Hammer Time: Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)

I'm sure as soon as you saw the word "mummy," you rolled your eyes and were like, "Oh, God, not another one!" Well, don't worry, because this is nothing like the previous three Hammer Mummy movies; in fact, it's not a Mummy movie at all, albeit still a horror movie that deals with Ancient Egypt. Like The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb and The Mummy's Shroud, this is one of the Hammer movies I saw very late, despite having known of it since I was a kid. In fact, I didn't see it until early 2020, when I got the Scream Factory Blu-Ray, as up until that release, this was one of the Hammer movies that was almost impossible to get a hold of, as the original DVD went out of print years ago, and, as I've said before, I'm not a big fan of Mummy movies anyway, so finding a copy wasn't a top priority for me regardless. I went into it virtually blind, with no memory whatsoever of any plot details I'd ever read in books or on the internet, though I did have a feeling that it was going to be a very different movie from Hammer's previous Mummy flicks. I just didn't realize how different it would be, as it's actually an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars, dealing with astral projection and two personas struggling within one body, rather than yet another movie about a resurrected mummy slowly walking around and killing people (which is why "The Mummy" isn't in the labels). Not only is it a welcome change of pace from the increasingly repetitive previous movies in this thematic series, but my initial opinion of it shifted slightly over the course of this review. At first, my feeling was that, while not bad by any means, as one of Hammer's most abstract and, at points, confusing films, with a plot I didn't find that interesting or a concept I couldn't quite wrap my head around, it was not a movie I particularly liked. However, as I looked into it deeper while writing this review, I began to feel that there was more to it. I still find the movie's core concept hard to pin down and for me to enjoy, and the characters I'm mainly indifferent about, despite the talent behind them, but I can say that, despite the awful hardships the production faced, it is well-made, with some technical skill behind it, effectively atmospheric scenes, and, above anything else, I can respect Hammer for going for something a bit more cerebral this time around.

In the days leading up to her birthday, Margaret Fuchs, the daughter of archeologist Julian Fuchs, begins having nightmares revolving around Ancient Egypt, specifically a queen who looks like Margaret and who was buried alive in a tomb. Her right hand was severed and thrown to the jackals, only for all those involved to be killed by a powerful, violent force. Right before her birthday, Margaret's father gives her an interesting gift: a ring with a large ruby, which he implores her to always wear. She then goes out with her boyfriend, Tod Browning, who becomes intrigued by her ring, thinking it may be an object Fuchs discovered on an expedition he made at the time of Margaret's birth, one which he's never spoken or made any published reports about. He takes the ring to a friend of his, Geoffrey Dandridge, to have him look at it, but he inexplicably becomes frightened at the sight of Margaret and collapses. At the same time, Corbeck, a man who's been keeping a close eye on both Fuchs and his daughter from an empty house across the street from theirs, visits Berigan, a patient in an asylum, and attempts to take something from him, only for the madman to attack him, leading to his being restrained and Corbeck being asked to leave. Also, a fortune teller named Helen Dickerson sees a series of star-like lights appear in her crystal ball, lights which also appear in the ring's ruby. That night, while sleeping with Tod, Margaret has another dream, this time about a wandering soul that has waited for thousands of years to be reunited with her mortal body. This soul is that of Queen Tera, whose astral power was feared by a cabal of Egyptian priests who saw to her being buried alive and her hand severed, as they thought the ring was the source of her power. Her tomb was uncovered by Fuchs, his team was made up of Corbeck, Dandridge, Berigan, and Dickerson, and aside from her body, which was not mummified or decomposed at all, they also managed to uncover and speak her name for the first time in thousands of years. At that very moment, back in England, Fuchs' wife died while giving birth to Margaret, and the baby initially appeared to have been stillborn, only to suddenly begin breathing again. Now, Tera's soul is preparing to reunite with her body through Margaret, an event that must be accomplished by bringing together relics taken from the tomb by each of the expedition members. The devious Corbeck is more than willing to allow this to happen, as is the increasingly power-hungry Margaret, who may not have the will to resist Tera's influence.

While Hammer had more than its fair share of troubled productions during its history, so many issues came up during the making of Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, including some that were absolutely tragic, that it almost got pushed into the territory of being a possibly cursed film, like The Exorcist and Poltergeist. One such horrible event involved the film's director, Seth Holt, who'd initially intended to be an actor but, instead, first became an editor and then a producer, before making his directorial debut in 1958 with the crime film, Nowhere to Go, which he also co-wrote. He went back to editing on a couple of more films, and also directed several episodes of the Danger Man television series, before directing his second feature film, which was the 1961 Hammer psychological thriller, Taste of Fear (known in America as Scream of Fear), featuring Christopher Lee, who would call it the best film he ever appeared in for Hammer. Four years later, Holt did another black-and-white thriller for the studio, The Nanny, starring Bette Davis, but between that and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, he had trouble getting films off the ground, only managing to complete Danger Route, an Amicus-produced thriller done in the James Bond style, starring Richard Johnson (who was actually one of the early actors considered for the role of Bond before it went to Sean Connery). Among these aborted movies was the Italian action-thriller, Danger: Diabolik, the producer of which fired Holt when he didn't like what he shot and it was later made by Mario Bava. He also had to back out of directing if..., a project he'd been developing, due to health issues. Said health issues, which are said to have plagued Holt during the shooting of Danger Route, finally caught up with him during filming of Blood from the Mummy's Tomb when, right before the last week of shooting, he died of a heart attack on the set at Elstree.

The last week of shooting was completed by producer Michael Carreras, who'd replaced Anthony Hinds as an executive at the studio after Hinds left in 1970. It's kind of ironic, given that Carreras directed The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb and had also directed 1968's The Lost Continent after initial director Leslie Norman left the film. Star Valerie Leon wasn't quite as fond of Carreras as she'd been with Holt, saying that she didn't get as much direction from him (she was also upset that she wasn't allowed time off from shooting to attend Holt's funeral), and Carreras, in turn, claimed that the material Holt had shot didn't cut together. He directed one more film afterward: Shatter, Hammer's other co-production with the Shaw Brothers following The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, as well as Peter Cushing's last film for the studio (he suffered his own personal tragedy tied to Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, which we'll get into later). Carreras also had the dubious "honor" of buying Hammer from his father and overseeing it to the bitter end of its final years. He died in 1994, at the age of 66.

In one of her very few leading roles, the lovely Valerie Leon finds herself playing a pretty meaty character in Margaret Fuchs. She starts out as a normal young woman, happy with her life in London, aside from some bad nightmares that have been plaguing her lately, which suggest a link between her and Queen Tera right from the beginning. When her father gives her a ring containing a large ruby as an early birthday present, things become all the more sinister and frightening for her, as her boyfriend's colleague, archeologist Geoffrey Dandridge, faints at the sight of her when they arrive to have him examine the ring, and after another nightmare that leaves her with the feeling that her father is in danger, she has Tod Browning take her home to find that, down in his basement, which holds the sarcophagus containing Tera's body, he's been attacked in some manner and slips into catatonia, with deep scratches in his neck. She first learns of her connection to Tera from Corbeck, who tells her of how, when he, Fuchs, and the others uncovered her tomb in Egypt, Margaret herself was born back in England at that very moment. When Tod reads from Fuchs' journal, Margaret learns that her father believes such a correlation was seen to by Tera, who has put herself into an abstract, metaphysical state in the sarcophagus and created an astral body with a will all its own. Feeling a sense of loneliness and longing emitting from Tera, and ignoring her father's warning not to have anything to do with Corbeck, feeling that she's being used by both of them, Margaret decides to collect the other relics taken from Tera's tomb in order to perform the ritual to bring her back to life, as she wants the power she could obtain from it. She becomes more and more gripped by both this desire and Tera's influence within her, using the other expedition members' fear of her being Tera to her advantage, leading to their dying one by one. But, when her power causes Tod to die in a car crash when he attempts to stop her and Corbeck, Margaret becomes more conflicted and begins to have an internal struggle, with Tera often taking control and killing those who defy her, like Dr. Putnam and Helen Dickerson, the latter of whom Margaret initially comes to for help. Eventually, Margaret manages to gather all of the objects and prepares to perform the ritual for resurrecting Tera.

