Dawn of the Mummy (1981) User Reviews

Disco Mummy

[GroovyDoom · 5/10 · 20 November 2001]

You might actually get into this grade-z cannibal mummy movie. I know I did. The plot concerns the desecration of a centuries-old tomb, with the standard curse on it (an obligatory pre-credit sequence establishes that anybody who desecrates the tomb will be folded, spindled, and mutilated). The moron who unearths the tomb centuries later allows an equally moronic crew of fashion models and photographers to conduct a photo shoot amid the ruins, despite the fact that a priceless collection of spray-painted flowerpots and dollar-store statues is reportedly stashed somewhere in the tomb's two or three corridors. OK, there wasn't much of a budget.

So guess what? There is a mummy that comes back to life, but more importantly the mummy brings with him a whole bunch of zombies in rotting leisure suits (not very fashionable at all, really). They don't really do anything for a while except hide in the shadows and stare at people, but they do manage to kill off one or two dumb bunnies, like in one outrageously stupid set piece that takes place in an oasis. Yeah...these two models leave camp and ride their horses to the oasis to do a little skinny dipping, then one of them gets out of the water and discovers that the horses have bolted. So what does she do? Heads back to camp on her own, leaving the other one behind. Enter mummy and cohorts, stage left.

A lot of inspiration is drawn from Fulci's "Zombi 2", particularly one sequence involving a zombie attack during a wedding party. The groom unveils the room where his bride is preparing herself, only to discover mummy zombies eating her corpse, just like Mrs. Menard in "Zombi 2". Some of the makeup even resembles that film, only Fulci obviously had a lot more to work with than this director did.

The attack of these mummy-zombies has to be seen to be believed, especially the climactic village raid following the wedding party. I don't know how many of these undead assailants there are supposed to be, since they only really show about four or five of them on screen at the same time, but they are pretty nimble for being zombies and all. They are able to pluck people out of moving vehicles, chase running people down, and more importantly, they are able to strangle their victims in mere seconds. Oh yeah, they are able to make flesh rot with just a single touch, too, a concept that gains some points for originality. Watch for the two zombies who fight over the dead bride's severed forearm, proving that social problems continue on after death.

'He Will Rise And KEEEIIILLL!!!'

[EVOL666 · 5/10 · 14 February 2010]

I had heard about DAWN OF THE MUMMY quite a while back-both in terms of it's supposedly extremely gory ending-and also how bad the rest of the film is supposed to be. I've had this one laying around for years but was never real interested in watching it. But I've been on a bit of a kick for weird '80s horror films-and I figured this one would fit the bill-so I gave it a shot.  

A tomb-raider named Rick and his two assistants find the burial-ground of a mummy called Surferman (or some such sh!t...)-but their grave-robbing is interrupted by a group of fashion-models and photogs who stumble across the tomb and consider it to be the perfect spot for their shoot. Of course the tomb is cursed, and the photo crew's bright lights awaken the mummy and his zombie-like minions who eventually go on a feeding- frenzy at a wedding...

The good points: I personally liked the gooey-looking mummy. I liked that they went with something a little different than the standard wrapped-in-gauze look. The ending-though ridiculous-is fun, if not nearly as gory as some have made it out to be. The bad points: everything else. The acting is terrible-especially from grave-robber Rick. He over-acts so horribly that I almost have to rank it under the good points because his performance is so ridiculous that its actually one of the highlights of the film.  The pacing is snail-paced until the end. The plot is stupid and uninteresting, and there's no nudity from any of the attractive females in the cast. DAWN OF THE MUMMY has a few amusing moments-and those who are fans of super-low budget schlock films may get a kick out of it. Others will be bored stupid. I tend to usually at least somewhat enjoy these kinds of films-and this one I found to be slightly worthwhile. 5/10

Ultra gory mummy/zombies from the golden days of gut munching cinema

[Bogey Man · 5/10 · 6 April 2003]

Farouk (Frank) Agrama's Dawn of the Mummy (1981) tells the traditional story of an old mummy's grave being violated by greedy present day scientists and some other people as they're after a huge gold treasure that was left for the mummy as he was supposed to enter the beyond after his death. The film opens with the embalming (greetings to Poland!) scene which shows how they removed the intestines and left the dead one to rest forever. Then we jump to the present day Egypt in which a fashion photographer group is planning to take pictures for three days, as well as a group of men who are only after the gold. Of course they soon go to the tomb and mess with the mummies waking the "protagonist mummy" and his guards up resulting some vengeful carnage.

