Hammer Time: The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)

As I've said numerous times before when talking about so many classic horror franchises, I knew, thanks to the filmography in that Monster Mania book, that Hammer made several other mummy movies after their first one in 1959. But, while I did see that one a few times before I owned it on DVD, I saw not one single clip of the others until I was in my late 20's and early 30's, as for a long time, they were virtually impossible to come by. This particular film finally got a DVD release in the late 2000's when it was released in a set from Sony, along with several other Hammer films, but, as I said in my review of The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, which was part of that set, while I had intended to get it around the time it was originally released, it eluded me until I got it used at McKay's in Chattanooga in 2017. Not being that big into mummy movies anyway, I wasn't expecting much from this, especially when it had such a generic title, but even with such low expectations, it really failed to impress. I've only watched it twice since, both times in preparation for this review, and it's still proven to be one of Hammer's most ho-hum movies, simply because it's a very routine, by-the-numbers mummy horror flick, with little that you probably haven't seen done a thousand times and with more novelty. It's also not helped by stodgy acting and mostly forgettable characters, a plot that's a bit of a mess, a lack of grandeur to the sets and production design, and a main antagonist who takes forever to show up and, when he finally does, has nothing on the surprisingly complex character Christopher Lee played in the 1959 film.

Egypt, the year 1900. Archeologist Eugene Dubois is murdered by a band of Egyptian natives and his body is brought back to the camp where his comrades, fellow archeologists John Bray and Sir Giles Dairymple, and his daughter, Annette, are staying. His death comes on the the heels of their uncovering the tomb of Ra-Antef, an ancient pharaoh, which is said to hold a deadly curse for whoever desecrates it. Dairymple, the head of the expedition, decides to break camp and bring everything back to Cairo where they can continue their cataloging in a much safer environment. Within a week, everything, including the sarcophagus containing the pharaoh's mummy, has been shipped, when the team is visited by their financial backer, American showman Alexander King. King drops a bombshell on Dairymple and Egyptian government representative Hashmi Bey when he says he plans to tour the world with the mummy and the relics, rather than accept the Cairo Museum's offer for them. Dairymple resigns in protest over this and so, King appoints Bray as the new head of the party. That night, the store-room where the relics are being held is ransacked, leaving one of the local servants dead and the inventory list missing. Then, during their passage to London, where the tour is to begin, Dairymple and Bray are attacked by a knife-wielding stranger who seemed to be searching for something in the former's cabin, but when he tries to attack Annette, she's saved through the intervention of another passenger, an Englishman named Adam Beauchamp. Beauchamp, who says he has an interest in their work, insists they stay with him in his mansion at Regent's Park during the time leading to their first exhibition. However, it's obvious that Beauchamp is also quite interested in Annette, who happens to be Bray's fiance, as well as in a medallion she says was given to her by her late father. Inspecting it, he says it's 2,000 years older than Ra's tomb, and Bray decides to have it authenticated, but before he can do so definitively, he's knocked unconscious by an intruder who steals the medallion. And then, come the night of the London exhibition, the mummy is discovered to be missing from its sarcophagus, though no one knows who might have taken it. Turns out, it wasn't stolen, but instead has been resurrected and is now acting out the curse, intending to kill those who were present when its tomb was desecrated, and the person behind its reanimation may have more intimate knowledge about its history than anyone could ever imagine.

This is a rare instance of Michael Carreras, an executive and frequent producer at Hammer, as well as the son of the studio's founder, James Carreras, getting into the director's chair. That said, it was not Carreras' first foray into directing, as he'd done some documentary shorts in the mid-50's and had made his feature debut with the 1957 war film, The Steel Bayonet (which featured an early role for Michael Caine), following that up with a spy thriller, Passport to China (aka Visa to Canton), Savage Guns (often cited as the first true spaghetti western), Hammer's 1962 psychological thriller, Maniac, and a musical, What a Crazy World. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, which he also penned under the pseudonym of "Henry Younger," along with a Alvin Rakoff, would be one of his few true forays into the horror genre as a director (a genre he admitted he wasn't really a fan of), and he would follow it up with the fantasy adventures, Prehistoric Women and The Lost Continent (the latter of which he took over from a director who walked off it). While he wouldn't direct Hammer's third mummy film, 1967's The Mummy's Shroud, Carreras would be forced to step in for the final week of shooting on their fourth, 1972's Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, when the main director, Seth Holt, unexpectedly died.

The cast is a very dull lot, for the most part, with few of the actors having any charisma or presence to them, making it all but impossible to care. For instance, our ostensible leading man, John Bray (Ronald Howard), is a real bore and merely goes through the motions of trying to figure out what's going on with the attacks and acts of vandalism that plague the team when they uncover the tomb of Ra-Antef and prepare to embark on a tour of exhibitions across the world with the relics therein. Though he initially believes the legends of the curse are just superstition, and even accuses Hashmi Bey of using it to sabotage their expedition because the Egyptian government wants to keep the finds for themselves, he comes to believe that Ra's mummy has been restored to life when he examines the hieroglyphics on a medallion that Annette Dubois, his fiance, says her father gave her. At first, he believes it came from Ra's tomb, but when Adam Beauchamp insists the stone and hieroglyphics are at least 2,000 years older, Bray carefully examines it and comes to believe it's a mystical medallion for reanimating the dead that was said to have been given to Ra when he became pharaoh to a tribe of nomads in the desert. He's then knocked unconscious and the medallion stolen, and when the mummy goes missing as well, it convinces him that the culprit did so in order to resurrect Ra and he's soon proven right, as the undead pharaoh starts acting out the curse by killing those who desecrated his tomb. Bray then join forces with Bey to try to stop the killing, but his role in the climax doesn't amount to much, and it's made unclear as to how he figured out Beauchamp's tie to the mummy, if he did at all. And though Bray is engaged to Annette, their interactions can hardly be called romantic, and while he's obviously jealous of Beauchamp's interest in her, which she reciprocates, he doesn't do a single thing about it and never confronts either of them. He's not even the one who ultimately saves Annette, and is only heard when a rope is tossed down into the sewers for her to climb up after the mummy has vanquished himself.

