Dawn Of The Mummy DVD (1982) (1 Disc) (UK)

I cannot believe that this pile of utter tat has finally made it into DVD, with a host of extras as well!

Back in the early eighties, it very quickly became difficult to get hold of certain films in their uncut form & this was one of them. The only reason that the original VHS of the dreadful Bobbee Bresee starrer ‘Mausoleum’ was so popular was because at the end of it you could watch the trailer for ‘Dawn of the Mummy’, which featured quite a few of the gory scenes not deemed fit for British eyes at that time. Unfortunately, when those of us so inclined managed to get hold of the entire film we were in for a big disappointment.

It’s not just that ‘Dawn of the Mummy’ is bad, but that it ruins such potential. Take a great title , a great premise , a great make-up artist , & some great locations & then bury all the things you have going for it in a vapid, poorly-acted, tedious exercise in exploitation film-making with some of the most dislikeable characters ever committed to celluloid. The bit where the zombies rise from their desert grave is superb, but it’s a case of too little far too late. This is exactly the sort of picture that gives horror movies a bad name.

What about the extras? Well, if I had to compile a list of movies that I thought would never get a commentary this must have been in the top five, & yet here we have Frank Agrama chatting merrily away about the technical aspects of putting together his magnum horrendous. The ‘film notes’ have been written by someone who couldn’t even be bothered to watch the film & who instead gives us a potted history of mummy movies in general. Oh, & there’s the trailer, which is still quite good. In fact it’s a triumph of the trailer-maker’s art as it still makes you want to watch the picture even though you know it’s utter garbage. It’s hard to believe anyone could make films worse than Andrea Bianchi. In fact I think I’d rather watch Burial Ground again that have to sit through this. Excruciating.