The film has not plenty of interesting cinematic elements or merits like photography (some nice angles, though) or atmosphere and it concentrates mostly on the gore. The film ends in a hilarious gore carnage finale as the present day Egyptians and foreigners that caused it all learn that they really should have left the mummies in peace! The end scene is surprisingly gory but also in a cheesy way as can be expected. Still it is far from the kind of film that could be shown for the "unexperienced" with plenty of scenes of gut munching, flesh ripping and the usual meat cleaver to the head ultra gore found in these films from the seventies and eighties. The zombified mummies themselves are pretty gruesome and look convincing, and really angry.

The film looks otherwise pretty believable as it was shot in Egypt for real. There are no stages or other artificial deserts but the real one with many pyramids and beautiful locations in real Egypt. There is, however, one thing that really irritates me in this film and it is how everyone screams so much and just seems to be unable to stop it once something horrible happens. I don't know is it the dubbing and so not in the screenplay but still it is the worst and the most painful thing in this film. Also some of the scenes are pretty unnecessary only prolonging the film with characters and dialogue that don't develop anything and so have no real reason to be there. Still the film manages to maintain the interest with rather good balance between the action/horror scenes and the more restful ones.

Dawn of the Mummy is a noteworthy example of the B level gore cinema of the early eighties with beautiful locations, some quite creepy and effective scenes and monsters, a universal theme about man's greediness and of course the "key thing", the graphic horror. A film like this could be so much more painful to watch and so Agrama's effort will have its place in the book of the no-less-than-mediocre zombie/mummy horrors of the golden days of the genre! 5/10

The Ancor Bay version is not the "uncut" one.

[gletzes · 2 January 2006]

O.K,i am just writing this to clear up the misinformation that the Anchor Bay DVD release is the "uncut" one.It isn't.In fact it is missing most of the gore.I have watched the true uncut version,a Greek VHS copy,a long time ago and i can still remember this film being much gorier that what Anchor Bay has released.

Let me explain that in the mid-eighties ,Greece was a paradise for every gorehound cause the arrival of VHS had brought a ton of small Greek distributors that were releasing every piece of horror "video nasty" totally uncut including movies like cannibal holocaust,cannibal ferrox,every Fulci movie and many more, "Dawn of the Mummy" included.

Anyway the movie is horrible but it has a few laughs due to the hilarious "acting" and the music is kind of neat.Other than that i was disappointed to find out that most of the gore is missing from the Anchor Bay version...

When you clean out the pyramid, you have to kill the mummy!

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 11 March 2023]

The same year of the notorious Joan Crawford biography "Mommie Dearest" came "Mummy Deadliest", a cheaply made zombie horror film with a no name cast, silly but enjoyable. There's a short prologue in the ancient Egypt days and an old woman who pops up in the following scene has the same exact voice as the young woman who placed the curse several milleniums before. But nobody listens to her, believing that she will soon be dust, but the opposite is true. A role in the sand for a young woman means an encounter with a severed head, and that's nothing compared to what the people involved in this will encounter as they travel deeper into the valley of the kings. The situation takes a more serious turn when a group of American tourists show up, basically taking over (as American tourists do), further upsetting the risen undead who could care less about a bunch of vapid models using this opportunity to get some exotic photos.

I'll give this film credit for being better than the 1980 high budget, starry "The Awakening", the "Mummy Dumbest" of all ancient curse movies. The horror is much modevastating than just being stalked by a dead person in gauze as all those who enter the tomb have side effects caused by their visit. Then there's the greedy buffoonish local who finds his treasure, unaware that he will end up with it for eternity where the monetary value has no use. I found this enjoyable, funny, spooky and fast moving, even if it utilizes every single cliche in the book that has been used in movies ever since the silent era. The mummys are made up to be very scary looking and deadly, and fortunately the gore is minimal, that is until the intense conclusion. In spite of being cast with all amateurs, it's pretty decently acted, and production values are also impressive In spite of the obvious low budget. No "Indiana Jones", but worth the 90 minutes it takes to unfold.

