Rating: 3/5
Hooptober 5.0 | 19/32 | Terence Fischer
He who robs the graves of Egypt dies.
Egypt, 1895 Egyptian men work for the Banning family, who are British archaeologists. One man uncovers a jade artifact — on one side, a scarab; on the other, a hieroglyphic inscription. Stephen takes the artifact and shows it to his brother, Joseph — he believes it proves they’re on the right track.
Stephen also shows the artifact to his son, John (Peter Cushing), whom Joseph thinks they should send home because of his broken leg. John thinks they’re only four or five days away from completing the work Stephen began twenty years ago: to uncover the tomb of Princess Ananka.
Mehemet Bey (George Pastell) finds the dig and warns them not to continue digging.
They ignore Mehemet’s warnings and enter, cutting the bound cord that deals the tomb closed. Upon finding the sarcophagus, Joseph leaves to tell John. Meanwhile, Stephen finds The Scroll of Life in the tomb.
Outside, Joseph hears Stephen scream. He runs inside to find Stephen babbling incoherently, lying on the ground.
England, 1898 Stephen comes out of a catatonic state to ask for John. When John comes to see him, Stephen tells John about The Scroll of Life — that when Stephen read from it, he awoke Kharis, the high priest of Karnak (Christopher Lee), who will get vengeance on everyone who desecrated the tomb.
John doesn’t believe him. But when he sees Kharis for himself, he can no longer doubt.
This film is one of the early Hammer adaptations of the Universal monsters. They did The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, and then The Mummy.
The Mummy is my least favorite of the original Universal films. The movie is predominantly boring ceremonies and little action.
The film doesn’t enhance the material much. Christopher Lee, at 6ft5, is perfect as an imposing figure — he proves himself as Karloff’s successor. However, the movie still features people in brownface. At least George Pastell is from Cyprus.
The movie also has so much flashback! You could play the film in chronological order and it would fix most of the pacing problems.
Still, I get some comfort from the familiarity of Hammer’s style, so it goes down smoothly, even if it doesn’t excite me.