Dawn Of The Mummy (1981) Dir: Frank Agrama
- Ridley Coote
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
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I love a classic horror, and I'll usually go out of my way to find one to watch more often than not. On this occasion, it was this 1981 horror, directed by Frank Agrama, which has a little bit of a cult audience in the classic horror community. I knew essentially nothing about the film beyond what I have just mentioned, and really had no expectations, beyond hopefully some fun mummy violence.
It was immediately very apparent that this film had become pretty dated since the Eighties, and not just because of its colonialist view on Egyptian people. It looked extremely dull, and the camerawork was not the best. That dullness typified the film, to a fair degree, because most of it was extremely boring, which I'm fairly confident was not some byproduct of a youthful lack of attention span - after all, I am a fan of many classic horrors - but a very poorly written and shot film.
What started out as, at best, a mildly interesting Mummy film, quickly became essentially a very typical, and not very good, zombie film, albeit set amongst the backdrop of an ancient Egyptian tomb. It was not a particularly compelling film, in any regard. The characters lacked personality, the story lacked emotion, and there was a distinct lack of development in both. I could not wait for the film to end, which only made it feel even slower and longer than it already was.
None of the cast, headlined by Brenda Siemer Scheider, Barry Sattels, George Peck, and John Salvo, gave remotely interesting performances, with each one feeling like a parody actor, rather than a genuine character with a purpose. Each one was more forgettable than the last, and not one of them left much in the way of a positive impact upon me.
Overall, I thought this was without a doubt one of the worst classic horrors I've ever seen. Where others have had an undeniable charm, even if they have become a little dated, this had none, which only made its aforementioned dated nature even more unbearable. Creature features are supposed to have entertainment value, and this one had absolutely none. It wasn't even goofy enough to be fun, it was just long, boring, and forgettable.
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