Annette Dubois (Jeanne Roland) proves to be yet another in the long line of Hammer leading ladies who may look pretty but have very little of substance to them. Not that they don't try give her anything to play off, as she tells Beauchamp how she was a disappointment to her father, who wanted a son, and that she studied archeology and Egyptology in order to win his approval, which she managed to do, but that doesn't amount to anything, seeing as how her father is killed at the very beginning of the movie and she appears to get over it rather quickly, save for some moments of sadness here and there. As for her relationship with her fiance, John Bray, despite their engagement, their interactions could be a lot more loving and affectionate; moreover, Annette also tells Beauchamp that Bray doesn't share his viewpoint about the benefit of an intelligent woman in both the home and the academy. Small wonder then that she says she's not even sure if she is going to marry him and, instead, abruptly falls for Beauchamp, to the point where she decides to leave London with him and only tell Bray a farewell note. But, before they can leave, Beauchamp is attacked and badly injured by the mummy, who also takes an interest in her, despite her being one of the desecraters he's meant to punish. She later learns that Beauchamp is actually Bea, the brother of Ra-Antef, who had Ra murdered and was punished by their father to live eternally, with Ra being the only one who could kill him. Because her father gave her Ra's medallion that could resurrect the dead, Bea now has a chance to find peace, as he's used the medallion to bring his brother back to life. Again, Annette herself should be fated to die at Ra's hands, but because of her beauty, the mummy is unable to do it and simply kills his brother before burying himself, allowing her to live.

Adam Beauchamp (Terence Morgan) is a suspicious character from the moment he's first introduced, when he seems to rather conveniently step in and save Annette from the man who attacks both Sir Giles Dairymple and John Bray on the ship from Egypt to London. He also proves to have an interest in Annette, his compliments of her beauty and intelligence clearly signs of an infatuation, and it's obviously more of a pointed interest than his claim he's interested in their work. After making friends with Annette and Bray on the ship, he insists they stay with him at his home in Regent's Park while they're in London for the first exhibition of the mummy, and he spends practically every waking moment with Annette, a fact that's not lost on Bray. Eventually, Beauchamp charms her with his surprisingly progressive ideals to the point where she decides to break off her engagement with Bray in order to leave London with him, but before they can, the resurrected mummy breaks into his house and attacks him. This initially seems unusual, as Beauchamp is not a member of the team who uncovered the tomb, so he should be exempt from the curse said to befall those who do desecrate it, but it turns out he has a connection with Ra-Antef that nobody could have imagined. His attitude and manner when Annette tells him of the legend of Ra, particularly when he comments how those who killed Ra missed the medallion of life he had on him and how fanatical he gets about Annette not knowing for certain if it was buried with him, growling, "So your facts are no more than legend after all!", is the first clue. Later, when he looks at a medallion Annette says was given to her by her father, he insists that it's 2,000 years older than Ra's tomb and implores the disbelieving Bray to research the hieroglyphics before jumping to conclusions, only for him to be knocked unconscious and the medallion taken. The medallion is revealed to indeed be the life-giving one that Ra had on his person, and was used to resurrect his mummy by none other than Beauchamp, who happens to be Ra's brother, Bea, the one who arranged to have Ra killed and was cursed with eternal life by their father for it. He can only die by Ra's hand and has now brought him back to life to do just that, as he's tired of living forever in what he sees as a violent and turbulent world. He first tries to get Ra to finish enacting his curse by killing the last of the desecraters, but becomes frustrated when Ra is hesitant to kill Annette and tries to do so himself, only for his brother to finally kill him by drowning him.

Sir Giles Dairymple (Jack Gwillim) starts out as the head of the archeological expedition that unearths Ra-Antef's tomb, but when Alexander King reveals his plan to take the mummy and the relics on a worldwide tour rather than send them to the Cairo Museum, he resigns out of protest and John Bray is put in his place. Already something of a boozer, Dairymple begins to drink much more heavily afterward, and it's further compounded when he's refused to work in Egypt again due to King's plan, threatening to force him into retirement. He's targeted by the mysterious attacker on the ship when he walks in on him ransacking his cabin, searching for something, and when they reach London, he becomes a virtual recluse in his house. When Bray comes to him, hoping his expertise will help him to determine the origin of Annette's medallion, Dairymple, again drunk, instead grumbles about the situation: "If money is to be the yardstick by which the value of education is to be assessed, then I fear for the future. Let's make the redoubtable Mr. King headmaster of Eaton and be done with it. In six months, he'd turn the playing field into a miniature Coney Island, with each boy a barker on a percented share of the profit... And whoever heard of an Egyptologist who wasn't allowed into Egypt? There's no court of appeal, you know?" He totally ignores Bray's trying to get him back to the matter at hand, growling, "That damned Hashmi! I didn't hear him tell the authorities that it was King who was responsible for removing the relics." Bray, again, tries to get Dairymple to focus on the hieroglyphics, and while he does, he ends up spilling some brandy on the books in his drunkenness, causing Bray to lose his temper and grumble, "Oh, you clumsy, drunken old...!" Though he doesn't finish what he was saying, Dairymple hears enough to know he's in the way, accusing Bray of disrespecting him, and goes to bed, leaving him alone and vulnerable to the intruder who comes in, knocks him out, and takes the medallion. Despite his sad condition and state-of-mind, Dairymple does attend the opening night of the exhibition, where he sees that the mummy is not in the coffin. In the police investigation afterward, King accuses of Dairymple of possibly being involved, given his disdain for the idea of the tour, while Dairymple, in turn, tells King it wouldn't have happened had they taken the Cairo Museum's offer. Later, while at his house, and continuing to booze it up, he finds some of the transcriptions Bray had made of the medallion's hieroglyphics and, looking over them, find they contain, "The sacred words of life." But then, the mummy smashes his way into the house, corners Dairymple, and beats his head in with a large ornament.

