the intersection of visual research, education, and cultural storytelling, investigating resilience through the body, the landscape, historical archives, and the natural world.

Working across photography, collage, cyanotype, botanical collections, handmade books, and mixed media, Anthony approaches each body of work as an evolving archive rather than a finished statement. She is drawn to weathered photographs, heirlooms, medicinal plants, folklore, ritual objects, forgotten architecture, and the symbolic language that connects cultures across time. Her work asks how identity is preserved, transformed, and remembered.

Alongside her studio practice, Anthony has spent more than two decades building educational programs, exhibitions, and community-centered initiatives that expand access to the arts. Her leadership has helped shape institutions, mentor emerging artists, develop sustainable systems, and create spaces where creativity becomes a lifelong practice rather than a privilege.

Anthony’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Octopus Collection. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is held in numerous private collections.

She is currently creating Organic Tarot, a 78-card hand-collaged tarot deck and accompanying memoir that intertwines mythology, autobiography, botanical symbolism, and the archetypal journey of transformation. The project reflects the central thread running throughout her career: that art is not simply something we make—it is a way of understanding ourselves, preserving what matters, and leaving a map for those who come after us.

http://www.tyaanthony.com
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