Leon also plays Tera herself, and while she spends the entire movie lying in her sarcophagus in a state of suspended animation, she's the most significant character, as she's the very reason the story takes place. Not only did she see to it that Fuchs and his team found her tomb and spoke her name for the first time in thousands years at the very moment that Fuchs' wife gave birth to Margaret, allowing her astral body to enter her, but she also chose Fuchs to be the one to find her to begin with. An Egyptian queen who was buried alive by the priests who feared her astral powers, Tera, as I've said, begins working through Margaret to ensure that her body and soul are reunited through a ritual involving various objects found in her tomb that represent different parts of her soul. The ritual comes to pass by the end of the movie, with Tera, once she's revived, intending to dispense with those who saw to her resurrection, seeing them as nothing but expendable pawns. She awakens when Fuchs and Margaret attack Corbeck to stop him from finishing the incantation, kills Fuchs, and then struggles with Margaret, intending to kill her as well so as to bring her body and soul together again. Margaret manages to stab Tera but then, a powerful force causes the building to shake and collapse in on itself. The movie ends on an ambiguous note, as a sole survivor from the collapse, identified only as a woman, is taken to the hospital, but because her head and face are completely wrapped in bandages and she's unable to speak, you're unable to tell whether it's Margaret or Tera.

Weeks before the unexpected death of Seth Holt, the movie had already suffered a major blow when Peter Cushing, who'd originally been cast as Prof. Julian Fuchs, had to drop out after one day of shooting when his beloved wife, Helen, became ill with emphysema (she died not too long afterward and Cushing, sadly, would remain a very broken man for the rest of his life). Fittingly, he was replaced with Andrew Keir, the actor whose character of Father Sandor in Dracula: Prince of Darkness acted as a stand-in for Cushing's Van Helsing. Keir, unfortunately, doesn't get to do much, as Fuchs falls into catatonia early on, following an attack he suffers when he goes down into the cellar of his home and stands over Tera's body, and even after he awakens, his left side is totally paralyzed, preventing him from doing anything other than hobble around. Much of the depth and drama around his character comes from backstory, as you're told that Fuchs had been obsessed with Tera since he was a young man, after having read only a scant bit of information about her, and never even knew her name until he and his team opened her tomb and he translated an inscription on her ring. When reading his diary, Tod Browning learns that Fuchs came to believe that the correlation between the opening of the tomb and Margaret's birth were arranged by Tera herself, but while he, like Corbeck, is still fascinated with her power, having brought her body, severed hand, and ring back to their home in England and virtually recreating the tomb in his cellar, he worries about what may become of Margaret and gives her the ring from Tera's severed hand as a talisman of protection. God knows why he thought this ring, which was believed to have been the source of Tera's power, would actually protect Margaret because, of course, all it does is ensure that she becomes gripped by Tera's power instead. It isn't long before Fuchs realizes that what he feared is coming to pass and he tries to back out from his predestined part in Tera's resurrection, but Corbeck forces him to go through with it, and in his weakened condition, Fuchs isn't in much shape to put up any resistance. But, when it comes time for the ritual and Corbeck reads an incantation from the Scroll of Life, Fuchs, knowing it will mean Margaret's destruction, rushes at him and manages to kill him before he can finish the incantation. But then, Tera awakens and kills Fuchs before turning on Margaret.

We have yet another actor who would appear in one of the James Bond movies here: James Villiers, who'd appeared in The Nanny and would go on to appear as Tanner, standing in for the ailing Bernard Lee's M in For Your Eyes Only. Here, Villiers plays Corbeck, first shown keeping a close eye on Margaret from an empty house across the street from her home and visiting Berigan in the mental asylum, attempting to get one of the objects tied to Tera's soul from him, but failing when Berigan attacks him. After a flashback reveals that Corbeck was part of Prof. Fuchs' expedition that uncovered Tera's tomb, he formally introduces himself to Margaret after Fuchs has fallen into catatonia. He tells her of her father's lifelong obsession with Tera, his belief that he was predestined to find her tomb, and that the uncovering of it and their speaking her name coincided with Margaret's birth. He also tells both her and Tod Browning of Tera's astral powers, that they were directed at Fuchs, and that they could easily be directed at them as well. Significantly, he's the one who tells Margaret that she must find the other members of the expedition and get from them the relics they each took from the tomb. After Fuchs regains consciousness and warns Margaret not to have anything to do with Corbeck, saying that he's a liar, she confronts Corbeck herself and he tells her that, while her father believes that Tera is evil, he himself believes she's far beyond the concepts of good or evil and that, if they could see to her resurrection, they could acquire complete control over life and death. He goes on to say that Fuchs is weak, saying, "He has no real courage, no real strength, only a cheap, intellectual conceit... He's been afraid. That's why he wanted nothing to do with me, and that is why he filled Berigan and all the others with the fear of God. Well, the meek shall not inherit the Earth. They wouldn't know what to do with it. Can we afford to let him be a part? To let them control it? Are you going to go on, allowing them to use you?" With that, Margaret decides she will do anything to possess Tera's power, and she and Corbeck begin working together to gather the relics and resurrect Tera. When Margaret becomes conflicted when Tod dies as a result of her power, Corbeck tells her not to weaken, saying she's coming of age and fulfilling her destiny, and convinces Fuchs not to back out as well, telling him there's no hope for Margaret, no matter what he does. Near the end of the movie, he reveals to Fuchs that he's acquired the sacred Scroll of Life, which he's been keeping in the satchel he often has with him, to use in the ritual, and remains confident that they will have control over Tera, not the other way around. But, when the ritual begins and he reads from the scroll, Fuchs and Margaret charge at and kill Corbeck to stop him from finishing the incantation, although it's not enough to keep Tera from awakening.

I don't know if it was just a coincidence or if Margaret's boyfriend (Mark Edwards) was named Tod Browning in honor of the director who made the original 1931 Dracula (given that this is an adaptation of another Bram Stoker work, I have a feeling it might have been intentional) but, either way, he would normally be the guy who saves his girl by the end of the movie. A friend of Geoffrey Dandridge, one of the members of Prof. Fuchs' expedition, Tod has an interest in said expedition, given how nothing has ever been published or spoken about it, which is why he takes an interest in the ring Fuchs gives Margaret. But, between Dandridge's passing out at the sight of Margaret, discovering that Fuchs has Tera's body in her sarcophagus down in his basement, and the strange attack that Fuchs suffers, it doesn't take long for Tod to know something strange is going on, and he's not someone who's inclined to dismiss the supernatural, as he's studied parapsychology. He also distrusts Corbeck from the moment he meets him, especially when he realizes he's staying in the house across from Margaret's, and is troubled at how much both Dandridge and Berigan fear her, as well as with her own growing obsession with Tera. After both Dandridge and Berigan die strange and grisly deaths, Tod tries to stop Margaret and Corbeck's dabbling with Tera's power by forcing Margaret to leave with him but is unable to make her, even when he angrily smacks her across the face. He then leaves to go get help, only to die in a car accident when Margaret unwillingly unleashes Tera's power on him by wishing he were dead.

As Corbeck mentions, Fuchs made the rest of the former expedition members absolutely terrified of him, to the point where they refuse to have anything to do with him. One initial exception, though, is Geoffrey Dandridge (Hugh Burden), who happens to be a friend of Tod Browning and who he brings Margaret's ring to in order to examine it. But, when he sees Margaret, Dandridge, thinking she's Tera, becomes frightened to the point where he passes out. After they've left, and he's recovered from his shock, he calls Corbeck over and tells him he saw Tera. He wonders how she could have been resurrected without their knowing, and Corbeck tells him that the person he saw was actually Fuchs' daughter. Dandridge is positively floored by this, so much so that, when Tod calls him again later on and tries to talk with him about it, he refuses to have anything to do with it, and it's later revealed he believes Fuchs himself is the one helping her to gather the relics from the tomb. Near the end of the second act, the increasingly power hungry Margaret visits him, demanding he give her his relic, a sacred jackal skull, but Dandridge attempts to flee with it, only for Tod to later find his body in a back alley, while the skull finds its way to the Fuchs basement with the other relics.

