Time Walker

This a horribly fun movie to watch. No one in this movie can act, except Ben Murphy. The writing is atrocious and law enforcement folks are so awful you have to laugh. I swear the voice of the Detective Lieutenant was dubbed. Luckily, I taped it so I could fast forward through all the monsters green moving scenes. There are a lot of them. The college boys look like Neanderthals.

Boy, I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid. So naturally, I almost remembered nothing of it. Except for the fact that it somehow left a strange impression on me, and a dormant urge to some day revisit it. That urge awakened recently when I found this obscure gem on an old ex-rental tape, so this was my chance to re-watch it. As to be expected, this is by no means a 'good' movie. Far from, probably. But it still remains a curious and strange gem.

A mummy gets dug up in King Tut's tomb and transferred to an American University. A student finds 5 diamonds hidden in the sarcophagus and steals them. The next day, the mummy is gone too. I'll just stop describing the story now. But if you want to know how a mummy, ancient diamonds, green dust that turns into flesh-devouring fungus, a blue-skinned alien with big black eyes and a college campus tie in all together, then you might want to consider watching TIME WALKER. But be warned, most people might generally classify this as a bad movie, and I don't even have much arguments to compete with that. The acting is just tolerable and the directing isn't top notch either. What had me chuckling most, were many inserted reaction shots of certain actors, just standing there looking for a second, not saying anything, or just giving a short stupid reply. But here's an interesting contradiction: Not much really happens in this movie, but still there's a lot going on (just remember the previous things I mentioned). Everything ties in together nicely, but it's all very predictable. The mummy prowling the campus provides a couple of nice and creepy shots, but his green-colored POV vision was a bit cheesy. Of course he kills a couple of people (not just randomly, I might add), but the kills themselves aren't much to write home about. On the other hand, the murderous mummy encounters a topless female student on one of his escapades and most of his kills are filmed in shocking slow-motion. The movie builds up towards a nice twist-conclusion too, but sadly when you know the tagline to this movie, or just take a glimpse at the front or back cover art, you already know what's going to happen. Also, the story severely lacks a climax at the end.

TIME WALKER tries really hard, remains an offbeat, weird gem, but in the end doesn't succeed in what it sets out to do. There's plenty of interesting elements, but they are rigged together in a below average sci-fi/horror flick with a conclusion that leaves a lot to be desired. Given the nostalgia feelings I treasure for this one, it is with grief I have to flunk this baby. But don't let that discourage you to check it out if you should ever stumble upon it. And then come around some day and blame me for having watched a bad movie.

A mummy in a sarcophagus coffin is transferresd from Egypt back to a Californian university and when an unscrupulous student discovers five crystals within the coffin and steals them for his own gain he awakens the mummy, after a 3,000 year sleep, with deadly consequences.

Time Walker is not big budget, its not a gorefest and it certainly does not fit the usual 80s sci-fi horror movie of the day, which I think is primarily the reason for the negative reviews. Ok I agree some of the acting is not top drawer and the effects look rather dated (they probably weren't all that spectacular back in '82 either) but there is a sense of tension, especially during the scene with Susie trapped by the mummy in the elevator. It is certainly not a bad movie its just not a great movie either. But I enjoyed it.

For genre fans, there are a few familiar faces in the cast including Nina Axelrod (Motel Hell), Kevin Brophy (Hell Night), James Karen (Poltergeist), Antoinette Bower (Prom Night) and it was also great to see Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston (who starred alongside each other in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13) share screen time together again here.

I give this 6/10.

This isn't a great bad mummy movie--there's quite a number of those--but it's bad enough to be fun, if not bad enough to be memorable. It has all the right ingredients, but never quite kicks into a high enough gear (esp. re: violence and sex) to realize its full cheesy potential. Still, the script is verrrry silly, complete with a leap into sci-fi towards the end. I enjoyed seeing Ben Murphy, whose post "Alias Smith & Jones" career I kinda missed; he's still very handsome here, and manages to escape with dignity unscathed--unlike a lot of the other cast members, many of whom are intentionally (or unintentionally) over the top. It was also interesting to see Robert Random, who doesn't make much impression here but is notable for having finally surfaced recently as the nominal male lead in Orson Welles' endlessly delayed "The Other Side of the Wind" (shot a decade earlier, more or less). Anyway, this movie doesn't quite fully capitalize on the trash potential of reawakened-Egyptian-mummy-turns-modern-campus-slasher, but that conceit alone is worth some entertainment value, and "Time Walker" is relatively slick by 80s B-movie standards. It just could have used a bit more energy and outrageousness.

This movie is borderline stupid and fascinating. I admit that the story was fascinating, but it hardly made sense. The acting could have been better. Look for Warrington Gillette(Jason part 2) in a brief role as Stanley, the girl's friend from school. James Karen seemed out of character in this movie, as a matter of fact the whole cast seemed out of place. I accidentally turned this movie on some years ago and attempted to follow it through. There is nothing in this movie that the mystery science theatre 3000 should have done. All that was missing was the talking mechanical dog and the talking gumball machine and the man talking through the whole movie.