Les Maléfices de la momie

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 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

Hammer Films which took over the famous Universal horror icons did a mummy's tale with The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb. A little bit of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray story was weaved into the plot of this movie.

Set at the turn of the last century, three archaeologists unearth the tomb of a crown prince of Egypt who legend has it was slain by his brother a few thousand years BC. But someone with reasons of his own to finance the expedition has used some ancient spells to revive the dead and the prince is out settling a few scores against those who've violated his sleep.

Terrance Morgan stars in this film and he's the fellow with the Dorian Gray situation. He's got an agenda himself working here at it involves putting an end to his Dorian Gray like existence and being reunited in eternity with his true love. In that sense a leaf is borrowed from the classic original Mummy film that starred Boris Karloff.

Which happens to be my favorite horror film of all time so every other mummy film just pales in comparison. Still The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb has enough on its own merits to rate some comparison and Terrence Morgan who is best remembered on the big screen for playing Laertes to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet does a fine job here as a most tortured soul.

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.