Berigan (George Coulouris), another expedition member, is in an insane asylum, having been locked away with his relic, an ornamental cobra, which Corbeck tries to take when he visits him early on, but Berigan attacks him, forcing the staff to restrain him. Later, when Margaret and Tod visit him, the doctor tells them that Berigan spends every waking hour reading and writing, trying to make sense of Tera and her power. Like Dandridge, Berigan believes Margaret is her when they're allowed in his cell, and she decides to use that in order to get what she wants from him. He, thinking she's come to kill him when he's so close to uncovering the truth, claims he doesn't have the cobra, and recoils in terror and raves hysterically when she threatens him with her ring. Tod makes her stop, feeling this isn't the way to do things, and the doctor has Berigan placed in a straight-jacket. That night, the relic, like all the others, appears to take on a life of its own and kill Berigan, leaving the tell-tale cuts on his neck.

The expedition member who gets the least amount of screentime is Helen Dickerson (Rosalie Crutchley), who's now a fortune teller and sees the glittering, star-like lights from Margaret's ring in her crystal ball while telling a woman her fortune and sends her away. Save for the flashback to where they discovered the tomb, she's not seen again until near the end of the movie, when Margaret comes to claim her relic, a small, black cat statue. At first, Dickerson attempts to fight Margaret, but when she promises to let her live if she gives it to her, she instead acquiesces and does so, asking for Margaret to not allow the relic to kill her when it inevitably comes to life. But then, Margaret leaves the house when it appears to become caught up  a powerful storm and the statue, indeed, appears to appear to come to life and kill Dickerson.

One final, and very odd, character is Dr. Putnam (Aubrey Morris), whom Prof. Fuchs had instructions to call should anything happen to him regarding the makeshift tomb in the cellar. When he arrives and examines Fuchs, Putnam tells Margaret that part of the instructions was for the police to not be involved and he also admits that Fuchs never told him exactly what was going on, having only hinted at certain things. He was, however, able to glean from those suggestions that, "He'll be able to show the world of science just how little it knows." During his scenes, Putnam often wears a pair of large, dark glasses and gives off a rather sinister quality in the way he speaks, telling Margaret before he leaves the first time that Fuchs is his "priority," and often has this uncomfortable smile on his face. That, coupled with his appearing to know more than he claims when he talks with Margaret the second time, mentioning that she's possibly been involved with this situation even before she was born, would have you expect him to be aligned with Corbeck in some way, but that turns out to not be the case. When Fuchs calls him back to the house when Tera is truly taking hold of Margaret, asking him to sedate her, Putnam is aghast at the idea of her having been used as a guinea pig in this bizarre and dangerous experiment. Before he can sedate her, Margaret awakens, with Tera now in control, and confronts Putnam. Even in this instance, Putnam comes off as an oddball, still having that weird grin on his face, even when calls for Fuchs, and it's only right before he dies that his expression becomes serious and frightened. (Incidentally, Morris was the one who was with director Seth Holt when he dropped dead from his heart attack on the set, falling right into his arms.)

One of the reasons why this film isn't an absolute favorite of mine that the characters, for the most part, don't do much for me. With the exception of Corbeck, who I find entertaining simply because of his supreme confidence that he alone can deal with Tera and also because I like listening to James Villiers' very proper, sophisticated, almost Alfred Hitchcock-like voice, none of them impress me enough to where I can latch onto and care about what becomes of them. In fact, I think Andrew Keir is kind of wasted as Fuchs, since he has little to do other than lie in a bed, comatose or otherwise, for a good section of the movie, limp around with his left side paralyzed, and act like a terrified weakling (a big comedown after he was so awesome as Father Sandor and Prof. Quatermass). I get that he's really concerned about what's going to happen to his daughter, but that isn't enough for me to really care about him, especially since he plays a significant part in what happens to Margaret. Mark Edwards does have a little more substance to him than most young leads of the time, especially since he's the one who has the most sense about what's going on, and I also didn't expect him to die (though it didn't totally blindside me, either), but he's still kind of bland at the end of the day. And finally, as lovely as Valerie Leon is, and as much as she does appear to be trying to come off as a conflicted young woman with two sides of herself that are at war, for me, she seems to become gripped by the prospect of Queen Tera's power awfully fast; in fact, it seems to happen almost immediately after she first meets Corbeck, as she then pretends to be Tera when she goes to see Berigan and clearly gets some enjoyment out of it. I get that it's fueled by her anger over how her father never told her anything and appeared to be using her in a sort of experiment, and when Tod dies, she begins struggling internally with Tera more and more, but I wish we'd seen a little more of just how hard she's now fighting to keep all sense of herself, as her going back and forth feels kind of random. The moment near the end, when she decides to help her father stop Corbeck from finishing the incantation, especially comes out of nowhere and feels tacked on.

As I've said before, the big problem I have with the movie is that the core concept is a tad too abstract and hard for me to get a handle on. Initially, I thought they were going to go the reincarnation route with Margaret and Tera, but all this talk about astral projection, Tera's creating an astral body with its own will, the notion of the relics representing various parts of her soul (which I guess is why they come to life and attack people), how exactly her powers work, and so on, is too confusing for me. Granted, I've never read The Jewel of Seven Stars, so maybe it would make more sense if I did, but even, I still don't think it would grab me, as I don't find this stuff interesting based on what little I can decipher from it.

Fortunately, the film does have a nice look to it, with more than a handful of visuals and instances of cinematography that really stand out, such as the close-ups of Margaret's ring and Helen Dickerson's crystal ball, showing the seven stars glittering within each of them, an image of which also appears on the carpeted floor of Berigan's cell; the shots of the night sky full of glittering stars, which you see during the opening credits and as part of Margaret's dreams; the constant feeling of its being cold, misty, and overcast in the scenes that take place outside; a definite feeling of atmosphere in the scenes set on the London streets at night (the day-for-night cinematography isn't that egregious here); and the uses of darkness in some scenes, such as when Fuchs and his team first open Tera's tomb, when Margaret wanders down into the basement to look at Tera's body, which is almost totally dark, save for a room across from the sarcophagus that's filled with a red, shimmering glow from a torch, and during some of the more suspenseful sequences. The camerawork is mostly average, with a few too many melodramatic closeups and awkward editing used to try to cover up the low budget occurring throughout the film, but, again, there are some standout moments, such as the way the camera twists and cranes in on the asylum doors to the lead up of Berigan suffering his attack by the snake ornament, and the ending, where the camera slowly pans around to reveal the bandaged woman in the hospital bed and zooms in on her eyes, as she awakens and tries to talk. There's also one rather ambitious, sustained shot that acts as the lead-up to Tod discovering Dandridge's body after he flees from Margaret. Tod climbs out an open window in Dandridge's office, gets down to ground, walks out onto the street, and, in a single shot that lasts for almost a full minute, he walks down to one end of the street, turns around and walks back up, the camera then does a zoom in on his face, he hears the sound of Dandridge screaming and crashing nearby, and rushes to the edge of a lot, where he finds him dead.

A big positive is how the filmmakers handled the scenes revolving around the deaths of the expedition members by the relics they took from Tera's tomb. Those scenes could have easily come off as stupid as that moment in Jess Franco's Count Dracula where various stuffed animals at Carfax Abbey come to life and threaten Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris, and Dr. Seward, but instead, they're accomplished through a combination of suggestion and the presence of a truly evil and powerful force. Berigan's death in his cell is punctuated through that force, consisting of the other patients in the place freaking out, gusts of wind blowing open the cell's window, pieces of furniture being toppled over, shots of the cobra ornament's moving shadow on the wall, and Berigan's hysterical screaming for help, all put together in quick crazy cuts, before you finally get a close-up of the cobra's face before his death. Dandridge's death happens totally offscreen, as he attempts to flee from Margaret, loses his relic, a jackal skull, and runs out to the street, only for Tod to hear Dandridge fall to his death and find his body under a bunch of junk in a lot. To add even more of a creepy, supernatural touch to it, Tod then sees the shadow of a jackal on the wall of a building, which lingers a bit before moving off. And while Helen Dickerson's death is probably the least effective, as she's shown faced with and screaming melodramatically at the black cat idol, which does appear to move towards her, as scratches suddenly appear on her face, it's still gruesome enough to be effective.