The best character in the movie is Alexander King (Fred Clark), the American showman who acted as the expedition's financial backer. He's very much a Carl Denham sort of figure, as he has a very big, fast-talking personality and is always looking for the next thing that can make him rich. To that end, he decides that the Cairo Museum's offer of 70,000 pounds for the relics found in Ra-Antef's tomb is not good enough and brings up his plan to take the mummy and everything else on a worldwide tour, which he believes will bring them 700,000 pounds. He's not all intimidated by Hashmi Bey's threatening to talk to his superiors about his plans, and when Sir Giles Dairymple resigns as the expedition's head over it, King merely replaces him with John Bray, feeling that Dairymple is just an old-fashioned guy who needs to join the 20th century, now that it's begun. Moreover, he plans to use the legend of the curse in his shows, warning the audience of it. While his plan unintentionally results in Dairymple being barred from ever working in Egypt again, and he's also shown to be very demanding to those putting together the venue for the first exhibition in London, as well as flatly refusing a plea from the Egyptian government to ship everything back, writing their offer of 125,000 pounds off as "chickenfeed," King is not a loathsome character at all, due to his energy, optimism, and high ambitions. When you first see him, he's playing with a little monkey, telling him, "If you'd only learn to play chess, we could make a fortune!", and says something similar to a very sexy belly-dancer, "You ever learn to do that to ragtime, give me a call. We'll make a fortune!" He also proves himself to be quite a decent guy, as he gives some money to one of his workmen, and while he turns down a prostitute's offer at one point, he gives her some money regardless. But, his good mood doesn't last when he puts on his first exhibition, only for the mummy to turn up missing, and he believes that anyone from Bey to Dairymple could be responsible. He's also so preoccupied with who could have stolen it that he dismisses Bray's suggestion that someone could have taken it in order to restore it to life... until, on his way home that night, he runs into the mummy and is strangled and thrown into the river.

George Pastell, who played the villainous Mehemet Bey in Hammer's first mummy film, is here again as Hashmi Bey, a representative of the Egyptian government who works closely with the expedition team. As in the 1959 film, he tries to warn his colleagues of a curse that could come about from their unearthing Ra-Antef's tomb, which John Bray at first sees as an attempt to scare them off so the Egyptian government could keep everything for themselves, and he's shocked by Alexander King's plan to take the relics on a worldwide tour. He decides to speak with his superiors about it and, when Sir Giles Dairymple makes no move to bar King from doing so, Bey mentions that he will now have to take certain steps, which result in Dairymple being barred from working in Egypt again. Bey later appears in London on the night of the first exhibition, trying to get King to return the relics and the mummy to Egypt, but to no avail, and when the mummy turns up missing, Bey is one of the people King suspects. After Bray becomes convinced that the mummy has been resurrected with the words on the medallion, he goes to Bey for assistance. There's a moment where it looks as if he will turn out to be as villainous as his counterpart in the first film, as he pulls a knife on Bray when he finds him snooping around his room at a boardinghouse, but the two of them come to an understanding and Bey elects to help Bray end the senseless killing. He goes with Bray to inform the police and, while Inspector Mackenzie doesn't really believe their claims about a living mummy at first, he does allow the two of them to act as bait for a trap, during which they try to find a reason why the mummy would have attacked someone who wasn't part of the group who unearthed the tomb. When the mummy breaks into the house, the police drop a net on him, and Bey offers himself as a sacrifice. The mummy proceeds to break free of the net and crush Bey's head under his enormous foot.

The character of Inspector Mackenzie (John Paul) is a very standard one, with none of the personality or, for that matter, even a fraction of the screentime of Inspector Mulrooney in the 1959 film. He first shows up to investigate the disappearance of the mummy from the exhibition, assuming it was just a simple theft, and tries to get a lead on who might have done it. Inevitably John Bray and Hashmi Bey later go to him with their belief that the mummy has been resurrected. Of course, he doesn't necessarily believe them, and a temporary hole is shot in their theory when they learn the mummy attacked Adam Beauchamp, which he shouldn't have, but Mackenzie gives them a second chance to prove they're right, commenting that a second chance is an advantage an amateur detective has over a professional. Their second chance manages to temporarily trap the mummy, and Mackenzie watches him break out of the net they put him under and crush Bey's head before leaving. Mackenzie has his men follow the mummy and must admit that their theory about him was proven right. After that, he, his men, and Bray show back up at Beauchamp's house to save Annette, but are unable to stop her from being taken into the sewers by both Beauchamp and the mummy and, again, they have no role in the climax, merely throwing down a rope for Annette after the mummy has been vanquished.

Michael Ripper has a tiny role here in the opening in Egypt as, of all things, an Egyptian servant named Achmed. Ripper, who had a voice that was as English as you could get, makes a convincing Egyptian about as much as I, a Caucasian guy from Tennessee, would a Japanese (when I heard his voice before seeing him, I thought he was meant to be part of the English expedition). In any case, Achmed has a funny moment where he belches and tries to blame it on the mummy, but is later killed when the warehouse containing the relics from Ra-Antef's tomb is broken into before they depart for London. Another bit player who also appeared in the 1959 and is back again is Harold Goodwin, who originally played one of the drunken deliverymen who ended up dumping the crate containing Kharis' body into a swamp; here, he appears as Fred, one of Alexander King's workmen in London, who's thoroughly freaked out by the mummy. He grows especially nervous when he overhears John Bray tell King of his idea that that's what happened after the mummy disappears, but when a buddy of his (Jimmy Gardner) gets a coin from King when he helps him put his evening coat on before leaving, Fred becomes preoccupied with that, insisting half of it is his, and his friend decides to settle it by betting all or nothing on the next game of cards they play. And speaking of actors who were in the first film, I thought Felix Aylmer, who played Stephen Banning in that film, was here again at the very beginning as Eugene Dubois, Annette's father, who is tied up, has his hand lopped off, and is stabbed to death, but it's actually an actor named Bernard Rebel, who really died before the film was released.

While Christopher Lee was able to bring quite a bit to his portrayal of Kharis in The Mummy, Dickie Owen is hardly up to Lee's caliber and, as such, his portrayal of the resurrected Ra-Antef here is much more in line with that of the stereotypical, slow-moving mummy from the 40's Universal films. I'll admit that he is a bit more intimidating than Kharis ever was in those films, mainly due to his large stature, the deep, Michael Myers-like breathing he emits, and his various methods of killing people besides just strangling them, but he's still very run-of-the-mill in how he's rather slow and gets his hands on his victims usually because they're too dumb to just run. Fortunately, there are only a couple of such scenes but that leads into another issue: Ra isn't resurrected until almost an hour into this 80-minute movie, so you're not going to see much of what you'd come to expect from such a flick anyway. And even at meting out the curse that's supposed to befall those who disturbed his tomb, he sucks, as he completely ignores John Bray after killing Hashmi Bey, despite having a golden opportunity to go for him, and he spares Annette at the very end simply because of her beauty, much to Adam Beauchamp's irritation. As for his design, it's passable, though it's not much different from what Roy Ashton did with Lee's makeup and costume in the first film, save for Ra having a much deader face than Kharis did, with eyes that are almost non-existent, save for some closeups here and there.

