Interactive Mummy and other horrors

A mummy memory: Back in highschool, my friends and I attended a Halloween party. We sat down on a corner littered with plastic Jack O’ Lanterns, drank watery punch, and were sickened by songs like Supersonic and other schmaltzy dance tracks from the C&C Music Factory, MC Hammer, and Tone Loc. The preppy kids in their long-backs, Topsiders and stiff khakis were visibly enjoying themselves. We looked like refugees in our Metallica and Ramones T-shirts. The late Dagul, my classmate’s elder brother, bullied the DJ into playing his "And Justice For All" tape. We heard the strains of The Shortest Straw, yelped and invaded the dance floor, slamdancing, shouting, ruining the night of the living preppies. The hosts booted us out of the party. Before leaving, Dagul set fire to "The Mummy" (actually, it was a mannequin with rolls of white tissue paper wrapped around it). Never have I heard so much screaming. The preppy kids screamed. The adults screamed. We screamed (faked, of course) and snickered in the yard while watching the mummy go up in flames.

I was at the Power Plant Mall recently and was reminded of the mummy incident. The event was the launch of Universal Studio’s live attraction "The Mummy Returns — Live," an interactive spin-off of the blockbuster The Mummy Returns which starred Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

We were having lunch with James Avery of ThemeStar, one of the prime movers of "The Mummy Returns — Live," as well as other members of the press, when a pissed-off "Imhotep" (Mr. Mummy himself played by Arnold Vosloo in the movie) barged into the room with the sultry "Anck-Su-Naman" and the jackal-headed and skull-faced mummy militia, saying he has come "for revenge."

(Revenge? I hope it’s not for the mummy-burning incident in the mid-’90s, I muttered to myself.)

Rockwell Center teamed up with Orange Communications in order to bring to the public the first-ever Universal Studios-licensed live attraction. We were told that it has been a "screaming success" worldwide, in places like Osaka (Universal Studios Japan), Hong Kong (Ocean Park), Australia (Melbourne and Adelaide), etc.

"The Mummy Returns — Live" is an interactive journey through the passageways of the ancient mummy’s tomb. It is a replica of the Imhotep’s tomb, complete with scarabs, skeletons, sarcophagi, haze, fog, violet lights — the works, actually. It is 3,000 square feet of terror courtesy of animatronic effects, digital sound effects and live actors (yes, flesh-and-blood Joes in horrifying masks and costumes).

The mediamen were given a tour of the mummy’s tomb. Unlike horror booths in the perya where you ride a rusty, rickety train and descend into a dark room filled with tacky statues of the living dead and clumps of hair, the Universal Studio attraction offers a more high-tech, more interactive twist to horror.

I went on a tour of the mummy’s mausoleum with two female writers and how they screamed their lungs out. I can’t blame them. Bloody corpses bolted out from dark corners. A woman, flaunting her innards and intestines, let out a disorienting yell as we passed by. Coffins made jolting noises above our heads. The bandaged ones followed us everywhere we went. Blood-curdling screams everywhere. It was unnerving for most of us.

After a few minutes the cute torment was over and we made our way out of the mummy’s eerie digs. Boy, was I relieved I didn’t get to see a mummy with third degree burns. That, dear readers, would’ve scared me shitless.

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(You can catch "The Mummy Returns — Live" at the Power Plant Mall from Mondays to Fridays from 4 p.m. to 12 p.m; Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.; and from Dec. 14 onwards, daily from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.. All you need is a hundred pesos to see Imhotep and company scare the sweet bejesus out of friends and family-members.)

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For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja@hotmail.com