Shot almost entirely at EMI-MGM Elstree Studios (though I'm sure some scenes late in the movie of Margaret fleeing through the countryside were shot on location), Blood from the Mummy's Tomb isn't likely to have been a film that was all that taxing for production designer Scott MacGregor, given its small scale and its being set entirely in England, save for some flashbacks. The Fuchs household, for instance, is a very typical upper-class house, with some Egyptian objects seen here and there, until you get to the basement which, save for the half of the space that acts as Fuchs' study, is, again, a virtual recreation of Tera's tomb, with hieroglyphics all over the walls, Egyptian pottery and other artifacts sitting all around, and the sarcophagus containing Tera's body, which sits on a large pedestal in the middle of the room. After that, the most memorable sets in the film are the interior of the empty and somewhat creepy-looking house that Corbeck uses to spy on Margaret, and the inside of the mental asylum, where its long, claustrophobic, oppressive, green and lime-colored corridors (which are not dissimilar to those in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed) are contrasted by Berigan's cell, which looks more like a study, as it has a desk that he works at and shelves of books, as well as a compartment where he keeps the cobra relic. Other sets, like the interiors of the museum and office where Dandridge works and Helen Dickerson's house, where she does her fortune-telling, are pretty standard, as is what you see of Tera's tomb, which has little that distinguishes it from the look of the past Hammer Mummy films. Where the small budget truly starts to show through, though, is in the scenes outside the tomb during the opening, as you can tell it's a set with a backdrop meant to be the night sky (the similar set that was used in the opening of The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb seven years earlier looked a whole lot better). And the studio lot isn't used for much, aside from scenes that take place on the streets of London, which they do manage to give some atmosphere during the nighttime scenes.

There is a fair amount of blood and violence to be found here; not as much as was in Scars of Dracula, mind you, but much more than was seen in any of Hammer's previous Mummy movies. In the opening, you see the priest's sever Tera's right hand, though the actual act occurs offscreen, and said hand actually plays a part in the film; it's even seen crawling through the desert in the opening, like and moving inside a box near the end of the movie, like Thing from The Addams Family (if you look closely, you can see where the actual hand doing the crawling ends and the makeup appliance begins, but it's still an interesting visual). In the flashback and at various points throughout the movie, you see fresh blood pumping out of the stump of Tera's severed hand, complete with the unsettling detail of your actually being able to see the blood ooze, withdraw, and then ooze out again, as if it were being pumped by working arteries. As noted, nearly everyone who dies, from the expedition members to the priests in the opening, as well as the jackals in that sequence, and even Tod, ends up with an ugly, ripped open neck wound, with Dickerson getting scratched repeatedly across the face and Prof. Fuchs getting ugly scratches on his neck from an attack early on, before dying with a similar wound at the end of the movie. In addition to gore, you also get a glimpse of a "stillborn" baby during the flashback to Margaret's birth, and you also catch the tail-end of Fuchs incinerating Putnam's body after Margaret kills him. But, for those who were hoping for some nudity, you're going to be disappointed, as there's only one moment where you see a woman's bare backside, when Margaret gets out of bed with Tod, and even, it's not even Valerie Leon, as she absolutely refused to do nudity. However, you do get plenty of looks at her nice cleavage, especially when she's in her nightgown, and the revealing outfit she wears as Tera offers plenty of skin, including many looks at her very fine stomach.

On the visual effects side, there's not much to write home about, save for a handful of well-done shots like the star-filled sky and a superimposition of it over Margaret during the opening, as a very obvious miniature during the opening. At the end of the movie, Tera's hand rejoins with her arm, an effect that's achieved through simple dissolves.

After the astral opening credits, which end on the ubiquitous seven stars, the movie begins with a shot of Margaret Fuchs tossing and turning in bed, speaking random words in an unclear language, with the star-field superimposed over her. It's obvious she's dreaming, and the film then transitions to said dream, pulling back from a shot of the night sky to reveal a rocky valley in the middle of a barren, desert landscape (the first shot of the cliffs are the obvious miniature I mentioned). Another transition shows a large opening in the side of a cliff-face, and the camera pushes towards it, a cut revealing the sleeping form of Queen Tera in her sarcophagus, as the camera slowly pans across her body. One of several priests standing around her sarcophagus proceeds to place the tip of a hollow horn into one of her nostrils and uses it as a funnel to send drops of a black liquid down through her nasal cavity. When that's done, they place her right hand on a small, stone slab, and one of the priests is given an ivory rod with a large, golden blade on the end. He brings it down on and severs Tera's hand offscreen, bringing the now blood-splattered blade back up into view. The priests walk outside the tomb, carrying the hand on the slab, and throw it to the ground, where it's immediately jumped on by a pack of voracious jackals. As Margaret tosses and turns more restlessly in her sleep, the priests return to the inside of the tomb and close the lid on Tera's sarcophagus. However, outside, the jackals have suffered a horrific fate, their throats now torn out, while the severed hand crawls away. When the priests exit the tomb upon completing their task, they're suddenly blasted by a powerful gust of wind and thrown back against the wall, each of them suffering a nasty laceration to the neck. Elsewhere, the hand continues crawling away. Margaret then wakes up screaming, bringing her father, Prof. Fuchs, running into her room. Realizing she's suffered another of the nightmares that have been plaguing her lately, Fuchs embraces Margaret and comforts her, telling her, "Don't worry. It will soon be over." He then lays her back down in bed, as she quickly falls back asleep.

Corbeck is then introduced mysteriously watching the proceedings from the house across the way. After he sees Fuchs exit Margaret's room and turn the lights out, he puts on his gloves, turns out the light in the empty room he was watching from, takes his cane and satchel, walks downstairs, and out the door. The next day, as she waits to be picked up by Tod Browning, Margaret is given an early birthday present by her father: a small, wooden box that she opens to find contains a ring with a lovely, large, red ruby. She's amazed at the sight of it, noting its beauty, and Fuchs insists that she wear it on her finger. He slips it on for her, and when she turns her hand over, you get a look at a peculiar birthmark in the shape of a line just under her wrist. Outside, they hear the sound of a car pulling up, followed by someone honking the horn to the tune of "Shave and a Haircut." Knowing it's Tod, Margaret rushes out there and joins him in his sports car, as Corbeck, again, watches from his window, using binoculars to get a better look. After they drive away, Corbeck walks over to a table, flips through a book of addresses, and then looks at a map; at the same time, Fuchs is shown to be in his study, working on something as well. It then cuts to the inside of a mental asylum, as two orderlies drag a raving patient down the hallway and fling him into his cell, closing and locking the door behind him. The older orderly suggests they have some fun and look in on "Snakey Berigan," to find that he's in a straight-jacket but is, otherwise, sitting on the edge of his bed, quietly murmuring as he rocks back and forth. Disappointed at how docile he is, they hope that he might act up later when they take the jacket off him. They leave, and Berigan continues mumbling, looking at the floor, and it's revealed that he sees seven glittering lights on the carpet at his feet.

