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Kharis is a supporting antagonist in the Universal's The Mummy series in the 1940's and in the 1959 remake by Hammer. It is a different character from Imhotep, played by the late Boris Karloff, from the original movie. Kharis appears in The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse. Despite being listed as appearing in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Kharis does not appear. Instead, a mummy called Klaris is introduced.
He was played by the late Tom Tyler and the late Lon Chaney Jr. - the latter of whom portrayed The Wolf Man in Universal Studios' film series of the same name, Count Dracula in Son of Dracula, and Groton in Dracula vs. Frankenstein - in the Universal films, and by the late Christopher Lee - who also portrayed Count Dracula in Hammer Studios' Dracula film series, Frankenstein's Monster in The Curse of Frankenstein, Fu Manchu in The Face of Fu Manchu, Lord Summerisle in the original version of The Wicker Man, Francisco Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun, King Haggard in The Last Unicorn, Cushing Catheter in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Kato in Mio, My Son, Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Saruman in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, and The Jabberwock in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland - in the 1959 Hammer remake.
Biography[]
The Mummy's Hand introduces Kharis in a series of flashbacks that are pulled from the original 1932 film except for inserts with Tyler replacing shots in which Karloff would have been conspicuous. The original film's ancient-Egypt scenes tell the story of Imhotep, who is punished for attempting to resurrect a dead lover, while in the Kharis films the identities and details of this story are simply changed to describe a similar but alternate scenario. For this reason the Kharis films are not sequels to the original, as occasionally misperceived, but do relate narratively to each other.
Kharis the mummy in The Mummy's Tomb (1942) portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr.
While Imhotep was a clever magician who acted alone, Kharis was more like a mute, brutish henchman tasked by dark priests of Karnak to kill those who try uncover the tomb of princess Ananka, usually by strangulation. He is charged by the High Priests with guarding Ananka's tomb from all those who would violate her rest for all eternity. Kharis was Ananka's forbidden lover when they both lived and when she died, he tried to return her to life using the Tana leaves. Before he could do so, he was caught and buried alive for his act of sacrilege. The Tana leaves he sought would be used to keep him alive for centuries to come.
Kharis makes a short appearance in The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories alongside The Mummy's Hand character Dr. Charles Petrie, set after the 2017 film The Mummy. The game retroactively establishes The Mummy films of the 1930s-1950s as the non-canonical chronology of the Dark Universe. Charles Trowbridge's likeness was used to represent his character Dr. Petrie in-game, while the likeness of Tom Tyler was used to represent Kharis.
Powers and abilities[]
Kharis portrayed by Christopher Lee in the Hammer Films remake (1959).
As a mummy, Kharis is stronger and more durable than a regular human, and his favorite finisher is to strangle his victim. Kharis is very resistant to physical damage, such as shooting, direct attacks, and fire. A weakness of Kharis is that he moves very slowly, due to his embalmed and undead body, He only uses his left hand to hit and strangle people,
He requires a magic ritual with Tana leaves to be revived and he returns to be inert if he doesn't get more leaves after a certain period of time. Kharis has no free will of his own, and is an instrument of death in the hands of modern Egyptian priests who use it to kill archaeologists who desecrate ancient tombs. However, Kharis is more powerful if he drinks Tana in full moon. If he drinks more Tana, he becomes a raging killer too powerful to control, even for a priest. Kharis gains some degree of free will from the priests if he becomes attracted to a female character. His strength is enormous, possibly almost on par with Frankenstein's Monster. His speed also increases with Tana, and becomes nigh indestructible.
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