Il mistero della mummia

Hammer had two great stars, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. When they tried to make a horror movie without them, what they got was kind of pedestrian and predictable.

I usually try to avoid "Star Quality" as a virtue of film, but Hammer proved it...

The plot is that an archaeological team uncovers the lost tomb of a dead Egyptian prince. The mummy is reanimated and begins to pick off the people who opened his tomb. (Cliche). The twist is that his brother has been cursed to live forever, and wants his brother to kill him, after he took care of those people who desecrated the tomb, of course..

(Now, you'd think that if you were tired of eternal life, you wouldn't focus on snuffing the bit players so much.)

Especially nutty is the evil brother seducing the girlfriend of the head archaeologist....Now you would think that if you are so anxious to die, you wouldn't worry about such side issues...

It's okay to watch, but not great. YOu can see why whoever owns the rights to Hammer films put this on the "collection disk" grouping.

All Hammer Movies had that look. They had a way of presenting Color in a formula of their own design and it is part of their appeal to this day. In a word, it is sumptuous. Here we have the Studio's second Mummy Movie as our old friend is awakened once again to materialize the proverbial Curse.

It has a rather talky first half but the verbiage is slightly interesting and the "Mummy as Sideshow" is a new take. The second half kicks into gear and moves quite energetically, well as energetic as a Mummy can be. He seems determined to wreak the necessary havoc and does so quite brutally.

In the finale things really come together with a Plot twist and an exciting chase through the sewers. Overall, this is mid-range Hammer and that is almost always better than the Studio's contemporaries. Definitely worth a view for Hammer, Horror, and B-Movie Fans.

All four Mummy films by Hammer I like. Curse with atmospheric scenes does give a quality to it. You have fog bound London to add atmosphere. Sets on film re Egyptian biz are quite good.Story so-so various characters who crop up. Then we have the Mummy itself which looks quite impressive, with scenes with Mummy in like in fog top of steps near embankment etc, scene in study where curtains are concealing it. Another scene in house where Mummy ascending stairs, menacing and quite gripping. Odd comical relief in film re certain characters. Overall film has some merit to it!

While definitely not as much a first-rate production as Hammer's first Mummy, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb has some great camerawork, nice supporting performances, and an intriguing mummy plot. Archaeologists financed by an American P. T. Barnum type find a lost tomb and open it despite the curse that says whosoever is present at its opening should die. Hammer production values prevail with lush costumes and sets. George Pastell(from the original) is back as yet another Egyptian naysayer out to prove that the British had no right to take and break the sacred nature of treasure and memory of forgotten kings. Michael Ripper, Jack Gwillim, and Fred Clark excel in their supporting roles, clearly out-performing the rather tiresome and boring leads of Terence Morgan, Ronald Howard, and Jeanne Roland. Clark gives an impressive performance(as well as very affable one) as the American out to turn his mummy find into carnival magic, taking the show to the "American Heartland" for a dime a peep. The story is not the fastest paced story around, but once the mummy's casket gets opened....people die. Definitely worth a look for the mummy fan.

Hammer movies have always been a tad hokey and that's forgivable, some sloppy writing however isn't.

This is the second Hammer Horror movie from "The Mummy" franchise and this time the star power has taken quite a dip. No longer did they have the presence of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and that really showed.

It tells the story of a rich American who plans on making the opening of a mummy's sarcophagus a tourist event in order to make money but oddly enough things don't go quite as planned.

The film looks great, the performances though spotty are mostly passable and the Hammer Horror brand of musical score is present. It's all very colour by numbers stuff, but that's okay.

Sadly the writing is inconsistent, some is poor and some is baffling especially when it comes to character development.

Passable stuff but again this underlines why though I appreciate Hammer Horror I've never exactly been blown away by it.

The Good:

Looks great

The Bad:

The absence of the likes of Cushing/Lee is very damaging

The bulletproof bandages have returned!

Mummy actually looks worse

No character consistency

Awful cover art

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Belly dancing is sexy or awkward, never anything inbetween