It's Mummies, it's Zombies...and it's boredom!

[Justin-Fog · 2/10 · 2 April 2006]

One of the worst horror movies I've ever seen. During the first few minutes everybody who didn't read the credits and rather smooched with his girlfriend would recognize this movie as Italian-made. Poor atmosphere, poor effects, and lots of talking. Despite other Italian horror movies there are no scenes of nudity, the beautiful actresses even get to take a moonlight bath clad with bikinis - maybe the director didn't want to shock the mummy with the view of naked girls? Well, as soon as the mummy awakes and goes on a rampage strangling its victims to death, its long-dead servants awake as well and go on a rampage eating people in a zombie-style manner. Now, why would they feast on their victims and the mummy wouldn't? The special effects are poor, the showdown is poor (a burning shed and a mummy that wouldn't burn...) and the acting is poor. Shy away from it, folks, as you would from an ancient Egyptian tomb! This movie gives you nightmares - but not about the mummy but about the money you wasted renting or buying it and the time you wasted watching it. Jasper P. Morgan

"I know what's on the other side of those dunes, sand." Tedious Mummy film.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 30 August 2005]

Dawn of the Mummy starts in 'Egypt 3000 B.C.' where we witness the mummification of evil warlord Pharaoh Safiraman & a curse placed upon his tomb by a high priestess (Laila Nasr). Cut to 'Egypt, Present Day' where American treasure hunter Rick (John Salvo) & his two bumbling assistant's Karib (Ibrahim Khan) & Tarik uncover Safiraman's tomb in search of gold. Meanwhile some fashion models Lisa (Brenda King), Jenny (Joan Levy), Melinda (Ellen Faison), Joan (Dianne Beatty) & Gary (Barry Sattels) are in Egypt for a magazine shoot for an important client. Along with the photographer Bill (George Peck) they all end up at the site of Safiraman's tomb & decide to shoot some pictures in there. Eventually the Mummy of Safiraman comes to life & together with his armies of the undead he sets about killing everyone in sight.

This American, Egyptian & Italian co-production was co-written, produced & directed by Farouk Agrama as Frank Agrama & Dawn of the Mummy is quite simply a tedious film from beginning to end. The script by Agrama, Ronald Dobrin & Daria Price is painfully slow & poorly paced. The film is almost half way through before the action proper begins & it's a real chore to get up to this point. Even when the 'good' stuff arrives it's all so dull, uninteresting & filmed with no sense of pace or purpose. The characters are poorly written clichés who all deserve to die horribly, they have no development & are annoying. More or less every Mummy film ever made has the same basic premise & Dawn of the Mummy is no exception, unsuspecting adventurers ignore local warnings & desecrate sacred tomb, Mummy comes to life & kills member's of expedition & that's it, it's as simple as that. Dawn of the Mummy only adds some over-the-top gore scenes & a few zombies to cash-in on the success of Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) & Fulci's Zombi 2 (1979), & I'm sure the similarities between the title of this & Romero's masterpiece is not a coincidence. Technically Dawn of the Mummy is a really cheap & nasty looking film throughout, amazingly it was indeed partly shot in Egypt although looking at it you could barely tell except for one scene set against some pyramids at the start as it spends most of it's running time in a extremely fake looking tomb complete with foam sarcophagus, items spray painted gold to use as treasure & painted by a five year old hieroglyphics's, a market street that is obviously a set & an indifferent looking oasis which probably counts for the location shooting. Most of the running time seems to consist of the characters travelling back & forth between these locations. The cinematography is bland & forgettable apart from one scene when a group of zombies rise from the sand against a setting sun. The make-up effects vary from impressive to very poor, the main Mummy is maybe the best looking ever but the zombies pale by comparison, there are some scenes as the zombies eat intestines, someone has their neck bitten, eyes are poked out, there are some decapitated heads, a great bit when someone has a meat cleaver stuck in their head & various guts & blood being spilt at the climax but somehow it has little or no impact. Speaking of the climax where did all the zombies go? You'll know what I mean if you have seen it... The acting is bad, the models aren't even good looking let alone beautiful & there is no nudity whatsoever. Director Agrama fails to bring any sort of excitement, atmosphere or tension to any of what's going on & he completely wastes the shooting opportunities the Egyptian locations could have provided. Dawn of the Mummy is a pretty uneventful, boring & poorly made film but if you can stick it out there are some decent gore scenes & I love the main Mummy bad dude. Probably below average & not really worth tracking down.