At Tod's apartment, while Margaret plays with his cat (according to the credits, this cat's name was, "Sunbronze Danny Boy,"), he asks her about allowing him to speak with her father about his own research, when he notices her ring for the first time. He removes it from her finger and, amazed at its loveliness, comments that Fuchs must have gotten it on the expedition he made years ago and yet, has never said a public word about. He decides to it take to a friend of his and let him examine it. Meanwhile, Corbeck is allowed inside Berigan's cell. The doctor warns him that Berigan, who's no longer in a straight-jacket, can become dangerous, and after he leaves the room, Corbeck starts looking around for something, with Berigan oblivious to his presence. It's only when he walks into his field of view that Berigan realizes he's there, standing up and looking intensely at him. He glances at a small compartment next to his desk, and Corbeck does the same. Figuring what he's looking for must inside, he walks over to it, with Berigan following him, feigning like he's putting up no resistance, but when Corbeck sticks his hand inside the compartment's door, Berigan pushes it shut on his arm. Corbeck demands he give him what he wants but Berigan grabs him by the throat and wrestles him to the bed, as Corbeck yells for him to get off. The doctor rushes in, pries Berigan off Corbeck, and tells him to leave. As he does, the camera pans into the ajar cabinet door, revealing an ornamental cobra sitting inside it. Next, Tod and Margaret visit the former's friend, Geoffrey Dandridge, at the museum where he works and shows him the ring. Like Tod, he's immediately taken with it, and when he asks him where he got it, Tod introduces him to Margaret, only for Dandridge to become extremely frightened, gasping violently and hunkering down in a ball. Tod helps pull him away, as the ring lies on the floor, the seven lights that Berigan saw glittering in the ruby. And then, Helen Dickerson is introduced while reading a woman's fortune, only to be horrified when she sees the same lights reflected in her crystal ball. But, when she sees the woman's coat lying nearby and sees that one of its eight buttons is missing, she believes it to merely be a reflection of that and tells her she can't go on with the reading, asking her to leave. But, when the woman leaves in a huff, Dickerson sees that the lights are still reflected in the ball.

Back at Tod's apartment, he finally gives Margaret back her ring, as he considers calling to see if Dandridge is alright. He also says he wonders if the ring was what frightened him, but Margaret thinks it was her. Later, at the museum, Dandridge, in better condition than he was but still not entirely well, sends away his assistant, Veronica, assuring her that he'll be fine, as he waits for someone to arrive. Once she's gone, he walks into his office, unlocks a cabinet, and pulls out a box, opening its lid to reveal it contains one of the relics from Tera's tomb: the skull of a jackal. The door buzzes and Dandridge heads to answer it, only for it to open, revealing his visitor to be Corbeck. After telling Dandridge he's glad he called for him, he asks what happened and Dandridge tells him that it was "her," adding, "She who has no name." Dandridge asks how that could be, and Corbeck tells her that the woman he saw was Margaret Fuchs, adding, "And, in a few hours' time, it will be her birthday." Dandridge is so shaken by this revelation that he has to sit down. Meanwhile, Margaret is in bed with Tod at his place, when she starts dreaming again. Like before, you see a field of stars out in space, as Tera's voice intones, "I, Tera, queen of darkness, priestess of Ancient Egypt, have lived before. My spirit has never rested through all these weary centuries. My soul has wandered among the boundless stars, while my mortal body waited." The film transitions to the discovery and opening of her tomb, as a team of explorers, led by Fuchs, make their way inside, as a sandstorm swirls violently outside. Tera continues, "Now, as the time draws nearer to the predestined hour, I have guided these people towards my tomb, made them the guardians of my most sacred relics, to protect with their lives until they are reclaimed. That will be soon. Soon. Soon," and it's revealed that the other people with Fuchs are Corbeck, Berigan, Dandridge, and Dickerson.

Reaching the end of the corridor and coming upon a section of the wall that's pushed in slightly from the rest of it, Fuchs uses his lantern to read the hieroglyphics near the ceiling: "She who is buried here shall henceforth have no name, shall cease to exist in the minds of man, as she has ceased to exist in life." Feeling along the edges and pushing, he manages to make the section of wall move back, revealing it to be a hidden door. Light fills the tomb for the first time in thousands of years, illuminating the relics lining the wall behind the head of the sarcophagus, and the explorers walk inside. They move back the lid of the sarcophagus and are stunned to find, instead of an ancient, long-decayed mummy, the perfectly preserved body of Tera, and when they move the lid back completely, they see that her right arm is missing its hand. A gust of wind blows into the tomb as they look about their surroundings, particularly at the relics, and turn around with a start upon hearing what sounds like an animalistic roar and snarl behind them. Dickerson then looks down and gasps with a start, pointing everyone to the base of the sarcophagus' pedestal, where they find Tera's severed hand. Corbeck picks it up and shows it to Fuchs, who removes the ring from the finger and examines the hieroglyphics around its rim. From this, he's able to derive Tera's name and shows it to Corbeck, who speaks it aloud. The film then suddenly cuts to a hospital back in England, where Fuchs' wife lets out a pained yell before falling limp on the bed. As the baby she's just given birth to is taken away, the doctors attempt to revive her, only to realize upon listening to her heart with a stethoscope that she's dead. The doctor is called over by the nurse to examine the baby, and when he uses his stethoscope on her, it seems as though she was stillborn... but then, he hears her heart beginning to beat again. At that moment, back in Egypt, Dickerson suddenly recoils again, yelling, "Oh, my God! Look!", and when they do, they see fresh blood pumping out of the veins in the stump of Tera's arm. While everyone else is repulsed and disturbed at this sight, Corbeck seems rather fascinated, as he smiles in an unsettling manner.

Margaret slowly awakes from her restless sleep, with Tod attempting to comfort her, but she gets out of bed and starts slipping her clothes back on, saying she must get home. Exasperated at having to go out at 3:00 AM, Tod, nonetheless, agrees to take her. Cutting to the Fuchs house, it's shown that Fuchs had fallen asleep in his study. When he awakens, he gets up and heads over to the other part of the room, removing the lid from a sarcophagus to reveal Tera's body, which he smiles at the sight of. Outside, Margaret and Tod arrive and head inside, as Margaret has said she feels her father is in some kind of danger, all while Corbeck watches from across the street. When the two of them walk through the door, they hear a bizarre sound and Margaret asks Tod if he felt what she did. He says he did, but before he can describe it, they hear Fuchs yell from downstairs. They rush to the door that leads down there and Tod says they'll have to break it down, as it's locked. Margaret says that no one but her father is allowed down there but he ignores her, saying, "So, we'll be the first." He manages to smash his arm through the door's weak wood and unlock it from the other side. They rush in to find Fuchs slumped over the now closed sarcophagus and run to his aid, as he looks as though he's about to collapse to the floor. They note some bloody scratches on his neck but wonder how it could have happened, since there's no else there and no other way in or out of the room. Fuchs manages to tell Margaret, "Dr. Putnam has my instructions. Call him...", before completely passing out. Tod wonders if he was expecting this to happen and if this is what Margaret dreamed about, but she simply sends him to call Putnam. As he does, Margaret notices that the cellar is almost completely Egyptian in look and feel, with hieroglyphics lining the walls and Egyptian artifacts and pieces of architecture sitting on the floor in various parts of the room, along with the sarcophagus.

Tod gets off the phone with Putnam and, while cleaning off some of the blood from Fuchs' neck wound that leaked onto his hand, he tells Margaret when she comes upstairs that the doctor is on his way. They then decide they'd best move Fuchs up to his bedroom and Tod goes to do so, but not before caressing the side of Margaret's face and then seeing he still had blood around his fingers. In the next scene, Fuchs is lying in bed, in a total catatonic state, as Putnam examines him. While Margaret is keen on telling the police, Putnam says that Fuchs' own special instructions were not to involve the police and that the two of them should make decisions on his behalf. Margaret figures this, indeed, means Fuchs figured something like this would happen and Putnam tells her to make him tell her everything when he awakens, adding that he himself can't tell her since Fuchs never told him everything, save for hints that he's on the verge of a monumental discovery. Putnam leaves, telling her to call him should there be any change. While Tod looks through Fuchs' papers down in his study, finding a file pertaining to Dandridge, Margaret speaks to her father, asking if he can hear her, but he doesn't respond at all. She futilely asks, "What do I have to do?", and puts her head down on his chest, still getting no response from him.

