The Sex Files: Ancient Desires [2000]

One of a series of late-night cable softcore time-wasters put out under the loose series umbrella title of The Sex Files, this puts a would-be erotic spin on the mummy sub-genre. Mild-mannered Professor George Reno [Sex Files regular Daniel Anderson, billed as Dugan Hays] teaches a class on the near-legendary Inca tribe of Mohica, and is sometimes struck with visions of their sex-queen Aklo [Jenna Bodnar]. Reno takes a trip into the Peruvian jungle with an untrustworthy pimp guide [Johnny Saldi] and two of his girls [Gabriella Hall, Amber Newman] as [literal] bearers to find the queen's tomb. The mummy [wrapped in clean, fresh surgical bandages] is revived by erotic energy [as the four explorers get it on], while Reno is split into two, his rational self and a sex-crazed doppelganger. The real Reno is wrapped in bandages and trapped in the tomb, while the queen is shipped in a box to America to start spreading her decadence among the general population. When the doppelganger tries to make it with Reno's wife Anne [redhead Regina Russell, who was in the other erotic mummy movie of the decade, The Mummy's Kiss], sweeping away a chessboard and a few books to show he rejects the intellect, the woman realises he's a wrong 'un, and resists the evil queen's influence – dispelling the doppelganger and destroying the mummy's body.

Weirdly, the third act relocates - via stock footage and a comedy ethnic guide [T. Midnight] - to Egypt, with Anne and secondary archaeologist hero Bob Porter [Stephen Curtis]. The queen's evil spirit is now invested in an amulet, which takes over a blonde [Camden Town's own Zoe Paul] who does a veil-dance and becomes an acolyte of Aklo. Reno shows up in Egypt, because it turns out that the pyramids in Peru and Egypt are dimensional portals - and he teams up with Bob [whose name is spelled 'Bot Porta' in the end credits], who has been having an affair with his supposed widow, to save Anne from permanent possession by Aklo. The climax is a rare movie exorcism in which the two heroes rub massage oil on the hoyden heroine in order to get the amulet off her - it's a perfunctory wrap-up, which ditches any attempt at a serious tone in order to get it over with quickly since all the sex scenes are over.

This is the first film to mix the mummies of Ancient Egypt and South America, an idea so cool it's a shame it wasn't used in something more interesting - like, say, The Mummy Meets the Aztec Mummy. The sex scenes are the usual repetitive, soft focus, MOR-scored, minimal-contact writhing and interstitial business is flatly-staged silliness with cramped sets and flat line-readings. Bodnar is a statuesque villainness, but - despite the dark roots of her blonde dye-job - doesn't look remotely Incan and hasn't even the acting chops to compete with Valerie Leon. Written by Jay Woelfel, who has credits on zero-budget horror [Things, The Bagman, Hell's Highway] and other mild porn [The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man, The Sex Files: Alien Erotica], and directed by Clinton J. Williams.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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