Time Walker (1982)

An alien, buried in King Tut's tomb, terrorizes a college campus.

Director:

Tom Kennedy

Writers:

Jason Williams (story), Tom Friedman (story)

Stars:

Ben Murphy, Nina Axelrod, Kevin Brophy

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Murphy	...	Prof. Douglas McCadden
Nina Axelrod	...	Susie Fuller
Kevin Brophy	...	Peter Sharpe
Robert Random	...	Jack Parker
James Karen	...	Dr. Wendell J. Rossmore
Sam Chew Jr.	...	Dr. Bruce Serrano
Melissa Prophet	...	Jennie
Austin Stoker	...	Dr. Ken Melrose
Gerard Prendergast	...	Greg Hauser
Shari Belafonte	...	Linda Flores (as Shari Belafonte-Harper)
Antoinette Bower	...	Dr. Hayworth
Darwin Joston	...	Lt. Plummer
Greta Blackburn	...	Sherri
John Lavachielli	...	Bill Vogler
Clint Young	...	Capt. Willoughby

Storyline

Professor Doug McCadden is in charge of opening his university's latest acquisition - a sealed Egyptian sarcophagus. Opening it reveals an ancient mummy and a mold substance which proves to eat the flesh of anyone touching it. Later, sneaky student Pete Sharpe finds five hidden jewels in the bottom of the casket and distributes them to various co-eds on campus, not realizing the mummy, recently revived with an overdose of x-rays, is bound and determined to reclaim them. McCadden, who has carefully analyzed x-rays taken of the mummy, comes to the reluctant conclusion that it is not what it seems.

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Plot Keywords:

mummy | sarcophagus | fungus | gem | x ray | 

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Taglines:

For eons they traveled the galaxies. For centuries one was trapped in a Pharaoh's tomb. Now he is free.

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 November 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Pharaoh

Filming Locations:

California State University Northridge - 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$750,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$426,284

Company Credits

Production Co:

Byzantine Productions, Wescom Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Riffed by MST3K as "Being From Another Planet".

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Goofs

Bill is holding the crystal necklace in one hand when the mummy sneaks up on him, swipes the necklace, and kills him by hurling him into a wall. However, in the scene in Suzy's hospital room, Dr. Melrose says that "according to the coroner", Bill was wearing the necklace when he died.

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Crazy Credits

End title card: "TO BE CONTINUED..."

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Alternate Versions

The MST3K version replaces the original title cards with new titles.

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Connections

Featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000: Being from Another Planet (1992)

User Reviews

A mummy that is an alien that has deadly fungus, but is not hostile, but it breaks bones

This film had something almost going for it as at times the movie held my interest even with the gang from Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffing it. It held my interest enough that I may actually want to see this film in an uncut state as this one not only got the MST3K edits, but also looks like another casualty of that video company that would get older movies and repackage them with either a new generic title screen (this one and Marooned in Space) or they would play an entirely different film during the opening credits (Pod People and Cave Dwellers). In the end, it is still probably pretty bad though as there were aspects of the film that were interesting and it had some good effects, but it had a horrible setting and completely idiotic plot points. This film stars Ben Murphy and the only other film that I have seen him in is another MST3K film, Riding With Death. He is actually somewhat decent in this one, I don't fault him for the horrid aspects of the film, that falls back squarely on the screenwriter who seemed to have absolutely no idea how to end the film so he ended it quickly and vaguely, kind of reminiscent of Monster-A-Go-Go. Or, perhaps, the blame for that ending falls on the company that repackaged the film and they cut it short? Who knows?

The story has people discovering a mummy and bringing it back to a college where the head of the university is strongly in favor of using it to get more money or something. The man who discovered it, wishes to take a slower approach and considering the guy who discovered it is Ben Murphy and the hero, you know he is right. Well, a strange fungus is found with the mummy and an idiot who finds a secret compartment of things that look like diamonds and steals them. He X-rays the mummy a couple of times and this awakens the fungus which is very deadly to the touch and the most interesting aspect of said film. It really does a wicked number on anyone who touches it! The mummy wants those gems and the head of the school's sidekick wants to frame Ben Murphy who thinks the mummy is an alien and his girl gets one of those diamonds as a gift and soon gets targeted by the mummy who doesn't mean her any harm, but he sure meant to harm that dude he threw into the wall!

This made for a pretty good episode of MST3K. I found it a bit absurd when Tom Servo suggested that this film was worse than many of the films they had viewed up to said point. This was not worse by a long shot, in fact, it had some things working for it. I thought the way the fungus got people was cool, but they ditched that aspect, probably because it was too costly an effect. There is also a lot of point of view monster going on here with green light. It is not a good film I guess, but to say it is worse than some of the crap they had riffed is absurd.

So not a good film, but it had some points in it that were interesting. I would like to see an unedited version of the film just to see if they showed more of the fungus as it may have been something they cut out because it was too graphic. I do think the college setting and some of the plot points kind of doomed this one. We did not need to have a kid trying to sell the stones nor did we really need to see the head of the college and his sidekick trying to frame Ben Murphy as both of these things were just filler. You had an entire campus to kill, and you go really light on the kills. I guess because they wanted that really cheesy ending that just kind of halts the film and brings it to a complete stop.