Battle of the six extras

[unbrokenmetal · 2/10 · 16 February 2003]

Another version of the same old story: people open a mummy's tomb, mummy is awakened and walks the earth to kill the annoying strangers, assisted by `an army of zombies' (backcover text). In fact this `army' consists of six extras. The first half of the movie is rather tame, wouldn't scare 6-year-old boys, but the second half surprisingly turns into a gorefest! Very, very low budget obviously, and despite the violent finale, nobody will remember it tomorrow. Worst film I have seen about Egypt so far.

Mumbies on the rampage

[rmeador · 2/10 · 1 September 2006]

An attempt to merge mummy movies and living dead zombies into a gore/bore fest. The acting is just awful, with hardly a shred of unchewed scenery by the end. For instance, one of the leading ladies finds a severed head in the desert, and begins to screetch and whoop while running in a circle around the head (as opposed to running away from it) until she finally launches herself at one of the guys and slides down his body like a cheap party dress. The story and effects are pretty threadbare. The wacky gang of thieves keeps talking insanely about the gold they are looking for until they finally pull out two or three small gilded thingies from the mummy's body. The thieves are so thrilled to find three little pieces of gold they whoop, they beat the lid, they dance, they laugh. Oh yeah, they're in the money now. Why, those three little pieces of gold might bring as much as $50! Good times, good times… The mummy itself is kind of gooey, and doesn't seem to eat much flesh, but as legend would have it, when the mummy arose, his buried minions also arose. The minions were not in the tomb however—they apparently spent the last 3,000 years buried in 3 inches of sand. Once they sit up, they immediately shamble around like extras from one of the Living Dead movies. Are they mummies? Zombies? Mumbies? Pretty soon, things finally get icky. Classic scenarios abound, like opening the door to the room where a bride is getting ready for her wedding and finding three or four mumbies chowing down on her. Finally, a building burns, a group of bad actors limp away, and a cloth-covered hand rises in the foreground. The end?

The last 15 minutes are insanely gory fun!

[Logan-22 · 6/10 · 30 October 2004]

This film is a bit of a clunker, slow-paced until the mummy and his flesh-eating zombies go on a rampage near the end. Then the movie turns into one of the most entertaining, enjoyable bloodbaths ever filmed! The real trick is sitting through the rest of the film to get there, though I just watched it again TWICE! Once with audio commentary, which explained a lot about what the director went through trying to sneak in gore and nudity while shooting in an uptight Arabic country with a Government Film Censor standing over his shoulder. The film is not quite as bad or boring as I remember it being from watching it cut on cable back in the 1980s. Now that it's finally out on DVD (in a nice remastered, uncut print with cool audio commentary by the director), we can skip past the wafer-thin plot about fashion models in the desert entering a cursed Pharaoh's tomb and get right to the good stuff... the last 15 minutes of the movie, which I guarantee you'll watch over and over again in amazement. A great Arabic horror soundtrack by Shuki Levy (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers) adds immeasurably to the fun. This is one of only a few mummy gorefests ever made. The other big one (which is often badly censored on video if you can find it at all) is Paul Naschy's "The Mummy's Revenge," which is a slightly better and more consistently gory film, IMO, though still no great prize. What makes Dawn of the Mummy so special is that it has a small army of diseased flesh-eating zombies IN ADDITION to the killer mummy, ultra-gory intestine-ripping violence, a great soundtrack, a hilariously cheesy rip-off title (George Romero's Dawn of the Dead had come out a few years earlier), and---surprise--it is actually shot in Egypt, unlike just about every other mummy movie ever made. Dawn of the Mummy is cheap enough on DVD that die-hard splatter fans and/or zombie completist (when aren't they the same?) won't feel guilty for adding this moldy oldie to their horror collection.

Hey, it worked well enough with zombies! Why not make a "Dawn" with mummies??