The IMDB trivia section for this film mentioned something that I'd never thought about before: this is the first time where the resurrected mummy is actually a pharaoh rather than someone like a high priest, as both Imhotep and Kharis had been in the past. As in previous movies, we get a flashback showing Ra-Antef (Michael McStay) when he was alive. His story is that he was one of two sons born to Ramses VIII and was the favored son, before his jealous brother, Bea, had him branded as a "witch" and his father banished him to the desert. In the desert, Ra met a tribe of nomadic people who eventually made him their ruler, giving him a medallion able to restore life to the dead as part of the coronation. He decided to return to his homeland, but when Bea heard of this, he sent assassins to kill Ra, who stabbed him and cut off his left hand as proof that they'd succeeded, an act that, as you learn, led to Bea being cursed with eternal life by Ramses.

The phrase, "Been there, done that," is definitely the best way to describe The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, as it is the most predictable mummy horror movie possible. It's yet another story about a team of archeologists who unearth an Egyptian tomb, ignoring warnings about a death curse that's said to follow those who disturb it, and they soon become the targets of a slow-moving, reanimated mummy. But, even worse than its lack of originality, and the fact that the mummy doesn't start killing people until almost hour in, is that there are quite a few plotholes and instances of sloppy writing. You never find out the identity of the group of people who are targeting the team from the very beginning, murdering Eugene Dubois, breaking into the warehouse and killing Achmed, and attacking them on the ship to London and ransacking Sir Giles Dairymple's cabin, clearly in search of something. You can deduce that these attacks stem from their not wanting Ra-Antef's tomb uncovered, and also that they're searching for the medallion that was given to Annette, but you never find out who they are, save for perhaps superstitious nomads, and the mystery surrounding them and the fact they stole the list of the items removed from the tomb is dropped once Adam Beauchamp enters the story. Speaking of Beauchamp, when he examines Annette's medallion and believes, contrary to what John Bray thinks, it's 2,000 years older than Ra's tomb, he talks Bray into examining it thoroughly to prove who's right. This leads to him going over to Dairymple's home to do so, wherein he's knocked out and the medallion taken by someone who you learn was Beauchamp in order to revive Ra. So, what was the point of talking Bray into doing this research? Did he really need it authenticated, which he doesn't even wait for before taking it anyway, or was it so he could have an opportunity to take the medallion without anyone seeing? And later, when Ra attacks Beauchamp, everyone wonders why that happened, since he wasn't one of the people who unearthed his tomb. His connection to Ra aside, why was Beauchamp attacked in that one moment? Was it just a ruse to make him look innocent, or was it some sort of brotherly spat? Why should Beauchamp be resisting anyway, if he wants to be freed from the curse of everlasting life? Why is it important for Ra to kill all the descraters before killing his brother? And why aren't Annette's suspicions aroused when Beauchamp yells something in Egyptian to Ra? Plus, as I've already mentioned, Ra completely ignores an opportunity to kill Bray after crushing Hashmi Bey's head, which he shouldn't have (after Ra leaves, Inspector Mackenzie even mentions how both he and Annette should be next), and his reluctance to kill Annette simply because of her beauty is just downright lazy.

You can always expect a color movie made around this time that deals with Egypt or other such exotic locales to look good, and that's definitely the case here. The movie has a very rich color palette, with a lot of gold and some striking, deep blue lighting in certain shots, and there's some good cinematography by Otto Heller, some notable examples being the flashbacks to ancient Egypt and the fog-shrouded streets of London where the resurrected Ra first appears and is partially obscured by the mist when he kills Alexander King. As for the production design and sets by Bernard Robinson, while they're nice to look at, as always, they're not quite as spectacular or grand as some of his other work, likely owing to how this was a movie Hammer just kind of threw out there. All of the sets on the Egyptian side of the story, like the interior of the tomb and the nightclub with the belly-dancers, as well as Ra's throne-room in the flashback, look good, and while the scene in the beginning, where Eugene Dubois is murdered, is clearly a set with a backdrop, it has a beauty to it with the pink clouds in the sky in the background. Again, the streets of London seen in the film, though obviously confined to a street, one staircase, and a small waterfront, are well-photographed with the mist; Sir Giles Dairymple's large study in his home and the interior of Adam Beauchamp's home in Regent's Park have the typical elegance you would expect in these Hammer period pieces, especially in the case of the latter's lovely cellar, which is full of Egyptian relics; and the exhibition hall where King presents the mummy is another great set, with its Egyptian-themed architecture and paraphernalia, bright colors, and hint of elegance. The most memorable set in the film by far, though, is the sewer tunnel beneath London where the climax takes place, which is dark, dank, and as classically Gothic as you can get, akin to the tunnels beneath the Opera House in any version of The Phantom of the Opera. Speaking of the sets, this was shot at Associated British Studios in Elstree, London, but I wondered if at least some of this wasn't shot at Bray, as some of these sets look rather familiar, with the basement of Beauchamp's house looking similar to a set that was featured in, among other films, Terence Fisher's The Man Who Could Cheat Death, and the set for the flashback to ancient Egypt looks like the same one used for the flashback depicting Princess Ananka's funeral procession in The Mummy. Of course, I could be wrong and it was just a coincidence.

Violence-wise, there are a number of stabbings and incidents of hands being severed, as happens to Eugene Dubois (his severed hand later shows up in Annette's tent, accompanied by a bloody knife), Ra in the flashback, and Beauchamp when his arm gets caught up in a door during the climax and you get a good look at the bloody stump several times. Other than that, and a shot of Achmed's brutalized body hidden in a crate, the deaths are either instances of strangling or take place off-screen, like when Ra beats Dairymple's head in with a large relic and when Hashmi Bey's head is crushed.

