Dawn of the Mummy (1981)

A group of fashion models disturb the tomb of a mummy and revive an ancient curse. Along with the mummy rising, slaves who were buried in the desert thousands of years before, also rise, with a craving for human flesh.

Director:

Frank Agrama

Writers:

Daria Price (screenplay), Ronald Dobrin (screenplay)

Stars:

Brenda Siemer Scheider, Barry Sattels, George Peck

Cast

Cast overview:
Brenda Siemer Scheider	...	Lisa (as Brenda King)
Barry Sattels	...	Bill
George Peck	...	Rick
John Salvo	...	Gary
Ibrahim Khan	...	Karib
Joan Levy	...	Jenny
Ellen Faison	...	Melinda (as Ellene Faison)
Diane Beatty	...	June
Ali Gohar	...	Tarak
Ahmed Rateb	...	Omar (as Ahmed Ratib)
Baher Saied	...	Egyptian
Ali Azab	...	Egyptian
Ahmed Laban	...	Egyptian
Laila Nasr	...	High Priestess / Xena

Storyline

A group of fashion models disturb the tomb of a mummy and revive an ancient curse. Along with the mummy rising, slaves who were buried in the desert thousands of years before, also rise, with a craving for human flesh.

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Plot Keywords:

mummy | fashion model | priestess | living dead | video nasty | 

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Taglines:

A monstrous, chilling terror stalking the living ...

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

Unrated

Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie is part of the notorious german "SchleFaZ" series. Thus, the censored version was aired August 2020 on german TV station Tele5. ("SchleFaZ" is a german abbreviation, means "the worst films ever". In that series 2 hosts present the whole flick - and make fun of it throughout the movie.)

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Alternate Versions

The UK cinema version was cut by 27 secs by the BBFC and the same print was released on the Videospace label before the introduction of the VRA (Video Recordings Act). When the film was officially released on video in 1987 it received 1 min 43 secs of censor cuts with edits to all flesh eating scenes, an eye gouging, the stabbing of a man's head with a meat cleaver, and a woman being bitten in the neck and dragged under the sand. The cuts were waived in 2003 and the film was released unedited on the Anchor Bay label.

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Connections

Referenced in Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)

User Reviews

Dawn of the Dead meets The Mummy? Hardly,but passable trashy fun if you lower your expectations considerably

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.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 December 1981 (USA)

Also Known As:

Die Mumie des Pharao

Filming Locations:

The Nile Studio, Cairo, Egypt

Company Credits

Production Co:

Harmony Gold

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1