Late in the night, while Tod is asleep in a chair in the upstairs hallway, Margaret walks past him and heads down to the basement. She walks up to the side of Tera's sarcophagus and stares at her as she lies there, when suddenly, a shadowy figure behind her turns a desk lamp on. She initially thinks it's Tod but, when the man emerges from the shadows, he reveals himself to be Corbeck. He asks her if she remembers him, while she, again, calls for Tod, who awakens upstairs. Corbeck tells her that he and her father were friends and that he's come to help her, since Fuchs himself can't. Margaret then realizes who he is, saying that Fuchs deemed him unwelcome, but Corbeck says that she needs his help more than anything. Upstairs, Tod realizes that Margaret isn't in her room, while Corbeck tells her the significance of the ruby on the ring is that it's, "The symbol of the god to come." Realizing that she knows absolutely nothing, Corbeck takes it upon himself to fill her in on her father's long obsession with Tera's legend and finding the truth about her. He goes on to tell her how they and the rest of the expedition team found her hidden tomb, saying that Fuchs was maybe driven by, "Some occult knowledge that even he was unaware he possessed. It was his destiny." He also tells her of how fresh blood pumped from Tera's veins and how Margaret was born at the exact moment Fuchs first looked upon her, born in her very image, no less. During this whole time, Tod has silently made his way down to the basement steps and has been listening to Corbeck's speech. He makes his presence known by striking a match to light a cigarette, telling Margaret he heard her call him. Corbeck introduces himself as a friend of the family, as well as that Fuchs called him over. Refusing to shake Corbeck's hand, Tod walks down the steps and over to the sarcophagus, telling Corbeck that, because of his studies in parapsychology, what he heard is not complete craziness to him and he does admit that Tera has some kind of power about her. Corbeck clarifies that it's an astral power that they must try to understand, lest it be directed against them like it was at Fuchs. He asks Margaret to contact the other members of the team, and Tod mentions that he's friends with Dandridge, whom Corbeck says would rather forget everything, as he's very superstitious. In any case, Corbeck tells Tod that these people can help reunite Tera with her soul.

The next day, Tod calls Dandridge, but the minute he mentions Margaret's name, he tells him he will have nothing to do with it and hangs up on him. They decide to go see Berigan, instead. At the asylum, as the doctor leads them to his cell, he tells them that Berigan had another visitor not too long ago and that, since then, he's been acting like a man possessed. He talks about how he spends every minute reading and writing, as if he were running out of time, saying, "I think his fantasy world is dominated by the presence of some demoniac being. He fights against the clock to try to understand, to bring some... order to the world he's created himself... There's no way for us to break through to him and so, you see, we can't help him." He unlocks Berigan's cell and lets them both in. Berigan is sitting at his desk, rambling incoherently about being horribly tortured, when he senses their presence. Turning and seeing Margaret, he immediately thinks she's Tera and gets out of his chair, rambling, "I'm not ready yet! There's more to do!" Tod tries to calm him but Margaret decides to play the part of Tera, frightening Berigan even more, as he believes she's come to kill him, but she says, "I just want what's mine. My familiar. The snake!" Realizing she's powerless without it, Berigan denies having it, but then, Margaret shows him her ring with the ruby, which sends him into a panic, causing to slump across his chair and repeatedly yell, "No!" Tod stops her, saying this isn't the way to do it and that they should have the doctor get it for them, but Margaret says, "There's another way." The doctor then bursts in with the orderlies and Berigan is restrained and forced to the bed, where they begin strapping on his straight-jacket. That night, after Putnam examines Fuchs again, he tells her that, while his neck is healing and he's out of danger, his left-hand side is paralyzed. When she mentions that it's up to Fuchs to tell them what they need to know, Putnam mentions how he had no idea what he had unleashed and tried to keep Margaret out of it. She comments, "Seems like I've been involved all my life, doesn't it?", and Putnam adds, "Maybe even longer."

After saying good night to Putnam, Margaret heads down to the cellar, where he finds Tod looking through her father's journal. He tells her that, according to Fuchs' notes, the connection of her birth happening at the exact time that they entered Tera's tomb was one created by Tera herself. He further reads from the journal, "She achieved dominance over sleep, over the will. She would lie, as if dead, in her sarcophagus, as though willing her body, as though preparing for some abstract metaphysical state. An astral body, with a free will, a conscious intelligence." Tod himself adds, "We can keep people frozen in suspended animation. People with cancer, waiting for a cure, their bodies idling like a machine. Not dead, not alive, waiting. Non-life, but waiting." Margaret herself says, "I get a feeling of great loneliness. Of her, dreaming alone. Dreaming of things far different than those around her. A land far away in miles and years, yet close to her heart. No scheming and malignant priesthood. No repressive, archaic laws or endless rituals of death. A land where love is the divine possession of the soul." Tod is incredulous but Margaret insists it's nothing to laugh at, that she can feel and see it, adding that maybe it was Tera's dream to make it come true. It then cuts to the mental hospital, where Berigan is, again, in a straight-jacket, as the orderlies tease him with his cobra relic, before putting it on the table across from the foot of his bed. They leave the cell and lock the door, with Berigan looking warily at the snake. He then hears the distant sounds of yelling, but it's actually just a patient in a cell at the end of the hall, who's then joined by most of the others, who either yell, beg to be let out, or laugh maniacally. In his own cell, Berigan struggles and flails in the straight-jacket, as the sounds drive him nuts, when suddenly, everything goes quiet. Lying on his bed in silence, Berigan, after glancing again at the snake again, almost dozes off, only to look up and that it's gone. As he panics, the sounds pick up again, and he stares at the door, appearing to see shadows walking on the other side of its rim. He then sees the shadow of the snake everywhere he looks, on the wall, the floor, and the ceiling, always creeping towards him. A gust of wind, accompanied by a loud blast, blows open the window, sending the overhead light swinging back and forth and sending the papers on his desk flying. Seeing the snake's shadow drawing closer, Berigan jumps off the bed and runs to the door, yelling to be let out, as his nightstand and book shelf are knocked over by the invisible force. He bangs futilely on the door with his elbow, yelling for help, but it's clear that there's no help coming and he sinks down in the corner next to the door. The snake suddenly appears and lunges at him, and then everything goes quiet again and the force abates. Berigan is now dead, his throat torn open.

Back at the Fuchs' house, as Fuchs himself slowly begins to regain consciousness, mumbling Margaret's name, she sits up in bed and is compelled to head down to the cellar again. She approaches the sarcophagus, as a gust of air blows her hair and her nightgown's skirt back, and when she reaches Tera's body and her blurry eyes focus, she sees fresh blood pumping from inside her severed arm. She then looks and sees the cobra sitting on a ledge near the sarcophagus. Come daylight, Fuchs awakens when Margaret opens his bedroom window's curtains to let the sun in. He realizes that his entire left side is paralyzed and, initially, doesn't remember what happened. But, when she reminds him that she was out with Tod and that the two of them found him in the cellar, his memory seems to return and he's happy that she's safe. When she brings up Tera, he's surprised to hear that she knows of her, and she asks how Tera's ring was meant to protect her. Fuchs explains, "The priests of her time cut the hand from her. Not only did it symbolize what they believed was her evil, they also thought that with her body incomplete, her power would be destroyed. Evidently, it wasn't that simple." He tells her that the ring came from the severed hand and it was meant as a talisman for her. Margaret says she knows it was meant to protect her, but then adds, "Or give me her power." She tells him about Berigan's death and that the snake has appeared in the house. When she mentions Corbeck, Fuchs warns her that all she will get from him are lies and that she must not get involved with him. He then falls back asleep and Margaret, looking out the window to see Corbeck enter his own house, leaves to confront him, as her father seems to begin experiencing a restless dream.