After the opening credits, which play over the camera moving through the inside of Ra's tomb, with a shadow on the wall indicating that it's being explored for the first time in thousands of years by an archeologist, the movie proper begins with a traveling shot over the deserts of Egypt, a caption revealing that the year is 1900. Three men on horseback ride up to a spot against a cliff-face where an elderly man, Prof. Eugene Dubois, is tied to a couple of stakes in the ground and is being guarded by a couple of men. One of the riders dismounts and approaches Dubois, as one of the guards points to him and speaks in Egyptian. Kicking away his discarded items on the ground, including his handgun, the man removes a knife in front of Dubois, the old professor becoming horrified and desperately pleading as he realizes what's about to happen. The blade is plunged into his mid-section and, as his body goes limp, his left hand is promptly severed, leaving his body hanging by the right. The murderer then picks up the severed hand, laughing maniacally, and tosses it to one of his comrades, who have watched the whole thing while sitting on their horses. He and the other man ride off, and the murderer leaves the scene, wiping the blood off his knife, while the guards cut the rope on Dubois' body, letting him fall to the ground, as vultures gather in the sky. The film then cuts to the camp where Dubois' archeological expedition team is set up. His daughter, Annette, is anxiously awaiting his return and worrying about where he could be. John Bray tries to assure her that he's fine, but he's proven horribly wrong when Sir Giles Dairymple and Hashmi Bey arrive, carrying a stretcher holding Dubois' body. Distraught at this, Annette leaves the tent crying, and Dairymple advises Bray to leave her alone. Bray then angrily slaps the servant who was holding up the stretcher, as he rather disrespectfully dropped it on the floor when they entered. Bey insists the man didn't mean any disrespect, but Bray accuses him of trying to sabotage the expedition, believing the Egyptian government wants to keep their findings for themselves. Dairymple stops the bickering and announces that he intends for them break camp the next day and return to Cairo for the sake of safety, which Bray believes is an indication that Bey succeeded in his ploy. Bey comes back with his belief that they're doomed to die from a curse for desecrating the tomb of Ra-Antef, which Bray doesn't believe in. Suddenly, they hear Annette scream outside and rush to her tent to find her even more traumatized. Removing the mosquito netting from her cot, Bray finds Dubois' severed hand, along with a bloody knife.

Within a week's time, they've gotten everything, including the sarcophagus containing the mummy, catalogued and moved to their headquarters in Cairo. They're told by Bey that Alexander King has arrived and he and Dairymple meet with him in the latter's office. After he has them taste some "Turkish candy" he brought over from Constantinople, he tells them of his idea to take the mummy and the relics on a worldwide tour, shocking both of them, especially Bey, who leaves to speak with his superiors about it. King then goes on to explain his reasoning with Dairymple, saying that no one will see the mummy if it's put in a museum, as he plans, but Dairymple resigns as the head of the expedition in protest. King joins the others out in the storeroom with the relics, where he tells Bray and Annette of his planned tour, which is to begin in London, and informs Bray that he's going to be in charge. Dairymple himself confirms what they're being told and also suggests Bray take up the offer, though he leaves it to King to explain the details, which he plans to do at dinner. They have dinner at an Egyptian restaurant full of very sexy belly-dancers (the camera spends quite a bit of time on close-ups of the dancers' quite amazing abdomens and rear ends as they gyrate around), with Bray happily taking up King's offer. King also tells them of his plan to use the legend of the curse in the marketing. But then, a messenger arrives, telling them that Dairymple needs them to come quickly, and they depart. They head back to where the relics are being kept and learn that the place was broken into, though nothing appears to have been stolen. Then, one of the policemen there tells his inspector he's found something, before whispering the rest to him. The inspector suggests Annette stay back and the men move over to one of the crates, which they open to reveal Achmed's body lying inside, a bloody stab wound in his torso. Annette then yells for Bray and tells him that his list of everything has been taken.

The film switches to the voyage to London (the establishing shot of the boat is taken from the movie, A Night to Remember, which was directed by Roy Ward Baker, who would begin making films for Hammer in the late 60's), with Annette and Bray out on the deck, looking at the ocean. Despite the lovely surroundings, Annette is quite jittery and full of dread, though she doesn't understand exactly why, except that she feels this way whenever she's near the mummy. At one moment, when they're kissing, a very drunk and clearly broken Dairymple passes by them, bidding them good night. The couple talks a little more, when they hear Dairymple cry out from his cabin. Bray runs to check on him, and finds him lying unconscious on the floor. He bends down and tries to see if he's alright, when an intruder emerges from the dark behind him and knocks him out with a blow to the back of the head. Annette, wondering what's going on, walks to the doorway of the hall leading to the cabin, when the attacker rushes out and runs into her. Struggling with her, he shoves her back and brandishes a knife, but is stopped by another passenger before he can stab. The passenger forces him to drop the knife and then punches him twice, sending him hurtling backwards into a table and a couple of deckchairs. The attacker charges at the man, who manages to knock him to the floor, but when he goes for a punch, the attacker dodges and lands another blow. However, he's then punched repeatedly until he falls over the railing and into the water. A deckhand yells, "Man overboard!", while Annette's rescuer walks back over to check on her. Later, while Dairymple is being kept in the infirmary, Bray rejoins Annette on the deck, where he's introduced to her rescuer, Adam Beauchamp. After they try to figure out what the attacker was after, Beauchamp, who knows all about them and their expedition, invites Bray and Annette to stay with him at his house at Regent's Park while they're in London for the opening of the exhibition. Though they initially refuse, Beauchamp's persistence wins them over and they do end up staying with him.

While staying there, it becomes clear that Beauchamp has an interest in Annette when he gives her a ring from his collection, which he says once belonged to the Empress of Russia, and kisses her hand afterward. Bray then tells them that the shipment of relics are arriving that evening and he's promised King he'd be on hand to supervise their removal. Annette opts to join him and she then invites Beauchamp along, which Bray allows, despite his obvious dislike for his being so interested in her. Before they leave, Beauchamp proposes a toast: "To the success of the exhibition of Ra, and may the gods smile down upon our newfound friendship." At the exhibition hall, King is being very demanding, telling his workmen precisely where everything is to go, while Annette and Beauchamp admire some panels from the doors of the shrine. One of the men tells Bray that King wants to see him and he leaves the two of them to admire the paneling by themselves. Annette then goes into the details of the story the panels tell, saying the first panel depicts Ramses being presented with his twin sons, Ra and Bea, adding that Ra would grow up to be a thinking, introspective person, while Bea's only interest would be indulging in sexual pleasures. Beauchamp appears surprised by this, asking, "That is the legend?", and asks her to continue. She goes on to talk about Bea's jealousy towards his brother because of his position and popularity and how he was eventually able to have him branded as a witch, with Ramses banishing him into the desert. The movie switches to a flashback depicting Ra being made the king of a nomadic people he met in the desert and being given a medallion with the power to resurrect the dead. In a nighttime scene, Ra is shown praying to an idol, as Annette says he had been planning to return to his home. She then adds that, when Bea learned of his plan, he sent assassins out into the desert to kill him, and at that point, a man falls into the throne-room, screaming. Bea's assassins burst in, making short work of everyone else in the room, and when Ra finishes praying, gets to his feet, and turns around, he's stabbed in the back. He collapses to the floor and one of the assassins lops off his left hand, which contained his rings of birth, as proof that they'd succeeded in their mission.

