A Maldição da Múmia

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.

After a cripplingly slow start, the second-half of this low-budget (even by Hammer standards) tale is quite lively and gruesome. Devotees may miss Cushing and Lee but Hammer alumnus Michael Ripper IS on hand, as an unlikely Cockney-accented Egyptian called Ahmed. Director Michael Carreras liked to shoot all his films in widescreen and the film is probably best seen in its original Hammerscope format.

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.

Curse of the mummy's tomb certainly is not a best effort from Hammer studios, as many of their true classics outshine it without any serious effort. However, it is not as much a disaster as many comments here in IMDb suggest. The movie doesn't have any Hammer's big stars in the cast, the story doesn't bring anything new into the mummy myth, and at few times the going gets unintentionally hilarious in the film. But on the other hand, the characters are acted quite solidly, even if the performances don't truly shine. Comical reliefs are mostly done with certain style, especially by Fred Clark as a P.T. Barnum replica, and the plot has few interesting twists. We even have here few scenes of surprisingly graphic of it's time, if a bit unrealistic screen violence, if that's your cup of tea. Slow pace and low action rate of the film works more for than against the movie, at least in my books, and the whole package is short enough, so the story can carry it all through till the end.

All in all, if you're a fan of old horror films, give it a go, whether you're a fan of Hammer studios works or not. At least this one certainly beats the stuffing out of it's follow-up, Mummy's shroud, which in my opinion truly deserves any public stoning it gets.

This is my truth - what is yours?

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!