Ancient Mummies and More

Dallas' newest immersive exhibition goes inside pyramids with King Tut

Immersive King Tut: Magic Journey to the Light will open at Lighthouse Dallas on September 22.

Photo courtesy of Lighthouse Immersive

Lighthouse Immersive, the group behind Immersive Van Gogh, Immersive Frida Kahlo, and Immersive Monet & The Impressionists, has unveiled their latest project, Immersive King Tut: Magic Journey to the Light, which will open at Lighthouse Dallas on September 23.

Conceived in partnership with UEG, IFFDA, and under the auspices of the Egyptian Council for Tourism Affairs, it features the most famous of Egyptian rulers, the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, and is being launched to commemorate the 100th anniversary of archeologist Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of the legendary “boy king” in November 1922.

According to a release, the exhibition will tell the story of the Amduat, an important ancient Egyptian funerary text, thought to be the oldest known illustrated story, that was depicted on the tombs of pharaohs. State-of-the-art video mapping and animation will bring to life the story of King Tut’s passage into the afterlife as he escorts the sun through the underworld each night to rise again victoriously each morning.

Dallas will be one of only six cities to feature the exhibition in 2022, including Denver, Toronto, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Chicago.

“Since the discovery of his tomb a century ago, Tutankhamun — or King Tut — has transfixed the world,” said Corey Ross, producer of Immersive King Tut: Magic Journey to the Light, in a statement. “Over the past 100 years, the magnificent artifacts from his tomb have drawn millions of visitors eager to see first-hand the grandeur and splendor of Egypt’s most famous leader. This captivating experience will use sight and sound to transport visitors more than 3,000 years into the past in a groundbreaking way that only Lighthouse Immersive can.”

Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled around 1332-1323 B.C. Taking the throne at about nine years of age, his short reign spurred the creation of some of the most important artworks in all of world history, and for many these mark the height of ancient Egypt's culture. The discovery of the treasures in his tomb sparked a global fascination with ancient Egypt that continues to this day. More than 5,000 artifacts were ultimately removed from the king’s tomb and are preserved in Egypt’s national collection.

Tickets for the exhibition will go on sale at 10 am Saturday, June 18 at immersive-kingtut.com. Ticket buyers can save 20 percent on VIP and premium tickets during the pre-sale beginning Thursday, June 16, and initial on-sale period, subject to availability.

galleries

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

---

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

movies film