Margaret enters the empty house, and only gets a few steps inside the door before Corbeck makes his presence known by smacking the floor of the landing at the top of the stairs with his cane. She tells him of Berigan's death and the snake's appearing in her home, but guesses that he already knew about both. She also tells him of Fuchs' recovery and that he told her everything, adding that he warned her that whatever Corbeck said would be a lie. She adds, "You're both trying to use me, but you don't care about what might happen to me. And what you say is all lies. Well, not any longer. I'm important to this affair, born in her image. I don't know how or why but you need me. I do know that. This force may have us trapped, but it fascinates me. It's part of me." Corbeck tells Margaret that her father believes Tera to be evil, and that he's been trying to find the source of the evil while keeping the evil itself locked away in the cellar. He then says, "Tera is far beyond the laws and dogma of her time, and of ours... Love, hate, she's a law compelling beyond good and evil, and if we could find out how far beyond, how much we can learn." Margaret realizes that the relics would help in resurrecting Tera, and Corbeck says that doing so would give them complete control over life and death, "Secrets hidden, obscured, unguessed at for ages, with our hands to use as we will." He also tells her that her father is too weak and afraid to be involved, saying the two of them will share whatever they get from Tera. Margaret comments, "There's still some shopping to do," and leaves the house; Corbeck realizes, "Dandridge and Dickerson," and nods. On her way, she runs into Tod, but acts very curt and impatient towards him, telling him not to bother her and saying that they'd best not see Dandridge, saying the sight of her again might kill him. Taken aback by her manner, and noting the direction she was coming from, Tod heads to the house and, as Corbeck watches from an upstairs window, tries to go through the front door but finds it locked. Looking through the window and seeing a satchel sitting at the bottom of the stairs, he goes around the back. He enters through a rear door and picks up the satchel, when Corbeck surprises him from the stairs. He mentions how he may buy the house, adding, "It all depends on... circumstances," before motioning for Tod to give him the satchel. He does, and as Corbeck looks through it, he asks, "Do I need to ask you to leave?" Tod asks, "What are you doing to Margaret?", to which Corbeck retorts, "Why? What's she doing to you?" Angered at that remark, Tod lunges at him, but Corbeck pulls a gun on him. He simply tells Tod that she's gone "shopping."

That night, Dandridge is still working in his office, when Veronica tells him it's 5:50. He, in turn, tells her she can go and she asks him not to work too hard. Before leaving, she gives him a newspaper with an article on Berigan's death, which Dandridge is shocked to learn about. He then unlocks the cabinet containing the jackal skull, takes out the box containing it, and removes it from the box. Suddenly, his table lamp goes out and he hears the sound of approaching footsteps from the hall leading to his office. He asks who it is, going from Corbeck to Tod and then to Veronica, but gets no response. He places the skull back in the box and puts the lid back on, again demanding the person identify themselves, and gasps when he sees it's Margaret. She tells him she wants the skull, while he says he believes she and her father killed Berigan. She tells him, "He was afraid he'd die if he gave it up. Is that what you think? Supposing you die if you keep it. Have you thought of that? We want it, Mr. Dandridge!" Terrified, Dandridge turns around, opens up the window behind him, puts the box down on the steps on the outside railing, and climbs out. But, when he does, his foot knocks the box down the steps, sending the skull tumbling out and falling out of sight. Realizing what he's done, Dandridge rushes down the steps and grabs the box, only to confirm for himself that he's lost the skull. He climbs down the railing to the ground and searches for it, when he's taken aback by the sound of a howling animal. Deciding to forget about the skull, he rushes through the back-alley and out the door leading onto the street. Meanwhile, Tod buzzes Dandridge's door, only to be surprised when, after a second buzz, Margaret walks out. When asked, she says she changed her mind about seeing Dandridge, and when he asks what it is she's up to, she tells him Dandridge isn't there and tries to get him to come with her. Tod, however, isn't keen on leaving without taking a look around, and Margaret leaves him to it, but tells him he'll be wasting his time. Walking into Dandridge's office, Tod notices the open window, and after calling for Dandridge and getting no answer, walks over to it and hears some scuffling, as well as a howl. He climbs out onto the railing and, finding the empty box, climbs down to the ground and walks out to the street. He hears nothing but a dog barking as he walks to the end of the foggy street, but turns when he hears a clatter and some footsteps nearby and walks down it in the opposite direction. He then hears the sound of screaming and a loud, crashing thud nearby, prompting him to rush to a lot on the opposite side of the street. There, he finds Dandridge's body underneath some old junk and removes some of it to find his throat has been torn out, which he winces at the sight of. He then pulls the body out and walks out into the street with him in his hands, when he sees the shadow of a jackal on the wall of the building across from him. He doesn't see anything when he looks down the street, but the shadow lingers before wandering off.

Back at her home, after washing her hands in a sink down in the basement, Margaret walks over to the sarcophagus and looks at Tera. Again, blood oozes from her severed arm and, as Corbeck appears behind her, both he and Margaret see that the jackal skull has now appeared on the ledge along with the cobra. As Fuchs awakens upstairs, calling for Margaret, Tod arrives as well and storms down to the cellar. He tells them, "You two had better not know what the hell you've been doing. Margaret, I hope to God you don't. But it's ended. We're getting out of this, all of us." Margaret refuses but he tells them that what they're messing with could kill the both of them, to which Corbeck retorts, "Like smoking, or driving cars." Writing off Corbeck as insane, Tod tries to get Margaret to come with him but she refuses, even when he slaps her in frustration. He then leaves, telling them he's going to get help for the two of them, and Margaret warns, "Tod, don't, or you're dead!" He ignores that warning/threat and then, Margaret has a horrifying vision of Tod driving down the street, when his car's top pops up and he tries to pull it back down (during these shots, Tod's car is clearly not moving at all), when he swerves off the road and crashes into a tree. He's slammed forward and when he reels back, you see that the impact ripped open his throat and he quickly dies from loss of blood, his body slumping down over the side of the car's bottom. Upstairs, as Fuchs struggles to put a robe on over his pajamas, Corbeck tells the hysterical Margaret that Tod would have died anyway, but she says she wished him dead. Distraught, she runs, grabs a blade in the back of the cellar, and attempts to stab Tera with it, but Corbeck grabs her hand, telling her, "Don't fight it. Let it flow through you. Let it be yours. Look at the ring. When I saw you wearing it, I knew the time was near; otherwise, he wouldn't have given it to you. The stars shift their relative position in the heavens through enormous distances, but they appear small. They are measured by centuries, not by years. But they do not correspond to their position in the constellation as it was when she was alive. They are in the position that they are in now, tonight!" Margaret realizes that Tera arranged it and Corbeck tells her, "So, you must not weaken. You were born for this! You are coming of age." Margaret then collapses to the floor.

Fuchs finally manages to make his way to the cellar door and, when he opens it and starts down the steps, he finds Corbeck standing over Margaret's collapsed body. He believes Corbeck did something to her but he insists that she's fine. Fuchs rushes to her side, saying she needs help, but Corbeck tells him, "She doesn't exist. She's a pawn, an instrument, a vessel... Let's face it: when tonight is over, she will be dead and Tera will live." Fuchs refuses to be party to what's happening, but Corbeck tells him, "All you've done is lock yourself in here and play games. 'How clever I am. How is it possible? Wouldn't it be... fun if it were all true?' Well, it is true. Undeniably so, and you... you are scared. Every waking moment, you are scared. And she's made you see, hasn't she? See your conceits, see your games. Tera has given you a warning." To emphasize his point, Corbeck points at the bandaged side of Fuchs' neck, and says, "'Don't let me down. Don't try and back out, or you are dead.' You know what you've got to do, and you know there's no help for her." When Fuchs concedes to this, Corbeck says he must go and "bring some things," adding that they will then be almost ready. He leaves and Fuchs helplessly looks at his daughter, before scanning the relics lining the wall. He intones, "One last relic. The third phase of her soul. Without it, we can stop this nightmare. Unless it's all too late." He turns Margaret over onto her back and cradles her.

