Dawn of the Mummy is a 1981 Italian-American
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Frank Agrama, who also served as writer and producer on the film. While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the
Obscene Publications Act 1959
The Obscene Publications Act 1959 (c. 66) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that significantly reformed the law related to obscenity in England and Wales. Prior to the passage of the Act, the law on publishing obscene mater ...
during the
video nasty
Video nasty is a colloquial term popularised by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) in the United Kingdom to refer to a number of films, typically low-budget horror or exploitation films, distributed on video cassette that w ...
panic.
Plot
In ancient Egypt during the
fourth millennium BC
The 4th millennium BC spanned the years 4000 BC to 3001 BC. Some of the major changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing, which played a major role in starting recorded history. ...
, slave raiders abduct several villagers to be servants for the burial of
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...
Sefirama. They are ordered to stand around the Pharaoh's
sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
, killed with poison gas, and the entrance to his tomb is sealed. The high priestess who attended the burial proclaims that "he who enters this tomb, after it is sealed, will die on the dawn of the mummy."
Thousands of years later, in the present day, three men, Rick, Tariq, and Karib, detonate the tomb and uncover its entrance. Rick warns the other two to wait until the next morning, as the air around the uncovered tomb is poisoned. The high priestess, now an elderly woman, screams and tells them that the tomb is cursed but is scared off when Rick shoots his pistol at the air. Rick tells them to guard the tomb for the night and drives away in his
Jeep
Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...
.
That evening, three local grave robbers arrive riding on camels and are greeted by the old woman, who tells them to close the tomb to prevent its curse. They ask her and enter the tomb but get infected by its poisonous gases. One of them dies, while the other two escape.
A photographer and a group of American models travel to
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
for a fashion shoot. On the way to the tomb, one of their tires gets punctured, and the group has to stop to replace it. One of the models, Lisa, asks the director, Gary, to look at the other side of a dune. They race to the bottom of the other side, but Lisa falls and gets scared by one of the grave robbers' severed heads lying on the sand. The rest of their group takes them back to their location.
Rick and his group return to the tomb and explore its burial chamber, though Rick's henchmen are disappointed that there is no gold. Ahamed Zaiki, a local businessman, arrives to check on his investments in the excavations, and after Rick's assurances, he leaves. The next morning, Rick attempts to chisel a passage into the chamber, but Tarak and Karib detonate its entrance with more dynamite. Even though they were disappointed again by the chamber's lack of gold, they open Sefirama's sarcophagus to look for more treasures. A mouse jumps onto Karib's back and frightens him.
After settling near a riverbank village for the night, the American models' group moves on the next morning to shoot photos near the tomb. Karib shoots his gun at them, thinking they are intruders, but Rick and Tarak stop him. The models' group proceeds to the tomb against Rick and his henchmen's objections. While doing so, their hot lights accidentally revive Pharaoh Seferman's mummy. Rick snaps off the cable on one of their spotlights. One of the models, named Jenny, is asked to go and find a battery for their spotlights, but she spills a bowl containing one of the Pharaoh's organs, infecting her hand and frightening her. Their hot lights accidentally revive Pharaoh Seferman's mummy and his followers, a band of flesh-eating zombies.
Tariq is left to return to his home in a city, while Jenny's hand infection persists and burns her. Karib enters the tomb alone by himself, cuts open Pharaoh Sefirama's mummy, and steals his
crook and flail
The crook and flail (''heka'' and ''nekhakha'') were symbols used in ancient Egyptian society. They were originally the attributes of the deity Osiris that became insignia of pharaonic authority. The shepherd's crook stood for kingship and the ...
. A door to another chamber opens. Karib enters but is incapacitated by the door and dragged away.
The following day, Rick and Tariq enter the tomb as they search for Karib and are thrilled to find Pharaoh Sefirama's crook, flail, and other treasures. The models and their team return for another photoshoot, but their continued usage of lighting has awakened the Pharaoh.
At a campfire that night, the group of models sing along. The team finds the bodies of the two Bedouin grave robbers whose heads are crushed. Rick arrives and tells the team they should leave. The photographer, named Bill, says he needs one more day to shoot, and then they will leave. Meanwhile, the old woman/high priestess goes into the tomb and finds the mummy gone. The mummy appears and kills the old woman. At dawn, Seferaman's army rises out of the sand.
The next day, Bill is still taking pictures of the site and says they need 48 hours more to shoot. One of the models gets lost in the tomb. Meanwhile, Gary and Ahmed go to town for a rest. Another local named Omar gives Jenny and Gary a "smoke." Jenny sees the mummy, gets hysterical, and runs to Gary, but the mummy is gone when he looks.
The mummy chops the head off one of the tomb raiders at the tomb. Two models, Lisa and Melinda, take a swim at the nearby oasis. Melinda gets out of the water and takes a walk, where she runs into the mummy and one of his "soldiers," where they kill Melinda by biting and tearing out her throat.
The next day, Rick finds Tariq dead and drives away. Rick goes to the tomb and calls for the God of the Sun. A wall slides back, and Rick finds the treasure. He screams in delight, but the mummy returns and kills Rick.
Bill and Gary go to town to see Omar, where he is celebrating his wedding. Gary gives Omar his western cowboy hat, and Omar gives Gary his golden head covering.
Back at the camp, Lisa looks around the tomb. Bill finds the gold in the tomb and calls out. Suddenly, Rick's severed head falls from the ceiling and lands in Bill's arms. He flees back to the camp running from the mummy's "soldiers." Bill shoots the mummy with a gun, but to no effect. The mummy strangles and tears off Bill's head, and the models run and scream. Jenny gets torn apart and eaten alive by the mummy's "soldiers" while the two remaining models flee in a jeep.