Transitioning back to the main story, Beauchamp comments on how the assassins didn't get the medallion and wonders what could have become of it. Annette suggests it was likely buried with Ra but, when Beauchamp demands to know if it was found in the tomb and she says no, he writes off the facts she's been telling him as little more than legends themselves. Bray rejoins them and asks Beauchamp if he would care to see the mummy in its coffin. Beauchamp is so preoccupied with his thoughts about the medallion that he has to be asked twice and says he is interested in seeing the mummy. As King continues driving his workmen nuts with his demands, he becomes happy when the group walks in to where the sarcophagus is being kept and offers to show them exactly how the mummy will be presented. He snaps his fingers and a small band starts playing a fanfare, while the lights are dimmed and he's presented with a knife used to cut open the "royal seal" holding the lid closed. From backstage, some of the workmen, particularly Fred and his friend, upon realizing what they're doing, freak out at the idea and duck inside a large crate they were found fooling around in before, shutting the door. The lid to the sarcophagus is removed, revealing Ra's mummy for the first time, and, as everyone takes it in, King comments, "He's worth ten cents of anybody's money." Annette tells him, "Mr. King, you are an incredible man," to which King, as he sits down and leans back in a chair, holding a cigar, responds, "Some of us have got it, and the others ride home in a horse-cart."

Some time later, at Beauchamp's home, he and Annette are in the sitting room by themselves, as she tells him her life story, about how she was a disappointment to her father but won his approval when she studied archeology and Egyptology. Beauchamp, in turn, tells her of his feeling that intelligence in a woman can be just as useful in the household as it can at the academy, a view she admits Bray doesn't share, which she says has made her unsure of whether or not she'll marry him. Beauchamp asks her to be certain before she consents to marry him, telling her, "A wasted life is tragedy enough, but for you to throw away yours on compromise would be doubly tragic," as his interest in her becomes all the more obvious. Bray then returns, having been working with King, and enters the room, only to become put off when he sees how cozy the two of them look on the sofa. While Beauchamp goes to get Bray a brandy, he notices a medallion that Annette has on her person, which she says was given to her by her father on the day he was killed. Beauchamp takes an interest in the medallion and looks at it, while Bray asks if it came from Ra's tomb. Though Annette is insulted at Bray's suggesting her father had taken a trinket from the tomb and given it to her, Beauchamp stops her, saying it couldn't be from the tomb, as both the stone and the hieroglyphics are at least 2,000 years older, specifying that they're of the "Old Kingdom" period. He explains that his own studies focused on a period earlier than ancient Egypt, but when Bray looks at the medallion himself, he finds himself unable to agree with him about its age. Beauchamp suggests he examine it thoroughly before jumping to conclusions and Bray decides to do so, planning to go over to Dairymple's house to get his help. Once he leaves, Beauchamp offers Annette another brandy, kissing her shoulder from behind. The film switches to Dairymple's home, as it rains outside, and Bray finds that Dairymple is so drunk that he's of no use to him in his research. When he accidentally insults Dairymple when he spills some brandy on his research material, Dairymple decides to go to bed and leave Bray to it. Feeling bad about having insulted him, Bray gets back to his examination, but as he looks at the medallion through a magnifying glass, he's unaware of a stranger in a dark cloak who enters the room through the French windows in the back of the study. The intruder moves quietly through the room, nearly knocking over something and giving himself away, before ducking behind a bookcase when Bray gets up from the desk, walks over to the case, and removes a book he needs. He returns to his desk, only to be distracted when he knocks a book off and is knocked unconscious by the intruder, who then steals the medallion and leaves.

Come opening night of the exhibition, Hashmi Bey arrives in London, trying to get King to an accept an offer to return the mummy and the relics to Egypt. When he refuses, Bey warns him, "Then the consequences of the actions you contemplate must rest upon your own head," to which King retorts, "Well, then, let the consequences commence!" He goes over to the audience to briefly speak with Annette and Beauchamp, learning that Bray is being kept at Dairymple's home until he recovers from his injuries, and then proceeds to begin his show. He walks up onto the stage, the lights dim, and after the opening fanfare, he speaks to the audience, who are mostly of the press, and tells them that, before they open the sarcophagus, they should first hear the story of the excavation of the tomb. The curtains beside him are pulled back and a slide-show begins (I have feeling that kind of technology didn't exist around the turn of the century), first showing a photo of Prof. Dubois with Bray, and then a photo of Annette, as he tells the audience of them. He then adds, "The guiding light of the expedition was, of course...", but when a photo of a pharaoh statue comes up, he exclaims, "No, not him!". The photo then quickly switches to a photo of himself pointing at the tomb, as everyone in the audience chuckles and even Dairymple, who's been sitting in the audience with a very dour expression, finds it amusing. He goes on to tell the audience of how they found the tomb, the next slide showing a photo of it being unearthed, and as the camera rises up above the screen, the film fades to the POV of the team entering the tomb for the first time, which is the same sequence that played under the opening credits. The doors to the tomb are opened and the first thing seen inside is a statue of Anubis, the camera then panning and scanning over the ancient, dust-covered relics that fill the space, before resting on a shot of two statues guarding the door to the inner-tomb. That door is then opened and the camera travels inside, showing off statues of gods, funeral furniture, weapons, and even food, before finally stopping on the face of the sarcophagus.

The film cuts back to the presentation, where King is now standing in front of the sarcophagus. He announces, "And now, before the great, historic moment, I must take you into my confidence and warn you. There is a curse, which says that all persons present... at the opening of a pharaoh's coffin, and who gaze at the face of the mummy therein, shall die, struck down by the wrath of the Egyptian gods." Few people in the audience react, save for some murmurs here and there, while Dairymple rolls his eyes incredulously and Annette and Beauchamp snicker silently. King adds, "So, any of you with a nervous disposition, whose to leave now, may do so." The only reaction this gets is a woman sitting behind Dairymple snickering, whom he glares at. King declares, "You have been warned!", and snaps his fingers, cuing the fanfare. The lights go down completely, prompting the woman who laughed before to yelp, and a spotlight is put on the face of the sarcophagus, followed by one on King's face, and that of a woman dressed in Egyptian garb who walks out onto the stage, accompanied by two muscular men in loincloths, and gives him the knife to cut the royal seal. After he cuts it, and as the men remove the sarcophagus' lid and put it aside, King declares, "Alexander King is very proud to present to you the mummy of the royal prince, Ra-Antef!" The reaction he gets is unexpected, as everyone jumps up from their seats in shock, while Dairymple exclaims, "Great Scott!" When King looks, he sees why they've reacted like this: the mummy is gone.

