Dawn of the Mummy

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.

Since HBO/Thorn EMI's domestic video release has long since been retired, the film itself has become a rarity and sought after by many a horror fan. And, I was no exception. Even when the film was in print, I still had trouble. When I was a kid, all the "cool looking" horror films I wanted to see where never available at the video store my family went to, but rather at video stores in other cities and such. This was the case with "DAWN OF THE MUMMY" and I finally secured a copy after all these years. Less than one hour later, my unknowing plight with insomnia had been cured.

First of all, I don't care what anyone says, this is NOT an Italian horror film. This common rumor is not only inaccurate but inappropriate to an established style of filmmaking. What we have here is an American and Arabian co-production, and it shows.

The pacing is absolutely horrible. After spending 40 minutes of ridiculous padding, we finally see the resurrection of an actual mummy. This particular shot is edited quite nicely and stands as one of the two interesting sequences throughout the film. The other, takes place several minutes later, when a horde of flesh hungry mummified zombies rise from the sands of the desert. And, there you have it. That's it. Back to the slo-mo carnage.

If you want blood, you've got it... Sloppy Joe style. Most fans of zombie films crave the gore sequences, and I suppose I do as well to some extent. If it is handled in the right way, it can add to the film, but if it maintains the inept "BURIAL GROUND" approach, as this film does, I soon lose interest.

All in all, I can only recommend the film for it's terrific poster artwork (which lured me to watching it in the first place), a great score and the two sequences mentioned earlier.

That's all for now.

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.

Unremittingly amateurish home-movie but with one kick-ass aoundtrack over the closing credits!

A quartet of foxy US models hightail it to a forgotten village on the edge of the Sahara for a major fashion-shoot. They stumble across the violated tomb of one King Safirman (presumably he after whom the Safir hotel in Cairo itself is named?) and......well, talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Cardboard sets, Z-Grade actors, $50 fx abound BUT, come that final scene as the mummy raises its hand in triumph, is heralded one of the most unexpectedly stirring film themes you will ever hear. "Dawn of The Mummy" from musical director Shuki Y. Levi (and allegedly still available on the soundtrack album - if they ever printed more than half a dozen!) is one rousing egyptian-flavored full blown orchestral masterpiece that single-handedly drags the film up from a 1 to a 4. Its THAT good! I'm amazed no other critique mentioned it. More than likely I'm the first person ever to have sat through the entire film and no one but me therefore has ever heard it!

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.