Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘I am here Rick old boy.’
Dawn of the Mummy was directed by Frank Agrama who was born Farouk Mohamed Agrama
and its nice to see a mummy film directed by an Egyptian in Egypt.
On the other hand Agrama also directed Queen Kong, a movie so bad even we won’t touch it.
The film opens with a flashback to ancient Egypt…
which, I think, given the budget, isn’t that bad and ends with the obligatory curse.
‘He who enters this tomb after it is sealed will die on the dawn of the mummy.’
Skip ahead to 1981 and the tomb has been discovered by robbers,
despite the sudden warnings of locals.
‘I have warned you, you have defiled the tomb, you have ignited the curse.'
My favorite character there, earning the Una O'Connor award for minor characters upstaging the leads.
‘He will rise and kill’
But of course the robbers ignore this.
And now we must deal with the sad reality of what happens when cop turns killer,
when fireman turns arsonist, and, in this case, when Fred from Scooby Doo turns tomb robber.
‘No you were wrong, there is a treasure room here and all we have to do is find it’
After the dog died he went badly off the rails.
'There's got to be a treaure room, we gotta find it.'
But as they find the mummy, outside, someone else is arriving.
The pitch for this movie was models vs mummies, because sometimes the good ideas are right there.
‘We’ve found the perfect place to shoot, let’s get the gear.’
They decide to do their photo shoot in the tomb, despite some sterling work from Fred to put them off.
‘Just an excavation. Nothing interesting’
The robbers haven’t located the hidden treasure room yet
and now have to deal with models all up in their business because,
apparently, saying no and tossing them out wasn’t an option,
'Just get ready as soon as you can.'
Just use the mummy as your make-up table that’s fine.
I don’t think what happens next is going to surprise anyone.
'I'm so happy, you're alive.'
And the mummy is quick to kill my favourite character
and raise its army of the dead.
This is halfway through.
Now I have no problem with a film taking its time but there has to be something happening in the meantime,
and alternating a photoshoot with menacing shots of an inert mummy does not a plotline make.
'Don't seperate.'
So it’s all down to the characters.
Normally in movie like this characterisation of the models would be pretty perfunctory;
the slutty one, the innocent one, the black one
and the lead who is clearly going to survive,
this doesn’t even have that.
‘I can’t stand it when one of my toe nails are chipped’
There is no lead and the closest it comes to character building is.
‘I’m lost’
The Lost one.
And it’s no better with the men,
Fred is the only one with a character,
if we stretch our definition of the word character.
And this actually gets worse when stuff starts happening.
The models discover a head,
one is burned by weird goo,
'Oh my God!'
two are attacked,
a horse is eviscerated…
and the only thing keeping them from leaving…
‘We have a full day of shooting today and I need all of you’
The stakes for this photo shoot are so high that when model Melinda goes missing none of them look for her.
‘I wanna go home’
'I understand you want to go home, I know your hand hurts...'
She doesn’t even get to go to a doctor.
Meanwhile the Mummy is doing its thing,
following the group to a local village.
At the same time, back at the camp, two of the girls are fulfilling a B movie cliché…
'I'm getting cold, I'm going to leave now. You coming?'
'No, I'll stay a while.'
and…
How did it get back from town? And it does this again later during the final attack on the camp,
but at the same time in town.
The town is driving distance but the mummy and its followers are only quick on their feet when the movie wants them to be,
mostly they move at plodding speed.
Why are you walking towards it?
This is more a zombie film than a mummy one and really reminds me of Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies –
please subscribe to check out our review –
another film in which all they have to do is walk briskly in the opposite direction,
but even that had more plot than this!
At the end it honestly seems as if even the characters are struggling to keep track.
‘’Jenny is dead and Billis dead and that leaves you and I’
and care more about the phone than each other.
‘The line’s dead! The line’s dead!’
They blow up the Mummy and celebrate.
I’m a mummy! I killed all our friends!
Too soon? Never mind, back to the photo shoot.
Thanks for watching. For a better Mummy story check out my first book,
there’s a link in the description below.
Models vs mummies is a great premise, pitch your vs movies in the comments below.
'There's gonna be bonuses for all of you.'