[Coventry · 2/10 · 17 June 2005]

Believe it or not but, strictly seen from a marketing-point-of-view, this "Dawn of the Mummy" actually is a rather clever movie! The DVD-cover just screams out "the first mummy gore movie ever!" (at least, mine does) and even the title is clearly inspired by the 1978 cult-hit. It's obvious that the makers carefully observed the zombie-gore successes of both George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci and they wanted to do exactly the same…only with mummies! You can't really blame anyone for exploiting something that's profitable, right? The movie itself, however, is every bit as bad as you expect it to be: no plot, few tension, unlikable characters, laughable dialogues and – of course – atrocious 80's acting. It's about a couple of greedy treasure-hunters, dressed up like archaeologists, who perpetrate an ancient Egyptian pyramid in search of gold. All of a sudden, a group of young and idiotic fashion models and photographers join in and their noise and heavy lighting equipment cause the mummy to awake. Irritated as he is, the mummy and his servants go on a killing spree. The first hour of this film is tame, incredibly sophomoric and hardly endurable because of its cheapness. There are a few lame attempts to throw in some sleaze (because it sells, I guess) and eerie music but nothing helps. If you are a persistent horror fan and make it to the last 20 minutes, you'll be rewarded with an explosively gore climax in which nearly all the irritating characters you hated so much will die a violent and nasty death! Amen for that! Other mildly entertaining elements include an atmospheric resurrection of desert-zombies (shamelessly copied from Fulci's repertoire, but still…) and the (stereotypical) old witch who wanders around nagging about the curse! Unless you want to see every horror movie made, I'd advise you to skip "Dawn of the Mummy" as it is almost too stupid for words. For example: this movie teaches us that mummies can be brought to life rather easily! You don't need no complex hieroglyphs or boring parchments…all you got to do is hatch the mummy out!

Give him a break - he's been dead 3000 years!

[dmc102 · 8/10 · 3 May 2005]

Dawn of the Mummy (1980) represents one of the only Egyptian produced films to feature Egypt's most famous character. Filmed on actual Egyptian locations, director Farouk (Frank) Agrama directs his cast of Calender models as they shoot in an ancient tomb! Man, they're just asking for it!

Sure, Dawn of the Mummy draws many of it's themes from the popular Zombie films of the 70's/80's. The title is more than a tad similar to George Romero's 1978 classic, and the film itself more than borrows from the Italian films being produced on the Zombie subject. But, I must say that I can't help but like this film. It is ludicrous, boring and unavoidably bad - but so what? It's a Mummy film!

This was one of the films to suffer cuts in the UK at that hands of Margaret Thatcher and the BBFC (hate...so...much!) and remained butchered in the UK until the good folks at Anchor Bay re-visited it with a cleaned up picture and all of the gratuitous scenes back in. Or so I thought.

Where is the gore? Where is the violence? Not here. This film is in no way worthy of it's "video nasty" trophy. In fact, I can't say this film isn't suitable for a five year old. The only gore scene I can remember is when a guy is decapitate. Yuck, I hear you say. Not really. You hear a scream and then see a Papier Mache ball roll down the sand dune.

So what is my conclusion? I like it. It's good, clean, hokey fun which you will keep going back to. Want a white knuckle video nasty? Buy Cannibal Holocaust. I really doubt that anyone from the BBFC actually watched this film during the onslaught of the video nasties in 1980 - I expect they looked at the genre; Zombie film. This is a funny film suitable for the entire family - take it for what it is!

Bad but entertaingly so

[Stevieboy666 · 6/10 · 30 September 2018]

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.

At least there was some mummies, as the title promises...

[Battledragon · 3/10 · 2 January 2009]

I've watched 2 DVD versions of this, first one was Anchor bay UK's version, that I've now lost god knows where (maybe I broke or sold it, can't remember, it was years back now) and the Macady's version, which I think is open matte. Correct if I'm wrong.

But get to the point. The movie is quite awful (well, not as awful as many Bruno Mattei stuff, but we're getting pretty close to that. There's some grave-robbers, who violate the sacred tomb of (what-ever the name was) and gets curse upon them. Also there's annoying filming group, pretty much lack of nudity, they didn't offer much to this already crappy movie.

However, there's a turning point at the ending of the movie, where the ancient legend became truth, and the ending is full of nice-nice splatter (by no-one else but Maurizio Trani). So, if you can bear all the stupidness of the movie about 70 minutes, the ending is definitely worth to seen. Overall, I'll give this movie just a 3/10, reasons I mentioned above.

