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1981 - USA / Egypt / Italy Directed By: Farouk Agrama (as "Frank Agrama") Starring: Brenda King, Barry Sattells, George Peck, John Salvo, Ibrahim Khan, Joan Levy and Ellen Faison.
Current Availability
Widely available on DVD although none boast very impressive print quality. The uncut UK R2 release from the Anchor Bay UK is the one to go for as it has an anamorphic transfer and commentary track.
Recommended
Mildly. If your after a straightforward cheesy horror flick with a fair dose of gore you could do worse... but then again you could do better. See it in an undemanding mood.
Review
This American/Egyptian co-production shot by a mainly Italian technical crew is distinctive in that it is, to the best of my knowledge at least, probably the only splatter effort to ever feature a mummy. Directed by Egyptian-born Italian citizen Farouk (Frank) Agrama – the man responsible for the celluloid atrocity that was Queen Kong (1976) - Dawn Of The Mummy is an unabashedly trashy effort , which blends the basic formula of the traditional “mummy on the rampage” film with the early eighties craze for zombies and gratuitous blood and gore kick-started by George A. Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead (1978). While Dawn Of The Mummy can hardly be described as original it did however, manage to gain a minor degree of notoriety in its own right in the UK where its early eighties video release on the Videospace label coincided with the “Video Nasties” panic. Due to its not inconsiderable quota of gore Dawn Of The Mummy was regarded by some as a borderline nasty although it never featured on any of the official lists.
In the Egyptian desert a ragtag excavation party fronted by grizzled American archaeologist Rick (Sattels) unearth the tomb of Safiraman – an ancient Pharaoh infamous for his evil and tyranny. Rick and company are not alone however, as a group of male and female fashion models together with their photographer are scouting the same stretch of desert to find a suitable place for their next photo shoot. The models soon happen across the freshly unearthed tomb of Safiraman and decide that it will make an ideal shooting location.
Their trespassing awakens the mummified Safiraman who is understandably a wee bit peeved at this inconsiderate desecration of his resting place. In addition Safiraman’s servants – who were buried alive with him at the time of his death – rise from their graves beneath the desert sands as decaying, flesh-craving zombies. The vengeful mummy of Safiraman together and his undead servants then proceed to wreak a grisly revenge as they maraud across the desert killing all who they encounter.
The fact that Dawn Of The Mummy was made by a mainly Italian production crew really shows, as this film feels every inch an attempt to jump aboard the bandwagon for cheap Continental zombie gorefest’s, which were flooding the worlds screens during the beginning of the eighties. The derivative plot conforms to the letter with both the standard mummy movie formula of tomb desecrators coming in for violent retribution from the cloth-wrapped occupant and the zombie movie principal of formulating a contrived narrative as little more than a framework for gory effects. Fairly poorly made by any standard Dawn Of The Mummy manages to land somewhere closer to the formulaic horror hackwork’s of the likes of Jess Franco and Joe D’Amato than it does those of Lucio Fulci, but that is not to say that Dawn Of The Mummy is not without a certain numbskull charm.
A grisly opening scene of ritual organ extraction sets the appropriately trashy and exploitative tone but after that Dawn Of The Mummy soon settles down into almost an hour of complete and utter boredom as for reasons unbeknownst to anyone but himself Agrama chooses to keep the titular mummy and his pals off-screen until well after halfway through the film. Instead the seemingly endless non-action revolves around a distinctly claustrophobic and cheap looking tomb set where a colourless assortment of fashion models does their utmost to irritate and bore the viewer into submission. Agrama serves up one tedious photo shoot too many as these immensely irritating protagonists proceed to do nothing more interesting than do lots of cheesy preening and posing for the camera. This is made all the worse by the fact that the cast are completely nondescript and despite Agrama having a bevy of modestly nubile young actresses at his disposal, the film fails to deliver any of the sleaze or nudity one can usually expect from a horror/exploitation film of its period.
Taking all this into consideration it is therefore a pleasant surprise when what looks well on its way to winding up a complete and total dud is miraculously lifted to the level of acceptability (albeit just about) by a spirited, grisly and eventful final third. Once the titular Safiraman is awoken by the heat of the photography lighting (I shit you not) and he and his zombie followers embark on the rampage Dawn Of The Mummy becomes suddenly enlivened. One scene of Safiraman’s zombified servants rising slowly from their graves beneath the sand, framed against the sunrise is superbly executed and eerily effective. After that Agrama delivers shocks and gore in liberal measures all the way through to the end credits. Safiraman and company swiftly dispatch anyone foolish enough to stick around the tomb and then make their way to a nearby village where Safiraman bloodily introduces a butcher to his own meat cleaver. Not content with this the disgruntled pharaoh and his gruesome servants proceed to go one better by gate crashing a wedding celebration eating the bride then embarking on a massacre – dismembering and scoffing the revellers. While poor lighting obscures some of the mayhem, the film comes into its own and will likely please gorehound types with its plentiful grue as the zombies tear chunks from victims and greedily munch on entrails. Shuky Levy’s score, an indescribable chunk of bizarre Egyptian-flavoured disco cheese, makes for a befitting and improbably catchy accompaniment to the gleefully gory action.
If nothing else the fact that the protagonists are so tedious, irritating and the actors playing them so uniformly talentless, more or less ensues that the viewer will relish the opportunity to see them being torn apart and devoured. While many will struggle to sit through the ordeal that is the sleep-inducing first hour, those in search of unsophisticated flesh-rending mayhem will probably want to stick it out for the last half hour. In the greater scheme of things Dawn Of The Mummy is a pretty undistinguished effort but its strangely endearing early eighties flavour and generous quota of graphic gore should prove enough to satiate the demands of those seeking nothing more complicated than a cheesy splatter film.
Also Try... Oasis Of The Zombies / Burial Ground / Zombie Flesh Eaters / Nightmare City / The Mummy's Shroud.
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