Dawn of the Mummy review by The Grim Ringler
Yes folks, you read that right, the zombies have all gone home after a long night, dawn, and then day or partying and now it’s the time for the Mummy contingent to get into the fray. Wild partiers those mummies. And don’t call this a cash-in horror movie, happy to use a similar title to the zombie classic and to throw in some miscellaneous gore and ‘fashion models’, no, no, no, don’t do that. Let me.
Set in sun soaked Egypt, a troupe of wacky fashion models (and honey child, I use that term very loosely as man, these are not even pretty enough to be hand models. Severed hand models) are on an exciting fashion shoot and are looking for exotic locales. Hmmm, in Egypt? Interesting locales? That seems far-fetched, but ok. As the models, their oddly sadistic photog, and some assistant guy are traipsing around the sand dunes though some nefarious scoundrels bent on finding the lost tomb of a dead king buried with riches happens upon said tomb and, despite some warnings by a local kook, go digging for gold. What they don’t realize though is that mean old Mister Mummy has cursed his tomb and his gold treasure and has sworn to rise and munch-the guts of anyone who steals his gold…not too unlike a leprechaun really. And naturally our models happen upon the freshly opened tomb just in time for some mummy wrath and a quick photo shoot (which they somehow insist they have a right to do because they have some writ, which is so far-fetched that even this horror apologist can’t fathom the faulty logic here). And faster than you can say I broke a nail the mummy/zombies are on the prowl, aimlessly stalking victims after and watching them voyeuristically from the bushes. And there is lots of screaming, and lots of running, and lots of ummmmmmmm mummy talk and there is a fair amount of gut-chompin’ as well, though who knew that mummies fancied a good intestinal brunch? The end comes suddenly and strangely when the surviving heroes face off with the main mummy himself, his servants suddenly gone after attacking and devouring much of a wedding party, and without much of a throw-down Mr. Mumms is dispatched rather craftily with a booby-trapped shed. But is he really dead?
Eh, who cares to be honest? In a ridiculously bad way, this is a fun movie. But it’s a chore. Half of the movie is spent watching the totally un-appealing models whine about how tired they are and then watching the homoerotic Starsky and Hutch wanna-be tomb-raiders bumble about. But when the mummies do show up things get pretty gory pretty fast, though none of it makes any sense. How do they pick their targets? I thought it was about revenge but…umm, why kill off most of a town then? Ugh. The mummy does look scary, though most of his minions look more like tweaked zombies than mummies, but what do I know, it’s been a while since I saw a killer mummy servant. The direction is passable but really it’s the story and acting that are the things that bring the film down. Yes, it’s a silly, moderately cheesy knock-off gore movie, great, but dammit, why not make it interesting and try to add something new? What do you have to lose? Hell, the hardcore gore-hounds will go for the gore anyway, so why not add a bit of real humor, or make the characters interesting? Hell, at least make the mummies something to root for. But no. What you see is what you get. As a weird rental with friends I would imagine this would make for a fun movie. But as a solo venture, ugh, bring the No-Doze. The open-ended finale leads me to believe they had hopes of making a sequel but than god they didn’t. There is a ‘special’ edition DVD out there that has commentary, which I would love to hear. “Well, here is where I said – ok, kill the model, no, no, walk more slowly, you’re a mummy, ok…model, fall down, flail about and…DIE. Great! And that was what I did for that take…”
Good? No. Bad? Oh and how. But call up some friends, rent it for a buck, and let the hilarity ensue. P.S. Has there been a good mummy movie since the original (which isn’t that great either to be honest)? Who keeps givin’ the Mummy the shaft?
…c…
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