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

[DrLenera · 2 August 2006]

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.

Despite the title, this is no Romero clone and the fashion models show disappointingly little flesh.

[Wilbur-10 · 3/10 · 19 July 2000]

Cheap, badly acted, poorly made Mummy/Zombie film, that plays like the soft version of a porn film - no plot drive or narrative, inconsistent editing and a dire script with non-actors delivering the lines.

The story has American fashion models in Egypt for a fashion shoot - the location promises flimsy see-through dresses but their is little on show for the dirty mac brigade.

Climax of the film introduces the zombie theme, with the Mummy's dead followers wrecking havoc on a nearby town in revenge for the desecration of their master's tomb. These scenes manage to be reasonably effective, but overall the film is flawed and seems to have been thrown together in unequal proportions.

Pretty dreadful low budget mummy gore flick!

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 29 August 2006]

A photographer and his models decide to hold their latest fashion shoot in an Egyptian tomb, recently unearthed by unscrupulous treasure hunters. In doing so, they unwittingly awaken an ancient mummy and his slaves, who proceed to kill those who disturb their slumber.

Dawn of the Mummy, a US/Egypt co-production, is a pretty poor gore flick obviously inspired by the success of Romero's Dawn of the Dead and subsequent Italian rip-offs (most notably Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2). After the best part of an hour spent following the futile attempts of the treasure hunters to find hidden gold and watching the models posing badly for the photographer, the mummy eventually rises from his sarcophagus to kill, closely followed by his shuffling zombie-like assistants. Director Frank Agrama manages a couple of workmanlike scares, there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had, and the movie eventually dishes up plenty of cheapo splatter towards the end, but it really isn't really worth sitting through the tedious stuff to get to the juicy bits.

Not much better than "Plan 9 From Outer Space".

[gridoon · 2/10 · 9 February 2002]

Grade-Z in all departments, "Dawn of the Mummy" is a film to watch only if you're desperate. Cinematography (it looks like a home movie), acting (complete with ear-piercing screaming), script (incomprehensible), directing (incompetent)....just about everything here is unbelievably bad. Except perhaps for the makeup effects, which are sometimes decent, particularly in the finale. But will you still be watching the movie by then? Doubtful. (*)

No Sleaze, No Squeeze

[Tweetienator · 3/10 · 29 June 2022]

Sadly, I can't agree with some of the fellow reviewers who claim that Dawn of the Mummy is one of those bad ones that are transformed to something worth to watch by the superpowers of pulp magick. First of all, the exposition of the story takes far too long, the gore level is rather low, also (just an example) we get two girls taking a swim in the middle of the night and all alone but still they wear swimsuits - every capable director of the genre knows that this is just the wrong move and it's time to sleaze ;) Anyway, compared to the real deal a la Italian style, this one looks really pale: it's not sleazy, it's not gory enough, it's not daring enough - only recommended for the mummy lover who needs desperately something new on his table.

Dawn of the Mummy

[CinemaSerf · 4/10 · 25 April 2024]

Having just sat through five hours of Steven Soderbergh's "Che", I thought a little light relief might be in order. OK, well maybe not quite this light. It's all about a group of bimbettes and their photographer who are filming in the Egyptian desert and discover a long lost tomb. Seeking treasures, all they find is trouble as their desecration awakens some critters who haven't had a snack since King Tut was but an apple in his mother's eye. The first ten minutes and the last ten minutes are where the action is, the rest is a shocking waste of videotape where director Frank Agrama has concluded that women screaming hysterically and a lack of stage lighting will do all that's required to convey a sense of peril. Personally, I felt sorry for the indigestion facing these mummies who really did deserve something altogether meatier after their millennia long nap. George Peck stands out as "Rick" - acting like this, well you just don't see to every day and I think it ought to be savoured. Appreciated even - for exactly what it is. Terrible. It isn't really fair to single him out, they are all just as bad as each other and in no world could I ever recommend this - even if you do, like me, like the genre. Neither Boris Karloff nor Christopher Lee have anything to worry about.

YAWN OF THE MUMMY

[johnmorghen · 6/10 · 24 November 2002]

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.

