MUMMY RETURNS,THESoldier Mummy SFX Head
An incredibly rare, believed to be unique, special effects Soldier Mummy Head. This head was utilised for the scenes where the Mummies attack Rick & Co. on the London Bus, perhaps the most memorable scene of the movie.The head itself is made up of a mixture of resin and compressed/compacted foam ball pellets, to give that required exploding,/shattering effect. The head has purposely created fracture lines (see picture) to increase/ease the exploding effect. The head, amazingly, retains most of the parts from the rear where the exploding effect was conducted and could possibly be rebuilt if so required. This is understood to be the only such surviving head in existance, having being retrieved by one of the crew members at Shepperton Studios after the effects sequence was shot.A wonderfully unique piece which would be the centrepiece of any Mummy collection. Please note, due to it's fragility personal collection would be reccomended, if possible.Important Update; we have amazingly been contacted by the original maker of this piece with fantastic new information, to follow is a transcript of the new info:
Nice to see a Soldier Mummy head again!
I made the head. I was working as an Animatronic Model Designer for Nick Dudman's creature effects unit at Shepperton on TMR.
The head isn't resin, it's a mixture of; plaster, talc, grey paint and styrene balls. This material was dubbed "Derrickite" as I came up with it.
This head was made for the bus chase sequence and, more specifically, is the Soldier Mummy with the long fingernails who attacks Ardeth Bey among the seats.
It has it's head blown off by Evy with O'Connell's shotgun.
The cracks in the head aren't there for any other reason than the heads were very fragile indeed. As breakaways are.
The back section was removable to load the head with dust, scrim, bits of ragged latex and some foam latex vertebrae I made, just in case you could see them.
The Special Effects dept. Rigged them with a single detonator each. On action, the were completely vaporised. So, this one wasn't used on screen. But, I did take them all to the set that day so it was on the stage.
I haven't seen another one that's survived. I made 13 in all, we shot the gag 3 times, 6 went missing after wrap and the rest were destroyed by order of the Production.
Rare item indeed.
Hope this has been of some value.
Dimensions | 15" x 12" |
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Production items are accompanied by the Propmasters Certificate Of Authenticity.