Hallowed Horrors - The Mummy

Hollywood, desperate to cash in on this new found hunger for horror, looked to the 1922 discovery of King Tutankamen's tomb for inspiration. Being one of the first movies not inspired by a previous book or play, 1932's The Mummy starred Frankenstein's Boris Karloff as Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest who was mummified alive for performing necromancy on his dead lover. Thousands of years later, a group of archeologists accidentally bring his mummified corpse back to life, dooming themselves the the curse of the Mummy!

In the days before CGI, actors who had to play monsters had a grueling make-up regimen to go through. Every day before shooting, Karloff would be engrossed in a two hour make-up session that would start at 6am. His work day not usually getting over until 2am, he would remain in costume - which included matting his hair and face in plaster and clay, and being wrapped in yards of cotton gauze that had been soaked in acid and then baked to give it an ancient look), until 2am to following day.