Zombie disco mummy mayhem

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 5 October 2019]

Dawn of the Mummy was directed by Farouk "Frank" Agrama, who was also behind the camera for the abysmal King Kong parody, Queen Kong. He'd go on to form Harmony Gold - yes, the same people who redubbed Macross, Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeda and turned them into Robotech. After that, he'd later be convicted of buying and selling film rights at inflated prices in a scandal that also brought down former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Agrama would have gone to jail if he wasn't 82 years old, but was later exonerated.

Dawn of the Mummy was shot in Egypt with a mostly Italian crew, which allows it to transcend its boring beginnings and emerge with a second half filled with utter mayhem, as these mummies aren't just content to shamble around. No, they're closer to zombies that must feast upon the flesh of the living.

The film begins in ancient Egypt, where youngvillagers are taken away to be the servants for Pharaoh Sefirama in the next life. As we watch his body get prepared for the next world, they're killed with poison gas and the entrance to the tomb is sealed. Then, the high priestess places a curse on the pyramid, declaring "he who enters this tomb, after it is sealed, will die on the dawn of the mummy".

By the way, if you watch movies with me, please know that any time the title of the film is said within the dialogue, I scream and yell as if I'm Pee-Wee Herman and you just said the secret word.

We then fast forward to the present, where the high priestess - now an ancient crone - chases off some grave robbers. They're persistent, however, even in the fact of poison gas, but we soon discover that they've met their demise when a fashion shoot in the desert ends up with a model tripping over one of their severed heads. Yep - if you're expecting a bloodless mummy affair, you picked the wrong scuzzy movie to enjoy.

One of the grave robbers, Rick, has survived. The film then goes into he and his henchmen following the fashion shoot into the cursed pyramid. Yes, you may have always wondered, "How would the pharaohs react to disco and vogueing?" This is the movie that strives to answer that question.

The photographers being their lighting into the pharaoh's burial chamber, which behins to wake the slumbering monarch. Then someone spills a bowl filled with the mummy's organs and burns her hands, thanks to the blood of the mummy. That sends a torrent of zombie-like mummies into the streets. Numerous explosions later, our heroes - such as they are, they're all pretty much morons - celebrate even through Pharaoh Sefirama is still alive.

This movie was remade in 2015 as Prisoners of the Sun, with Joss Ackland and John Rhys-Davies. It's directed by Roger Christian, who of course brought us Battlefield Earth.

It's nowhere near as good as the poster makes it look, but it's certainly different than most mummy films. It's a movie so messy and scummy that you feel like you may very well be covered in the dusty, mucky and grue of the tombs that it explores.

Decent gory Mummy movie

[slayrrr666 · 9/10 · 23 March 2006]

"Dawn of the Mummy" is easily the goriest Mummy movie ever made.

**SPOILERS**

An ancient Egyptian king is locked inside a sacred tomb and it's protected by an evil curse, which Rick, (John Salvo) ignores and opens it anyway. Later on, Gary, (Barry Sattels) and his photography group, photographer Bill (George Peck) and models Lisa, (Brenda King) Jenny, (Joan Levy) Melinda, (Ellen Faison) and Joan, (Dianne Betty) arrive at the burial ground to perform a fashion shoot. While wandering around the pyramids, they stumble upon Rick and his excavation site. Exploring the tomb, they find the Mummies burial ground and Gary decides it's the best place to shoot his series of photos. Being inside the tomb sparks the curse, and the mummy is revived to seek revenge for his burial. The revived Mummy stalks the group one by one, who is unaware and continues the photo shoot.

The Good News: As far as Mummy movies go, this one takes the cake as far as goriest one made. We get a large amount of blood and gore in here, so much more than any other mummy movie. We get a meat-cleaver to the head, a decapitation, and tons of people are killed by zombified mummies. This also brings up the fact that it's one of the cleverest Mummy movies out there by incorporating the traditional Mummy mythology with zombies. That's a pretty great idea by mixing the two genres the way this one does. It's a great way to up the value of the film by having two different genres mixed together into one cohesive unit. Neither storyline is really put above the other one, so it's pretty easy to follow along and not get confused over what it happening. It's a pretty sweet idea that really takes some creative thought to hold those two from coming up with a cliché-ridden storyline and combines the best aspects of both genres into one great story. Almost as impressive is the look of the mummies/zombies in this film. They look accurately decayed and rotten, dirty bandages dripping off their bodies and Mummified looks from behind their rotten faces, and this makes for a grand monster which captures and frightens your imaginations. It's quite effective.