After the show, Inspector Mackenzie talks with King and the people associated with him about the mummy's disappearance. King believes it's a competitor trying to put him out of business, and he also accuses both Bey, whom he said threatened him, though Bey clarifies that he merely warned King about what might happen, and Dairymple, whom he says wants the mummy to be put away in a museum. Dairymple, after saying the "theft" wouldn't have happened had King listened to him, leaves, as does Mackenzie, much to King's aggravation, as he fears the mummy will be out of the country by the next day; Mackenzie retorts, "I wouldn't worry too much, sir. He'd never get past the customs." Annette and Beauchamp leave as well, though King is too upset about what's happened to even think about going home. Bray then arrives and, seeing that the rumors about the mummy being gone are true, tells King he believes someone stole the mummy to attempt to resurrect it with the words of life on the medallion. King, of course, is no mood to listen to this and escorts Bray back outside, to his waiting cab, telling the driver to take him home. King then goes to fetch his coat, when Fred, the workman, asks him about Bray's suggestion that the mummy may have been brought to life. He admits that he does believe him, as he says the Egyptians are always up to something, but King, again, laughs off his concerns and heads out, deciding to walk home rather than take a cab. On the way, he meets a prostitute and, while he turns down her offer to do "something" for him, he gives her some money anyway. He then heads up a flight of stairs, when the sound of heavy, hollow breathing breaks the silence. A figure appears at the top of the stairs and stomps down towards him, revealing himself to indeed be the mummy of Ra, resurrected. He grabs King, lifts him up, and tosses him down the stairs, sending him tumbling until he falls into the river down below. His task completed, the mummy disappears into the night.

Bray goes to the boardinghouse where Bey is staying and pays off the landlady to let him go up and see him (the landlady's big, brutish husband in this scene is Dickie Owen, who plays the mummy). When he finds the door to his room is locked, he breaks it down and finds that Bey is not there. He begins searching his room, suspecting he has the medallion, but finds nothing but a stuffed owl that falls towards his face when he opens up a closet. He then searches the wardrobe, finding nothing of interest there but a watch, when Bey enters the room and, brandishing a knife, walks up behind Bray and asks, "Have you found what you are looking for, Mr. Bray?" Meanwhile, over at Dairymple's house, his housekeeper is complaining to him about how he continues to drink and hasn't had a real meal in days. He insists he'll be in for dinner in a minute, but when she leaves, he pours himself yet another drink. When he drunkenly drops the bottle's cap on the floor and reaches down to grab it, he finds that it fell on a piece of paper sticking out from under the sofa. Pulling it out, he finds it has the hieroglyphics from the medallion scribbled on it. Looking at them, he believes they are the sacred words of life and takes the paper over to his desk in order to examine them more carefully. When he does, he's shocked to find that they are, indeed, the sacred words of life, but is then distracted by the sounds of dogs barking outside. He hears the barking turn into whimpering before stopping, and then sees a figure appear in the fog beyond the French windows. The mummy of Ra bursts through the windows and stomps towards him. Dairymple grabs a gun from his desk and empties it into Ra but, as expected, it has no effect, and the mummy manages to corner him up against the desk. He grabs Dairymple by the throat, bends him backwards over the desk, grabs a large ornament from the desk, and smashes his head in with it. After three such blows, Ra is satisfied and drops the makeshift weapon and leaves, the camera panning down to a shot of the gun dropping off of Dairymple's limp hand, as his housekeeper screams in horror when she comes upon this scene. Back at Bey's boardinghouse, he and Bray have come to an understanding, with Bey agreeing to go with Bray to the police.

The film cuts to Beauchamp's house, where he's reading the poem, How Do I Love Thee?, to Annette as they sit by the fireplace in his sitting room. When he's done, he tells her that he has to leave London, which upsets her to hear, but when he asks her to come with him, she says she will and the two of them kiss passionately. When it comes to the matter of Bray, Beauchamp suggests she leave him a note and she goes to do so, but not before they kiss and embrace again. Later, up in her bedroom after she's finished writing the letter, she's preparing to leave, when she hears Beauchamp cry out, along with the sound of something dropping and breaking. She rushes out the door and to the top of the stairs to see him being choked out by Ra. She screams at this and Ra tosses Beauchamp aside, then starts up the stairs towards her. He almost reaches her, when Beauchamp gets back on his feet and shouts at Ra in Egyptian. This causes him to stop, and when he speaks to him some more, Ra turns partly towards him, but then turns back and continues moving towards Annette, who faints at this. Looking down at her, Ra caresses her lovely hand, then turns and heads back down the stairs towards Beauchamp. The two of them stare each other down for a few seconds, when Ra knocks Beauchamp to the floor with one blow, causing him to hit a step and knock himself out. Ra turns and looks at Annette again, but when he hears the sound of pounding on the door and the bell ringing, he exits through the back of the house. Hearing the sounds at the door, Jessop, Beauchamp's butler, rushes out and, seeing his master unconscious, opens the door for Bray, Bey, Mackenzie, and a couple of police officers. While Mackenzie sees to Beauchamp, Bray rushes up the stairs to Annette. When she awakens, the first thing she does is ask for Beauchamp and rushes down to him when she sees him on the floor. She tells Mackenzie that the mummy was there and attacked Beauchamp, which confuses both Bray and Bey, as he shouldn't be a target. Mackenzie allows Jessop to help Beauchamp to his room, with assistance from a sergeant. Despite the apparent hole in their theory, Bray asks Mackenzie to give them a second chance and he agrees. The group leaves, but before he walks out the door, Bray sees Annette walking up the stairs with those helping the injured Beauchamp and hears her say, "Adam, darling! Are you alright?!"

