The Ushabti

Centuries ago in Egypt, a magician steals an ancient stone tablet, mutters mystical words, and restores life to a dead animal. Priests and guards burst in and destroy the monstrosity. They kill the magician and bury him underneath a sacred altar, along with the tablet, covered over in clay. Hieroglyphs tell the story of his blasphemy. In present-day San Jose, California, 60-ish Hasan Kamil, curator of a local Egyptian museum, chases an inquisitive trio of children out of his basement: 13-year-old Kevin, his 8-year-old brother Gene, and 13-year-old neighbor Carol. Hasan walks to work and a gang of street thugs confronts him. But the tall, robust Egyptian manages to more than hold his own, until Sheriff Hairston intervenes. The gang vows revenge on Hasan. Archaeologists unearth the mysterious tablet and send it to Hasan for translation. Hasan’s young, beautiful girlfriend, enters his office as he examines the relic. He decides to take the tablet home for further study. The couple walk toward Hasan’s home, but meet up with the gang, and a fight breaks out. Hasan is knocked out, while various gang members brutally rape the helpless girlfriend and kill her. The gang runs off when police approach. The groggy Hasan notices some of the clay covering the tablet was chipped off in the struggle. After recovering from the fight, Hasan spends all his time in the basement studying the stone tablet. His grown son, Pasha worries about his father’s mental state. One afternoon, Kevin, Carol, and Gene hear chilling cries from Hasan’s house and investigate. A small, animated terra cotta statuette of an ancient Egyptian creature races through the door. They find Hasan’s dead body inside. Police track down the creature. After a struggle, they crush and destroy it, but lose one of their men in the process. Sheriff Hairston, not knowing what to believe, orders his men to swear the creature drowned. Days later, a black stone statue in the likeness of Hasan, called a “ushabti”, is delivered to Pasha. He places it in the basement. The ushabti statue was ordered by Hasan before his death. Pasha finds his father’s notes and the tablet. Hasan had removed the clay covering from the stone and experimented with the tablet and magic words to reanimate various items and animals. His last request asks Pasha to use a vial of Hasan’s blood, draw the ankh symbol on the forehead of the ushabti statue and use the ancient tablet and words to animate it. Pasha hesitates, but obeys Hasan’s wish. The spell doesn’t seem to work, so the son believes his father suffered from delusions in his final days. Gene watches the ceremony and copies the magic words on a toy recorder. He sneaks into the basement, and swipes the stone tablet. Unknown to Pasha, the black stone statue comes to life each night and begins a reign of terror. It seeks out and destroys the gang members who raped and murdered Hasan’s girlfriend. When the ushabti kills the final street punk, a rainstorm washes away the blood symbol from its forehead. It turns into a vicious monster. In a battle with police, the creature savagely kills several officers. Then, it roams the countryside and brutally murders a child at a nearby farm. Kevin and Carol discover that Gene uses the tablet and magic words to amuse himself, animating toys and other objects. They all join Pasha to track down the ushabti monster. A posse of farmers corners the creature. Pasha destroys the tablet, but it doesn’t effect the ushabti, and the statue claims another life. Pasha throws himself at the statue. He and the ushabti disappear into a creek. Only a dead Pasha resurfaces. Sheriff Hairston starts to drive the three youngsters home, but on the way, they come across the ushabti at a highway maintenance yard. The monster shoves Hairston into a gravel pile. Gene and Carol look like they’re the next victims. At the last moment, Kevin drives a steamroller over the monster and crushes it into dust. Hairston is rescued and takes the kids away. The ushabti’s killing spree ends.