The Bad News: This one takes a while to get going, so it can be a boring beginning if you're not prepared to sit through some character and situation set-up before the action kicks in. Granted, this has happened before, but it's a bit longer than normal before the action starts up, and since none of the characters are all that spectacular to begin with, it makes for a hard opening to sit trough. Beyond that, it's not all that bad.

The Final Verdict: I liked this one a lot, but if you can forgive a slow opening, you'll like this one as well. It's pretty gory, so it's not for the weak-stomach. Gorehounds, check it out, those who love Mummy movies will also find a lot to love in this one. Be careful, others, as this one is pretty cheesy.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and some mild drug use

Pretty gory and graphic low-budget horror film.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 20 October 2005]

Some fashion models and their photographers decide to shoot a fashion spread in Egypt for the fashion magazine.At the same time,three bandits are excavating the burial site of the Mummy, who was introduced during the film's opening.The two groups cross paths and the fashion photographer decides that the Mummy's tomb would make a really great backdrop.Unbeknowst for them the place is cursed and the ten foot Mummy comes back to life,bringing an army of zombies with him.A flesh-eating rampage ensues!But before that occurs,an hour of film passes by and actors act very badly.Frank Agrama's "Dawn of the Mummy" is often regarded as the goriest mummy flick ever made.It is surely loaded with lots of gore and gut munching,especially during its last 30 minutes,so fans of splatter should be pleased.Still the action is rather dull and the film offers nothing fresh or new.However if you are a gore-hound you may give it a try.7 out of 10.

Safiraman lives!

[Vomitron_G · 2/10 · 2 March 2006]

This is the stuff bad movies are made of. Bad acting? Check. Bad directing? Check. Bad editing? Check. Bad lighting? Check. Bad acting? Check. Bad acting? Check. Did I mention bad acting? Check.

As everyone already knows, DAWN OF THE MUMMY is an American/Egyptian co-production which was made only to cash in on Romero's success with DAWN OF THE DEAD. But DAWN OF THE MUMMY is only 10 times worse than Fulci's ZOMBI 2. The story? A crew of models and photographers enter a tomb to do a fashion-shoot at the same time some archaeologists are there in search for a golden treasure. They manage to awake the evil Safiraman and his 8 mummy-slaves.

DOTM is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. A few examples maybe? Absolute high-light among the actors is that blonde archaeologist/grave-robber. His acting is hilarious, including lots of funny faces. During the gory mummy-action in the end, there's one guy doing a few Kung-Fu kicks and then he runs into a door knocking himself unconscious. At the end, when the few survivors think he's dead, Kung-Fu-man jumps into the frame, shouting "Surprise! I'm still alive!".

DOTM is also very educational. Here are a few things I've learned while watching this movie:

• Always listen to crazy old ladies shouting warnings. If you don't, you'll be sealing your fate.

• All Egyptians speak English with a fake accent.

• It's easy to resurrect a mummy. All it takes is placing a spotlight above him. The light will bring it back to live.

• All mummies are bald.

• Only a blonde girl can manage to get lost in a tomb which consists of only three corridors.

• Finding a golden treasure must really hurt. You'll go mad and scream in pain (that blonde dude again).

• Always take advantage of a traumatized girl. Because she will have sex with you.

• Egyptians are masters in deduction. When an Egyptian is asked why he's working on his wedding night, he'll answer: "Wedding = Babies -> Babies = Eat -> Eat = Money -> Money = Work. So I Work."

• Female Arabian belly dancers are supposed to be fat.

• Fotographers and models make excellent boy-scouts. They make good tents and improvised showers.

Alright, that's enough. So this flick is unintentionally funny, really bad and also boring. We have to wait an hour for the gory climax and even that isn't much. There is some gut-munching, throat-biting, a decapitated head, big knife to the head,... but it's all done very poorly. But Safiraman seems to be a wise mummy. Because several times you can see him just standing around, clearly doing a lot of thinking. But in the end he's not so clever after all.

Okay, enough said. Now you know what you're getting into when you rent this flick.