Dir: Frank Agrama.
Cast: Brenda King, Barry Sattels, George Peck, John Salvo, Ibrahim Khan, Joan Levy, Ellen Faison, Diane Beatty, the 'lovely' Laila Nasr and her dancing teeth.
It lives! It kills!
And it smells of old man wee!
And it smells of old man wee!
“If ever this tomb is disturbed, Safiraman will rise and kill. His armies will rise and kill.”
It's Egypt in the year 3000 B.C., Tuesday afternoon just after 3.20 and the evil Pharaoh Safiraman is busy pillaging local villages for hunky teen boys to use as 'slaves' (which is nice work if you can get it) but just as all this oiled boy kinkiness is getting interesting the film unfortunately flashes forward the poor guys burial.
Damn.
We join this obviously sad day as his mysterious, tombstone toothed high priestess (Nasr) is ranting on about Osiris (the Egyptian one, not the shop that does cheap nose piercings in Glasgow city centre) and how fantastic a tyrant Safiraman was before she wiggles her ample arse a wee bit as she utters an obligatory curse over his mummified body.
As a finishing touch she locks six leather pant clad slaves into his burial chamber and gases them.
What a nice lady.
"Blue Steel!"
Cut to the 'modern' day where a trio of sexy grave robbers led by the easy going co-star of Zoolander and Starsky and Hutch, Owen Wilson (Salvo) have just uncovered the entrance to Safiraman’s tomb and after a quick chat and chin stroke decide to blow the bugger open with handy dynamite sticks.
Reckoning that they'd be safer waiting for the poisoned gas to dissipate before stealing all of the Pharaohs trinkets Owen tells his helpers, Tony and Jeanette to stay on guard whilst he heads back to town to buy booze (or something) but just as he's about to leave a piss stained old hag from the local village (who looks very similar to Laila Nasr only covered in shit and wearing a Cher wig) wanders by shouting and barking at them.
"Laugh now!"
Zena (for it is she) spouts off madly about how Owen and co. are about to desecrate a holy site, and if they're not careful, the mighty Safiraman an his (six man) army of the dead will be forced to “rise from the tomb and kill the infidels!”
Owen, being a rascally type of guy just shrugs his manly shoulders and laughs the threat off before driving off into the sunset leaving his buddies tanking crates of Miller at the tombs entrance.
Pissed up and passed out on the sands our grave robbing pals fail to notice the couple of boorish Bedouin neighbourhood watch who've been asked by Zena to follow them, but have decided to steal the treasure for themselves.
Bad, bad Bedouins.
Bad luck for them that the grave was ingeniously booby trapped with a flesh eating gas then wasn't it, tho' it does mean that leaving Owen and the boys will get a deadly trap free day of looting the next morning.
Which is a good thing I guess.
(you can see where this is going can't you?)
A Dawn who is a Mummy yesterday.
The magazines Egyptian correspondent has decided that the little town of Barqa would make a suitable backdrop for a few days of clothes shenanigans, especially the sand dunes overlooking the tomb of some guy named Safiraman.
Oops.
"Fiona! where's mah lunch?"
Remarkably the fashion glitterati almost immediately bump into Owen and his band and, hitting it off right away (He's a very polite grave robber) is persuaded by Bill to let them use the tomb for the fashion shoot.
As you can probably imagine, this is a very, very bad idea.
"Oh no! it's the Ninky Nonk!"
But can you guess, dear reader what causes Safiraman to finally rise from his sandy grave?
Is it the messily dynamiting of his sacred burial chamber?
Is it when one of Owen's buddies (not Ben Stiller) steals his golden walking stick before snipping away at his bandages?
Or is it the fact that the heat from Bills arc light is a wee bit too warm for him?
"Sand in mah mooth!"
Yup that's right, Safiraman gets all hot and bothered by the lights, waking up in a right strop and ready to kick some model arse.
Summoning his (six) zombie slaves, who appear to have moved out of the tomb they were gassed in and set up home amongst the dunes the undead band prepare for revenge.
Only not right away.
Tony was happy with his home made Dalek outfit.
It takes what seems like months (yes, the film is that slow) before Safiraman even considers anything remotely approaching revenge, firstly making a surprise visit to Jeanette's butcher shop and sticking a meat cleaver in his head before sneaking up on the lovely Melinda whilst she's swimming at the local oasis (but not the one of the zombies) and kill her too.
Luckily for the viewer, once Safiraman and his zombie minions get a taste for blood there's no stopping them. Firstly chowing down on Owen before enjoying a main course of Bill in a basket followed by a Jenny desert.
They then have a vote and reckon it'd be a bit of a laugh to head into Barqa and crash Steve Omar, the local drug dealer’s wedding party and eat the guests whole.
And no, they don't spit that bit out.
Safiraman and co. manage to work their way thru' the entire top table until only Lisa, Joan, Hamid and Gary are left.
With the undead closing in it becomes a battle for survival (and against crushing tedium).
Will our heroes escape?
Will Safiraman ever be full?
And will they use the handy stash of dynamite sitting nearby to blow him up?
Duncan Goodhew: the pikey years.
The worlds first (and only) Egyptian/Italian/American flesh eating mummies, Frank (the man who brought Super Dimension Fortress Macross to the English-speaking world - a thing that we are eternally grateful for) Agrama's Dawn of The Mummy is a laugh a minute, schizophrenic thrill ride of cack handed dubbing, bad teeth, Lego hair and a cast so unclean you'd swear you could smell the stale urine oozing thru' your Teevee screen.
"This turkey's a wee bit tough".
A big name in the Egyptian film industry (yes it has one) Agrama had already produced and directed over 40 movies before deciding to turn his hand to the horror genre, looking to Italy for his inspiration where he (unfortunately) skipped the films of Agento and (Mario) Bava and went straight to the shelf containing the complete works of Bruno (Zombie Creeping Flesh) Mattei and Andrea (Burial Ground) Bianchi, delivering a movie of such appalling tardiness thats only claim to fame is its frightening ability to appear to last even longer than its relatively short 97 minute running time.
It's as if you enter a spooky slow dimension that quietly eats away at your soul whilst watching it.
As this is coming from a man who once sat thru' the entire celluloid abortion that is Cradle of Fear in one sitting.
But, if you still feel compelled to view this movie you can at least look forward to the amusing (and possibly arousing) delights of sweaty Egyptians whipping small boys, John Salvo's hair, Laila Nasr's teeth, the 'groovy' fashions and the gore-tastic climax.
Which at the end of the day beats a good plot really doesn't it?
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