Belphégor - Le Fantôme du Louvre
2001 Fantasy / Horror
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Summary
A three thousand year old Egyptian sarcophagus is rediscovered in the vaults of the Louvre
museum in Paris. An eminent English Egyptologist, Glenda Spender, is called in to
analyse the ancient relic and the well-preserved mummified remains it contains.
During the examination, a ghostly spirit escapes from the sarcophagus and enters the Louvre’s
electrical system, causing a widespread power failure. Meanwhile, Lisa, a young
woman whose grandmother lives in an apartment opposite the Louvre, has entered the musuem
to recover her cat. The ghostly spirit enters her body and she becomes the unwitting
host of a deadly force…
Review
Despite its blockbuster budget and impressive cast line-up, Belphégor
- Le fantôme du Louvre is nothing more than a pale imitation of the worst
kind of special-effects-driven Hollywood fantasy fare. The film’s biggest
deficiency is its risibly bad script which cobbles together some feeble science fiction
ideas and the odd reference to Egyptology in a meagre, ham-fisted attempt to entertain
a mainstream cinema audience. The meanest of intelligence would be insulted by the
puerile nonsense that masquerades as a plot, in a film that takes itself so seriously.
The story makes no sense whatsoever, virtually every one of the characters in this film
is a two-dimensional caricature, and the special effects – ostensibly the film’s
main selling point – are over-used and already look pretty dated. If there’s
one category of film that France consistently does really badly, it is this kind of spectacular
fantasy blockbuster. Few, however, go as badly wrong as this one...
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