The Mummy’s Revenge (1975)

I wanted to watch a Paul Naschy flick and decided to not check out one of his werewolf outings but instead chose this mummy movie. That was a mistake… a big one. After a voiceover explaining that the Pharaoh was a bit of a jerk torturing women for fun, we see a priest and his men take him out. To punish him for his behavior they make it so that he can never pass on to the afterlife. That will come back to bite the people that find his tomb. 

Some archeologists find him and bring him back to London for study. A descendant of the Pharaoh shows up with his henchwoman and goes about bringing the old guy back to life. Oh, and if you haven’t caught on like most every other Mummy movie that follows this plot Naschy is both the mummy and his descendant. So, we get twice the fun, right? Well not really. Things happen, the day is saved… wait no it isn’t. Spoilers! Our heroine dies in the end. And the bad guys burn up. Basically, everyone dies. 

I didn’t like this movie at all. One of the things that I love about most of Naschy’s flicks are that they have their own sensibilities. Sure, he is a werewolf, but sometimes his lady friend is a vampire. Sometimes he is doing battle with vampires. Occasionally his werewolf is a misunderstood victim of the curse and other times he is a randy playboy revealing in it. There is a lot of variety. The Mummy’s Revenge feels like a rehash of the plot from the classic universal flick starring Karloff. There is nothing new or different and it is very predictable. I kept waiting for that special magic that you only get from his Spanish/Italian productions, but it never happens. That bummed me out. 

The movie also has several slow spots where it bogs down on him constantly stalking women because he needs to sacrifice a bunch of virgins to give himself immortal life and bring his lady love back from the dead. I’m not being vague or dismissive here as they never really set any rules. It is more an excuse for the mummy to run around grabbing ladies and then chaining them to a wall for sacrifice. Oh, and that brings me to something else missing. Naschy normally has a bit of sleaze in his flicks with lots of skin showing and many ladies are bedded and do some bedding themselves. The Mummy’s Revenge is noticeably tame when it comes to this. Though I watched the Spanish cut which is supposed to have the good stuff cut out. I’ll not track a different copy down though as I doubt that would save the movie. 

I’m being awful hard on the movie. There are some positives. The mummy makeup is decent, the dubbing is horrible in all the right ways, and we get a lot of kills. Seventeen people die in this movie, though most are tame and offscreen. We do get a crushed head, some throats cut, a nightstick thru the chest, and a woman ages to bones and dust in front of us. Though my favorite is a face getting ripped off. That is a decent effect. But in the end, none of these can redeem what ends up being a slow retread of a much better flick. Next time I’ll stick to his werewolf movies. 

 © Copyright 2021 John Shatzer