Tale of the Mummy (also known as Talos - The Mummy) is a 1998 adventure horror thriller directed by Russell Mulcahy.

A British archaeologist oversees an expedition to a cursed tomb in a search of treasure, but the crew ends up unleashing a great evil. In modern times, in the days before a planet alignment, the dead remains of an Egyptian sorcerer begins its hunt to find a new body...

The movie stars Jason Scott Lee, Louise Lombard, Sean Pertwee, Lysette Anthony, Michael Lerner, Jack Davenport, Honor Blackman, Christopher Lee, Shelley Duvall, Gerard Butler, Jon Polito, Ronan Vibert, Bill Treacher, and Elizabeth Power.

It was released on August 3, 1998.

Tropes for the film:

• The Bad Guy Wins: Talos finds his missing body parts and reincarnates with a new body in the modern world: Riley's.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: At the end of the movie, Talos-as-Riley looks smugly to the camera and lets out a howl, his mouth giving a predatory howl in a 3d rendered effect.
• I'm a Humanitarian: In the flashback to Talos's death, it is said that his lover, Nefriama, and some of his followers ate parts of his body.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine:
  • Lombard and Pertwee previously worked together on Bodyguards.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Female archeologist Sam and detective Riley clearly have something going on between them. Riley shoots Sam in the heart to stop Talos from getting her heart, thinking she is Talos's lover's reincarnation.
• Literally Shattered Lives: In the opening sequence, Sir Richard Turkel and some associates succumb to an Ancient Tomb's curse, their flesh becoming crumbly and cracking like porcelain. Particularly harsh for Turkel, whose head and chest remain flesh until well after he's snapped in half at the waist, and the poor fellow who was climbing a wall at the time: one by one, his limbs shatter under the strain of struggling in vain not to fall.
• Mummy: The excavators of an ancient tomb are hunted by a mummy whose bones disintegrated long ago, so it manifests as a mass of CGI-animated bandages that enfold its victims.
• Red Herring: The titular mummy's lover in a past life was an Egyptian princess. During the film, the audience is led to believe that the female archeologist is her reincarnation. She is not.
• Reincarnated as the Opposite Sex: Part of The Reveal: the titular mummy's lover in a past life was an Egyptian princess. In modern times, she reincarnated as the male detective played by Jason Scott Lee.
• Tagline: "The curse is legend. The terror is real".
• When the Planets Align: Talos's spirit is aiming to resurrect himself on the date of a planetary alignment.
• The X of Y: Tale of The Mummy.