In the next scene, Bray and Bey are sitting in Dairymple's study, trying to find anything that would explain why Ra targeted Beauchamp. They're not having any luck, and as Bray is refilling Bey's glass, they hear the sound of rustling by the window curtains. Seeing them move, Bray walks over to them, when Ra's bandaged hand emerges from behind them and yanks them down, revealing him standing right outside the French windows he smashed through earlier. He enters the room, reaching for Bray as he slowly backs him up, when Mackenzie appears behind him. A wide-shot reveals the whole thing to be a trap, as Mackenzie's men have rigged a net above Ra, and they drop it on him when the inspector gives the word. Bey, watching the men swarm around Ra, trying to contain him within the net as he struggles, gets to his feet and yells for them to stop. Ra stops struggling when Bey gets on his knees and prays to him, "Oh, Ra-Antef, thou might prince of Egypt, son of the pharaoh of pharaohs, gaze down upon the humblest of thy humble servants, who has transgressed against thee and heaped ridicule upon thy head. May the memory of my ancestors be erased forever, and the memory of my unworthy self remain only in the minds of vermin and the deceased creatures of the Earth. I, who have committed the unforgivable, and allied myself with desecraters and nonbelievers, implore thee to destroy my body painfully, and my soul will pay penance for all eternity." Bey then bows down, putting his head on the floor, and Ra, who's been watching and listening to him this whole time, easily breaks the ropes of the net, causing the police surrounding him to scatter. He walks over to Bey, puts his foot on his head, and crushes it with a sickening crunch, which everyone winces at. Ra turns to Bray and seems to consider going for him next, but he instead opts to exit the house. Mackenzie tells his sergeant to keep tab on Ra's movements and he and another officer follow the mummy. Bray then notes that his and Bey's theory have been proven right, meaning he and Annette are the two people left who are in danger.

Back at Beauchamp's house, he leads Annette down into his cellar, which she's surprised to find is full of items from ancient Egypt that are in excellent condition. One of them is the crown of a pharaoh, which Beauchamp says has always been his. Annette is confused by that statement and he sits her down in a chair and begins to tell her that, when Ramses heard of Ra's death, it caused him to have a stroke which lead to his own death but, before he died, he cursed the one responsible, Bea, with eternal life, which could only be ended at the hands of Ra. Annette asks how he could possibly know this and Beauchamp reveals that he is himself Bea, adding that, thanks to her and her father, he can now break the curse through his newly resurrected brother. He puts the medallion around her neck, telling her they will be together as he'd planned, and has her repeat the incantation necessary to awaken Ra: "Awaken, oh, silent one, thou who has slept. Appear. Thou art justified against those who sought to harm thee." Annette stops short when she sees a panel opening in the wall in front of them, revealing Ra, but Beauchamp continues, "Osiris, father of all, give this, thy servant, that which you bestow upon the unborn bird in the egg. Give it the breath of life. Set the time that it may come forth and loudly raise up its voice to praise thee. Awake, oh, Ra, my brother. Awake, Ra, son of the pharaoh of pharaohs. Awake, Ra, prince of the desert." With that, Ra's eyes open, his breathing starts up, he unfolds his arms, and steps out of the panel. Beauchamp tells him it's time for him to kill the last of the desecraters and points at Annette, whom he holds from behind as Ra approaches. But, when they hear the sound of someone banging on the door upstairs, Beauchamp tells Ra his work must not be defiled and has him follow him as he drags Annette with him. Hearing the sounds of others behind the door leading to the cellar, Annette yells for Bray and Beauchamp has Ra drag Annette through a door behind them. Bray and the police burst in and chase Beauchamp through the corridor and into a door leading into the sewers below London. As they're closing the door behind them, Beauchamp's hand gets caught in it when he tries to stop Bray from attempting to keep it open and it is sliced off. He falls into the water behind him, as Bray, Mackenzie, and the police try to find a way to reach them from the street.

Struggling with the pain from the bleeding stump where his right hand once was, Beauchamp leads Ra down the tunnel, as he carries Annette in a bridal fashion. He points Ra to an embankment, where he sets down Annette as she comes to and backs up against the wall. When Ra approaches, she begs Beauchamp to make him stop but Beauchamp tries to reassure her, "My darling, don't be frightened of death. Welcome it as a release from the torture and torment that is called life... That is nothing compared to the pain I have seen wandering this Earth for 3,000 years! Plagues, famine, pestilence, wars, and man's daily inhumanity to his fellow man. That is more cruel, more painful," he shows her his hand-less arm, "than this mangled stump! Life without end is the only pain I can no longer bear." He then tells Ra to kill her and Ra approaches Annette, only to reach out and remove the medallion from her neck. Beauchamp yells at Ra to kill her but he does nothing but stare at him. Frustrated at how his brother is unable to kill Annette simply because of her beauty, he takes out a knife and is about to kill her himself, but Ra grabs his wrist and easily forces him under the water, holding him there until he stops struggling and his hand lets go of the knife. It then isn't long before his hand goes totally limp and Ra lets go, dropping it under the water. Holding the medallion, Ra heads back down the tunnel, glancing at Annette one last time, before grabbing hold of a panel in the ceiling and pulling on it, bringing the whole thing collapsing down on top of him. In-between Annette and Ra, a manhole is opened on the street above. From up there, Bray calls for Annette, but she watches as Ra is completely buried beneath the rubble, his hand dropping the medallion into the water. A rope is thrown down into the tunnel and Bray prepares to climb down to Annette, as the movie ends on a shot of Ra's hand sticking out of the rubble, an echoing voice intoning, "Rest, my father. Rest."

Only when the movie reuses some of Franz Reizenstein's music from The Mummy at several points is the score memorable; otherwise, the music that Carlo Martelli came up with for the majority of the score is as generic and forgettable as the movie itself. Martelli, who, that same year, scored Don Sharp's Witchcraft, and would go on to work on other Hammer films such as Prehistoric Women, The Lost Continent, and Quatermass and the Pit, was apparently a talented composer but he didn't have much of a career in film-scoring and worked only very sporadically after the late 60's and early 70's, and his music here is completely pedestrian and unmemorable. Seriously, when I try to think of it, all that comes to mind is the elaborate, Egyptian-style cues it uses from the 1959 film.

Unless you're a Hammer completionist or you just really like mummy-oriented horror films, no mater how dime-a-dozen and repetitive they are, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is not a movie I can recommend. It may look good, with a lush color palette, nice cinematography, and some okay sets, and have some notable moments of bloody violence, but otherwise, nothing makes it stand out. The story is as old and tired as the actual mummy, there are a fair number of holes in it and instances of sloppy writing, few of the characters are memorable in any way, the mummy himself is a very generic movie monster, and the music score only leaves an impression when it reuses cues from Hammer's earlier mummy movie. It would probably be best to just skip this one.