The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb – 1964 | 78 mins | Horror | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Work began on Michael Carreras’ pet project The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb in February 1964 at Elstree, which went out in October as support feature to The Gorgon’s. Despite Otto Heller’s glamorous Scope photography, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb is most emphatically a B-picture. Director Michael Carreras, who also wrote the unimaginative script under the pseudonym Henry Younger, works some colourful situations but this limp sequel to 1959’s The Mummy is little more than a modest mechanicalthriller. The characters are cardboard, Terence Morgan performs smoothly enough as the villain but the film’s acting honours are stolen by a great performance from Fred Clark as an American huckster-showman.

An ancient Egyptian Mummy, Ra-Antef (Dickie Owen), is unearthed by during an ill-fated expedition by Egyptologist John Bray (Ronald Howard) and Alexander King (Fred Clark). The latter is a fast-talking American showman, who finances the mission in order to make a fortune travelling the Mummy around the world. Bray, who isin love with his boss’ Parisian daughter Annette (Jeanne Roland), is unsure of this. He is also a little annoyed at the attention shown Annette by wealthy playboy Adam Beauchamp (Terence Morgan), who met them on the journey home.

This was no accidental meeting, as Adam planned it, because he wants the Mummy. Annette innocently explains the legend of the sons of Ramases VIII to Adam: there were two sons, Ra and Be. Ra dedicated his life to the search for immortality. Rawas cast out by his ageing father and banished deep into the remote Sahara, where he was appointed ruler over a tribe of nomads. Be was jealous, and conspired to have his elder brother branded a witch and sent assassins to kill him. The nomads gave Ra a medallion containing the secret of raising the dead is lost.

Bray uncovers the medallion, but shortly afterwards it is stolen by a shrouded figure, and the Mummy revived from its sarcophagus, going on the rampage in fog-enshrouded Victorian London. Adam reveals – after a series of suitably graphic deaths -that he is Be, cursed by his father to eternal life, and only Ra can kill him,ending his misery. He is behind the revivification of the Mummy. The police,with Bray in the lead, arrive, and Adam retreats to the sewers in search of his long-dead brother.