Monday, October 13, 2025

Rant Review: Hammer: House of Horror- The Mummy 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Aquarius, art by Joseph Smith)


I enjoyed the puzzle montage of classic Hammer horror movie posters I did last year, so I've had the trio of smaller puzzles featuring some individual posters from that montage for some time now. I saw this for an irresistible price last week! While this poster isn't a patch on the poster art for the 1932 Karloff-starring Universal original, it's quite moody and atmospheric, with a striking image offset by bold, colorful lettering and the requisite recoiling actress. Aquarius have cropped out the bottom chunk of the poster, so the credits (along with a sizeable portion of the actress) are missing. 

Putting this puzzle together unfolded pretty much as I expected: everything went together quickly and easily except for the titular mummy and the dark sky behind him. The highlighted areas of the mummy went together fairly easily and served as a staging ground, and from there, it was a matter of buckling down and brute-forcing my way through all those dark pieces. This was made slightly more difficult than it should have been due to all the false fits. 


It had been awhile since I'd done an Aquarius puzzle, and I'd forgotten how loose the fit tends to be with their pieces. The wonky piece shapes alleviated this somewhat, giving fewer possibilities for false fits than would otherwise be the case, but it still led to some annoyance. Pieces were very glossy, and several were bent or otherwise damaged right out of the box. On the positive side, there was not very much puzzle dust. Given that their puzzles routinely cost about the same as puzzles of comparable size from companies such as Ravensburger and Galison, this is not really up to snuff with the level of quality I expect for the MSRP. For the sale price I paid, however, it's pretty much in line with what I'd expect. If you enjoy these movies, or just like the art, these puzzles are definitely worth getting. Just be prepared for glossy and rather loose-fitting pieces. 



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