Day of the Mummy

Out of the over 260 Found Footage films I have seen, only a handful combine exotic locales with a setting rich in history (see list at the end). There definitely needs to be more, for when a found footage movie manages to take advantage of the setting, the result can be an amazing vicarious experience. Unfortunately, it does not happen too often, and here the result is mixed.

DAY OF THE MUMMY is a found footage horror adventure movie in which a team of archaeologists are looking for the tomb of a cursed pharaoh, and the protagonist in addition is secretly given the task by the wealthy financier of the expedition, played by Danny Glover, to find a valuable gemstone.

The movie feels very much like a live-action video game, with the gimmick of a camera being clandestinely installed in the protagonist's eyeglasses and the financier boss periodically adding commentary to the happenings on screen through a hidden ear piece. I take it that the protagonist, an Indiana Jones type, is meant to be drawn as a complex character, not entirely good and not entirely bad, but he ends up feeling like a video game character, too.

Although the film has some atmosphere, the happenings on screen are always at arm's length and therefore fail to involve the audience. There are also some major requirements of suspension of disbelief (e.g. A signal going through even while deep inside a cave: the group reaching a chamber full of lit candles and never even asking who lit them and when, and so on). The ending was less than satisfying.

Still, there was enough to at least keep me entertained. So, while it is not a good found footage movie, I think the IMDB rating (2.6 as of this writing) is too harsh. The film may well have an audience in those who, like me, enjoy found footage movies with an adventure component and exotic setting.

There is one other ancient Egypt-themed FF movie I know of, made even the same year as this, THE PYRAMID (2014), which is a couple of notches better (see my review). Some other comparable movies I liked are

1. JERUZALEM (2015)

2. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW (2014)

3. FINAL PRAYER (2013)

"You get me the stone and we wipe the slate clean." Archaeologist Jack Wells (McNamara) is in trouble and when he is given a chance to clear his debts by millionaire Carl (Glover) he takes it. He joins a group in Egypt on the quest to find the lost Codix Stone. What they find is something that no one could have imagined. Just in case you were wondering this has nothing to do with the Mummy series. Other than that this is pretty much just not good. I was actually looking forward to seeing the way this was filmed. It is filmed in a type of video game style. Jack puts on a pair of glasses with a camera in it and you see Carl in a corner telling him what do to. That idea sounded neat, it was done OK but even that gimmick couldn't save this movie. I don't really like saying too many bad things about a movie because I have never made one, but if someday I get that chance I'm pretty sure it would be better than this. Overall, a neat filming idea and a awful, awful movie. I give it a D.

What a load of Rubbish.

1 hour and 20 minutes of my life I will never get back. Although as I had it on fast forward much of the time due to no dialog taking place perhaps only an hour lost.

Shocking acting and lousy story line.

I should have known as Danny Glover was listed. A cameo role. Seems like all these "has been" actors are nowadays giving up 15 minutes of their time to appear briefly in a "B" or "C" grade movie so they can get a cut.

Don't bother with this at all.

This should have buried along with everyone involved.Even in the days of Black and White films they were miles better than this load of garbage.You have a so called hero wearing glasses with a built in camera that never moves no matter what he does ,up, down, sideways,the camera is always fixed. Danny Glover,You should be ashamed.. how much does he need the money.Can,t some of his friends lend him a few bucks or at least send him to a local food bank.,or soup kitchen.And please could i have my time back.Hang your heads in shame every one involved in this tripe.At least the next time i see something directed by Johnny Tabor or written by Garry Charles i will avoid like the plague..

Only one Mummy movie, in my opinion, is worse and that's The Mummy Resurrected, which had eerily similar problems to the ones that this had. Day of the Mummy does have one redeeming quality(whereas The Mummy Resurrected had none) and that's the location of the inside of the Mummy's tomb, suitably claustrophobic and effectively creepy. In fact the locations in general are not too bad. But it was very difficult to enjoy them because the movie had such a dreary look and the way Day of the Mummy was shot was highly suggestive someone having the complete inability to keep a camera/video-recorder straight.

Day of the Mummy does use the found footage-like/picture-in-picture idea. This could have worked and could have potentially been creative, but it is way over-used and often at points where it was not needed. To say it was distracting was an understatement, so much so that a lot of the time it was used it took me right out of the movie. The script is incredibly weak, some of it sounds like it was improvised on the spot but most of it sounds like the actors only received the dialogue just minutes before and were reading from cue cards, hence why it was acted out in such an uninvolved and awkward manner. As for the story, there are glimpses of one but there is strong emphasis on the glimpses, what there is of story is painfully predictable, interminably slow in pace and lacking in everything you'd expect for a horror to work(suspense, tension, horror, fun, scares, thrills etc.).

The characters are walking clichés ridden to death, and they are not developed or interesting at all so it's impossible to root for them. To make things worse the acting is awful from actors who clearly did not want to be there in the first place, even from Danny Glover who squints and winces his way through his screen time giving the impression of why did I ever agree to do this. However that he is actually the best actor in the movie is testament to how bad the acting is, William McNamara is a long way from a dashing hero and actually looks bored out of his skull, even the most bored-sounding answering machine has more energy than him. Don't expect the Mummy/monster to save the movie, it doesn't look too bad but it's under-utilised, it acts intoxicated rather than imposing so it doesn't come across as scary at all and it's hard to shake off the feeling of that it's a man in a costume. Apparently the director has prior experience, but considering the ineptness of the direction here that's hard to believe.

In conclusion, awful movie in every way apart from the tomb location. Maybe see it to see for yourself how Glover fares here and how his career has gone down the toilet, otherwise while not quite as abysmal as The Mummy Resurrected Day of the Mummy should have stayed buried. 1/10 Bethany Cox