Slightly underrated Adventure Horror Found Footage
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)
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)
- Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi
- Apr 19, 2024