Margaret is now up in her bedroom, tossing and turning in her bed, dreaming about Tod, as Fuchs and Dr. Putnam watch from the foot. They then hear her speaking in Egyptian and Fuchs tells Putnam to sedate her, saying she mustn't be conscious. Fuchs leaves the room, as Putnam prepares the syringe, while Margaret intones, "Time is just a memory out of space. What are the dead but memory, and when the memory dies... There are mighty things, but life itself is mightier." His back to the bed, Putnam fills his syringe with the sedative, as Corbeck watches from across the street. When he turns around, he finds Margaret standing beside her bed. He tells her to get back in bed, that he's going to give her something that will make her sleep, but she says, "I've been sleeping too long." Putnam calls for Fuchs and then, there's this exchange between him and Margaret: "Afraid?" "I'm only trying to help you. Why should I be afraid?" "Because I want to see you die!" She rushes at Putnam and, while Corbeck continues to watch, the doctor is sent backwards through the window, landing on the balcony behind it. Corbeck leaves to walk over to the house, while Margaret looks down at Putnam's body, which now sports the tell-tale ripped throat. She regains her senses and screams in horror at what she's done, which Fuchs hears down in the cellar. Limping upstairs, and finding the front door open, he yells for Putnam and heads on up to Margaret's bedroom, where he finds the doctor's body. Margaret, meanwhile, flees into the countryside. Fuchs drags Putnam's body back inside, when Corbeck appears in the doorway, asking what he plans to do with the body. He notes, "You have an incinerator. It takes longer, but it's safer. You see, I'm not even going to ask you why you killed him. Now then, let me give you a hand." Corbeck rips the drapes off the window, using them to cover the body, and he and Fuchs haul it downstairs. As they do, Corbeck tells Fuchs that he now has the Scroll of Life and soon, Tera will be reborn. Fuchs tries to tell him that Tera is beyond control but Corbeck doesn't agree. He asks where Margaret is and Fuchs says he doesn't know where she ran off to, but Corbeck says, "We know where, don't we?"

As dark clouds gather overhead, Margaret makes her way to the nearest home, which happens to be Ellen Dickerson's house, and knocks on the door. Dickerson's assistant, a rather effeminate man with red painted fingernails, answers the door, while Dickerson herself turns off the light and hides in the next room. Slowly opening the door as Margaret asks for help and says who she is, the assistant, who makes weird eye flutters at her, asks if she wants to see Dickerson. Overhearing them, and realizing she's Fuchs' daughter, Dickerson tells her assistant to allow her inside. But, when she sees Margaret, Dickerson hides behind a chair, recognizing her as Tera. Margaret asks for help but Dickerson grabs a fire poker and prepares to attack, telling Margaret she won't run from her. Before she can whack Margaret with the poker, Tera takes hold of her again and tells Dickerson that she'll be safe if she gives her the relic. Dickerson runs to a nearby cabinet and takes out the small black cat idol, asking Margaret not to allow it to kill her. She brings the idol to Margaret, who acts as if she's going to take it, but as a gust of wind blows through the house, she places it on the table, and as the house starts to shake from what appears to be a powerful storm brewing up outside, she walks out the door. Dickerson realizes she's been tricked, and her assistant flees as well, leaving her alone with the idol, which she recoils and shields herself from, knowing it's going to attack. She tries to flee, but she's unable to escape its power, as scratch marks start appearing on her face and the idol seems to be approaching her. After more and more bloody scratches appear on her face, as she screams and flails around, Dickerson collapses to the floor. Margaret, again, flees through the countryside, only to fall to the ground and see that the birthmark beneath her right wrist is bleeding. She turns around and heads back to the Dickerson house, as Corbeck arrives there to find Dickerson's body. Margaret, again possessed by Tera, walks into the doorway and beckons him to come with her.

Back at the Fuchs home, Fuchs finishes the gruesome task of burning Putnam's body in the cellar's furnace, after which he splashes some water on his face. He notices Corbeck's satchel on the table across from him and pulls out of it a rolled up piece of paper that, when he unfurls it, he sees is the Scroll of Life. And he then notices that all of the relics are now down there as well, prompting him to open a box on the table, revealing his own relic: Tera's severed hand, which is now animated. He immediately closes the box, only to feel Margaret's hand on his neck, which now has fresh scratches on it, and when she rubs her hand across them, they disappear in an instant. He turns to see her and Corbeck standing there, and watches as Margaret takes the scroll and hands it to Corbeck, who then takes the hand and walks over to the sarcophagus. He removes the hand from the box and places it at the stump of Tera's right hand, before then taking the scroll and preparing to read. Fuchs tells him to stop, saying he must destroy the scroll, saying, "It can only bring and evil destruction. The worst that's in you, the worst that's in all of us! That's all we've seen from this business! But it's not what Tera wants." Accusing Margaret of abusing Tera's power, he asks that they wait until Tera herself is ready. Margaret says that Tera is ready now and orders her father to get the lamps necessary for the ritual, telling him that good and beauty are worthless without their opposites. Reluctantly, after some more prodding, Fuchs goes to get the lamps and they're then set around the foot of the sarcophagus' pedestal. Corbeck climbs up again and begins reading from the scroll, and as he commands that life be restored to Tera, her hand and arm become one again. Holding hands, Fuchs and Margaret get down on their knees, as Margaret explains that they're merely pawns for Tera, that they've always been so, and that they will be worthless to her once she's resurrected. Fuchs, however, tells her that Tera literally is her and that they must stop Corbeck. Managing to get to their feet, they rush him, with Fuchs grabbing his neck while Margaret takes an ancient blade and attempts to stab him with it, a task Fuchs manages to accomplish when he grabs it. Corbeck falls to the floor, dead, but at that moment, Tera's eyes open and she says, "The scroll." She rises up and both Fuchs and Margaret try to attack her, but she grabs both their necks, killing Fuchs by tearing his throat out, while struggling with Margaret as she tries to stab her with the blade, both of their right wrists bleeding. Margaret eventually gets the upper hand and stabs Tera in her chest, sending blood spurting as she cries in pain. She manages to grab Margaret's throat, but they both quickly lose their strength and collapse down. The place begins to shake, the walls crack, various objects fall over, wind blows through the cellar, blasting everything to the floor. The ceiling then caves in, burying Margaret and Tera's bodies, as they lie side by side.

An ambulance is then seen speeding down the streets of London, and the last scene takes place in a hospital room. A female doctor walks in, as a nurse sits up with a patient who's lying in a bed, her head and hands completely bandaged, and when she looks at the chart, she sees that there's no information whatsoever. The nurse tells her the woman was found naked, more dead than alive, that everyone else at the scene was crushed beyond recognition, and that she herself is the only one who can tell them her identity. The camera does a final push-in to the slit in the bandages for the woman's eyes, as they open and she mumbles, but whatever she's saying is completely unintelligible, and whether she's Margaret Fuchs or Tera is left a mystery.

Tristram Cary, the composer of Quatermass and the Pit, was the one behind this score, and while I didn't think much of his music for Quatermass, this is much more memorable, while being very subtle and low-key for the most part. The main title theme starts out very subtle, before building to a bombastic crescendo, and then does the same thing again, only for a longer bit of time, before transitioning into a distinctive, Egyptian-sounding motif, which is heard again at the end of the piece after some more, old fashioned-sounding creeping and atmospheric music; a different variation of this theme is heard during the ending credits. However, the piece of music that's most likely to stick in your head is this oft-repeated low, creeping bit that sounds distinctively Egyptian and helps to create a feeling of unease. In fact, that music almost becomes the score for the whole movie, as you hear it so much that it overshadows anything else Cary composes (which, like with his Quatermass score, isn't much else, anyway), but that's not a bad thing, because it's more than plenty for me.

If you're like me and you find Mummy movies, Hammer or otherwise, to be repetitive, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb may turn out to be a welcome breath of fresh air. While the story and plot are rather complex and can be hard to understand, and most of the characters aren't that great or compelling, despite some good actors in the cast, the movie is well-made enough, with good instances of camerawork, cinematography, and editing, nicely atmospheric and well-orchestrated scenes, good instances of gore, a memorably creepy score, and an intriguing, ambiguous ending, that I would recommend giving it a watch at least twice. I say "twice" because, if you're also like me and don't care for it the first time, you may find yourself warming up to it if you watch it again.