Back at the wedding celebration in town, there is dancing in the streets, and the mummy's "soldiers" are seen eating Omar's bride in a tent. At this point, climactic carnage ensues as everyone runs, and the mummy soldiers grab and bite and kill many people in the street. The mummy is standing in the street looking at the carnage. The two surviving models, Lisa and June, arrive and throw sticks of dynamite at the mummy with little effect. With a bit of help from Omar, models go into a shack, spread gasoline, light a fuse in a box of dynamite and blow up the shed with the mummy in it. Lisa, June, and Omar celebrate when Gary arrives, and they all walk away. But in the final shot, the mummy's hand rises from the rubble.
Cast
* Brenda King as Lisa
* Barry Sattels as Bill
* George Peck as Rick
* John Salvo as Gary
* Ibrahim Khan as Karib
* Joan Levy as Jenny
* Ellen Faison as Melinda
* Dianne Beatty as Joan
* Ali Gohar as Tariq
*
Ahmed Rateb as Omar
* Bahar Saied
* Ali Azab
* Ahamed Labab as Ahamed
* Laila Nasr as High Priestess/Old Hag
* Kandarp Raval as The servant boy (Mummy)
Production
''Dawn of the Mummy'' was filmed in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
with a mostly Italian crew leading many to mistake it as an Italian film.
Unlike traditional interpretations of
mummies
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furth ...
in cinema, the film's portrayal of the undead is quite unique. In the film, the mummies are portrayed as ravenous flesh-eaters, similar to the popular portrayal of
zombies
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...
in which both share many similarities.
Due to the film's surprisingly graphic content, the film was originally subject to several cuts in the UK in order to trim down the film's more graphic scenes; approximately 1 minute and 43 seconds were cut from 12 different scenes in the film. Some scenes included The Mummy ramming a machete into the character Tarak's head, a man being gutted by the mummy, and scenes where the mummy's undead servants feast on several characters. The cuts were waived for the 2003
Anchor Bay DVD.
Release
Home media
''Dawn of the Mummy'' has been released in
VHS and
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
format. The film was released in region 1 by
Madacy Entertainment
Madacy Lifestyle Marketing (formerly Madacy Entertainment) was a company based in Mount Royal, Quebec, that published DVDs, CDs and VHS tapes. Most of the products were frequently seen in many discount stores in the United States and Canada, ofte ...
, as a VHS transfer. The packaging is said to list the film's Theatrical Trailer and other Theatrical Trailers, although there is only one on the disc, it is not for the main feature, it is of a 1997 film, ''Road Ends''. It does however feature an audio commentary track by director Frank Agrama.
The film was released uncut in the UK by
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment (formerly Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment) was an American home entertainment and production company. It was a subsidiary of Starz Inc. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and sold feature films, television ser ...
. It features an anamorphic widescreen
1.77:1 transfer, plus the
4:3 full-screen transfer,
DTS Digital Surround,
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is lossy ...
2.0 & 5.1 Surround. The extras include Director's Audio Commentary, Stills Gallery, Production Notes, and Trailer.
Reception
The film has received mixed to negative reviews from critics.
John Stanley awarded the film 2 / 4 stars stating, "''Hashish smokers in a
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
square are as exciting as it gets in this tale''".
''Popcorn Pictures.com'' gave the film 6/10 stating, "It is an arduous struggle to get past the first half of Dawn of the Mummy but stick with it and you’ll be rewarded with one of the more entertaining zombie flicks of its period: a guilty pleasure of trashy exploitation at its finest. If the entire film had been as enjoyable as the last half, you’d be looking at a bonafide classic right here".
It was awarded a score of 0 / 4 by ''VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever'' which panned the film's plot and acting.
Remake
Anthony Hickox
Anthony Hickox (born 30th January 1959) is an English film director, producer, actor and screenwriter.
He is best known for his work in the horror genre, with films like '' Waxwork'' and its sequel, '' Waxwork II: Lost in Time'', '' Sundown: T ...
wrote 2012 the script of the remake ''
Prisoners of the Sun
''Prisoners of the Sun'' (french: link=no, Le Temple du Soleil) is the fourteenth volume of ''The Adventures of Tintin'', the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised weekly in the newly established ''Tintin'' mag ...
'', which directed by
Roger Christian and stars
Joss Ackland
Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland CBE (born 29 February 1928) is an English retired actor who has appeared in more than 130 film and television roles. He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying Jock Del ...
,
,
Nick Moran
Nick Moran (born 23 December 1968 or 1969, sources differ) is an English actor and filmmaker, best known for his role as Eddie the card sharp in ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels''. He appeared as Scabior in ''Harry Potter and the Deathly H ...
and
John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies (born 5 May 1944) is a Welsh actor best known for portraying Sallah in the ''Indiana Jones'' franchise and Gimli in ''The Lord of the Rings'' trilogy. His other roles include Michael Malone in the 1993 series ''The Untoucha ...
. The film was released in April 2015 in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-ray.
References
External links
*
*
* {{tcmdb title, 480806, Dawn of the Mummy
1981 films
1981 horror films
American splatter films
Italian splatter films
Films set in Egypt
English-language Italian films
Italian supernatural horror films
Mummy films
American zombie films
American supernatural horror films
Films shot in Egypt
Films scored by Shuki Levy
1980s English-language films
1980s American films
1980s Italian films