Madacy Entertainment / Fullscreen / 97 minutes

What happens when a fashion photographer and bunch of vapid fashion models trollop into the Egyptian desert and stumble upon the excavation of a cursed mummy tomb? DAWN OF THE MUMMY that’s what. When I borrowed this DVD from my dad’s slowly growing collection of cult cinema I gleefully thought I was in for a little skin and some ridiculous laughs. Unfortunately all I got was the ridiculous. And they weren’t really laughs so much as they were mild glimmers of amusement.

I’ll bet people who over-act in films go to a special school where they listen to lectures from Bill Shatner or are forced to study the intricacies of day-time television and where DAWN OF THE MUMMY can be found in their text books under the heading “Astonishment and Fear”. Every time anything remotely surprising happens in this film, you can bet women and men alike will scream like children or old hags.

Take our Jim Caviezal look-alike Rick for instance played by Barry Sattels. Rick’s got platinum blonde hair and is essentially a well-sponsored grave robber. One night when he goes to pick up his excavation buddy down at the butcher shop for another late night dig he discovers that the mummy has already hacked him up and hung him to drain. This would horrify anyone, but Rick screams bloody murder all the way out of the shop, back into his jeep, and is still screaming as he drives out of the frame. This acting style is carried into most scenes involving the mummy. And you should see Ricky old boy when he finally finds the mummy’s secret room of gold. It is as if he enters a multi-orgasmic state where gold is more precious than anything found on a woman’s body. He laughs hysterically and fondles the shiny medal like he would… well you get the idea.

Lisa, played by Brenda King (you may remember her from ROCKY II as Ring girl #2) is just down right silly. She’s a beautiful blonde model who sleeps with photographer Bill (George Peck) and according to the last few minutes of the movie dabbles in dynamite rigging and dangerous explosives. And yet whenever she encounters the terror of the mummy her legs go limp and she’s got Parkinson’s disease. It reminds me of the fainting goats my sister’s family raises in Tennessee. If something surprises them then their legs go stiff and they pass out right where they stand (this effect garners the best results on a hill).

Bill is quite the slut of a photographer making his way into Lisa’s bed along with “all the models in New York”. He has a hot temper and eminates just the right amount of maniacal sleaze any decent photographer of beautiful young women should possess. He seems to think that the discovery of the tomb will make him famous in the world of high fashion. His actual claim to fame will be “The Douchebag that Released Egyptian Hate Upon the Wolrd.”

The tragedy of DAWN OF THE MUMMY can be found in the happy-go-lucky performance of Joan Levy who plays Jenny, the set PA and make-up girl. She’s the one that goes barging into the Pharaoh’s tomb ahead of anyone else when it’s discovered an excavation is taking place. After the first day’s shoot she accidentally spills some of the still well preserved centuries old internal organs of the Pharaoh on her hand, which burns her pretty badly, so badly in fact that her hand can be seen smoking and sizzling into the evening. Jenny plays that girl-next-door type that you hope makes it out of nasty mummy assault movies alive. But she doesn’t. As Jenny struggles to climb onto the horse that Lisa has saddled she’s pulled into the sand and promptly devoured by mummy zombies that chase them. Thanks for your help Lisa.

The actual mummies of the film look like “Puke” Man Group. The make-up of the “mummy king” is just a bunch of green slime over bandages and the other slave mummies look as gruesome as a suburbanite who blew their allowance on liquid latex for Halloween. There is one notably gruesome eye-poke though and its clear the aforementioned butcher shop lent a hand in providing the entrails for the mummies to gobble up.

I could go on about the other weird and generally stupid features of the film (the pot smoking male model and his hooka, the transvestite looking belly dancer at the traditional Egyptian wedding, the disgusting bilge water models Melinda and Joan enjoy in the desert oasis) but what’s the point?

The DVD itself is crap. The cover displays images that have nothing to do with the film. There is a glaring typo in the Cast and Crew notes where Brenda King is credited as Brenda Peck. And there is an interesting commentary featuring the director Frank Agrama that is probably a more enlightening experience than the poorly dubbed film itself.

I will say that some of the photography is nice given the novelty of having such close access to the ancient pyramids and the utter desolation in their surroundings. But at the end of the day DAWN OF THE MUMMY is just a rip off of DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE MUMMY. Not really worth the few smirks that one scene or another may coax out of you but with enough to drink you might like it.

Two stars: It’s Gettin’ Rough.

Check out the trailer for DAWN OF THE MUMMY below: