L'aube des zombies

I've been wanting to see this movie for nearly a decade, my mind awash with the creepy premise: Fashion models and their photographers trapped in an egyptian tomb with the titular creature and his zombie minions. Yummy!!

Unfortunately, a decent premise is all this film has to offer. A pair of tomb raiders open the mummy's crypt looking for gold, but their plans are thwarted when a group of models and photographers show up and decide to use the tomb as a backdrop for their pictures. This nonsense eats up most of the running time, while we wait and wait and wait for a mummy to show up and start wreaking havoc.

About midway through the mummy reanimates along with some of his zombie minions, but then they spend some more of the running time hiding in the shadows while members of the cast go skinny dipping (nothing's shown...) and head to the bazaar to smoke hookahs and shop for jewelry.

Finally we arrive at the much touted finale, where the mummy and the zombies attack a wedding party. The action picks up and there are some nifty gore shots, but it's too little too late. The mummy (probably the least menacing movie mummy of all time) is destroyed and the heroes celebrate. But as usual we're offered one final scene which leaves the scene open for a sequel...Day of the mummy? Let's hope not.

The title of this very low budget Egypt/US co-production suggests a melding of the mummy movie with the zombie movie that was extremely popular around the time of the film's release. Dawn Of The Mummy only partially fulfills this expectation. After a gory flashback opening to ancient Egypt and a somewhat amusing scene where people stagger out of the mummy's tomb with gored-out faces {and who exactly committed this dastardly act is left unexplained,because the mummy has yet to be awoken},very little happens for nearly an hour. The dialog and acting is pretty poor and it's obvious that much of is to to pad out the running time,although there is a little bit of tension at times.

Then at last the mummy and his zombie followers are awoken and it's mayhem typical of Italian horror potboilers of the early 80s-eye gougings,flesh eating,etc,although nothing that would probably shock today's viewer. The mummy,who looks a lot like the one Christopher Lee played,seems to show up all over the place so much that one wonders if he teleports himself,and the film's geography is really screwy. Still,there is a little bit of {intentional} humour,such as somebody asking why do some clothes on a market stall possess Made In Hong Kong stickers, and the climactic bloody rampage through a village is well staged,after which the film abruptly stops,as it they ran out of film.

Director Frank Agrama doesn't show much skill and fails to make the most of some scenes,like the zombies rising out of the sand as the sun sets-just think how good some other directors of zombie movies like Lucio Fulci would have made this scene. Dawn of the Mummy is not a very good film,even on a fun trash level,and it really show how good something such as Fulci's Zombie really is. Still,there is some fun to be had....if you're patient.

My review was written in December 1981 after a 42nd St. (Anco theater) screening: Latest in the longtime series of mummy films (over 30 so far worldwide) is a gory, low-budget exercise filmed on location in Egypt. Producert Frank Agrama (whose last presumably completed effort, "Queen Kong", has sat on the shelf for the past five years), took over directing this opus from original helmer Armand Weston during production, and resulting picture is a disconnected series of corny scenes. Commercial prospects are grim, with only the gore as a selling point.

Weak premise as an Egyptian royal personage entombed circa 3000 B. C., with his guards also buried. All will rise with him some day and kill any desecrators of the sealed tomb. Pic's tone is set immediately with camera recording the removal of organs from the royal corpse as part of the mummification process.

Three present-day graverobbers searching for gold open the tomb and in a ridiculous coincidence are joined by a U. S. crew shooting glamor mag photo layouts of pretty models, looking for interesting backdrops. Instead of using sacred Tana leaves, this mummy is revived by the heat of the photog's lights.

Mummy is an impressive dude, tall and thin, with body bandaged and face uncovered. Besides the usual choking, his aides are into cannibalism, biting chunks out of the graverobbers (and numerous bystanders) and feeding gruesomely on entrails in the manner of recent film zombies.

Cast overacts miserably, with direct-sound English track instead of the usual dubbing. This picture should be entombed permanently.

Usual plot of an ancient Egyptian prince having his tomb broken into - this time by gold hunters AND a group of American models on a fashion shoot - and wreaking his revenge. The good points are that this was actually shot in Egypt, the sight of the Prince's zombie servants rising out of the sand is really good and there is, eventually, a fair smattering of gore. The soundtrack is pretty groovy too. Bad points are - terrible acting/dialogue, it's quite slow for it's first half & the gore is pretty cheap looking, not a patch on say Dawn of the Dead or Zombie Flesh Eaters. The film was seized by police under Section 3 in Britain during the Video Nasties era, before being passed with cuts. Now uncut. It is pretty tame by today's gore standards. No question, this is a bad movie but for those of us who enjoy an Italian gorefest then it makes fun viewing. I watched it uncut on pre cert VHS which adds to the experience.

Dawn of the Mummy (1981)

** (out of 4)

Rather stupid but interesting American-Egyptian-Italian co-production has a group of fashion models heading to the pyramids of Egypt for a photo shoot. Sadly for them they show up just as a curse has been released with a mummy looking to eat people. Not only that but this mummy brings some zombie servants with him.

DAWN OF THE MUMMY, as the title suggests, is trying to cash-in on Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD but it goes a step further and appears to have been really influenced by Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE, which of course was released in Italy as a sequel to the Romero movie. This film isn't all that well made and features several flaws and boring moments but at the same time it's rather unique and has enough going for it to make it worth sitting through.

What I enjoyed most about the film was the actual mummy. The actor playing the part was extremely skinny and this gives the mummy a very unique look and helps separate it from other films in the genre. I also liked the actual look of it with an almost tar-like quality. The zombies aren't quite as interesting but who's going to frown on a mummy and zombies in the same film? The gore is scattered throughout but once the finale hits we get some very good gore effects with several people bitten and chewed up.

The performances really aren't anything special and there's no question that whenever the mummy isn't on the screen that the film becomes boring. Still, DAWN OF THE MUMMY has a great monster and enough gore to keep it entertaining.