Time Walker – aka Being from Another Planet – is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by Tom Kennedy from a screenplay by Tom Friedman and Karen Levitt.
Main cast:
Ben Murphy, Nina Axelrod, Kevin Brophy, James Karen, Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Antoinette Bower, Sam Chew Jr., Shari Belafonte, Jack Olson.
Plot:
While California University of the Sciences professor Douglas McCadden (Ben Murphy) explores the tomb of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun, an earthquake causes a wall in the tomb to collapse, revealing a hidden chamber. Inside, McCadden finds a mummy in a sarcophagus. Unbeknownst to McCadden, the “mummy” is not the body of a dead Egyptian, but an extraterrestrial alien in suspended animation, being wrapped up and buried alive thousands of years before and covered with a dormant, green fungus.
The body is brought back to California and McCadden has it examined by Dr. Ken Melrose (Austin Stoker) and X-rayed by student Peter Sharpe (Kevin Brophy) before a big press conference about the discovery. While reviewing the X-rays, Sharpe notices there are five crystals around the “mummy’s” head. Sharpe steals the crystals and makes new X-rays to cover up his theft. He sells four of the crystals to students who are unaware of their origin. The second set of X-rays overdose the body with radiation. This causes the fungus to re-activate and the alien to awaken from suspended animation…
Reviews:
“Ultimately, whilst Time Walker is a lot more fun than, say, The Awakening it’s tendency to bite off more than it can chew to try and bolster the slasher movie’s flagging fortunes means that it never really succeeds as either a horror movie or a sci-fi one. It perhaps doesn’t help that the mummy turns out to be a cute-faced extraterrestrial than didn’t mean to hurt anyone (a concept quite in vogue in 1982!). Still, fans of genre movies from the early 1980s will find a lot here to entertain them.” JA Kerswell, Hysteria Lives
Buy: Amazon.com
“There are a couple of good kills here and some rare instances of suspense and atmosphere but overall this isn’t scary. It gets some points for at least trying something different, you’ve got to give it credit for that, but no one in the cast seems particularly committed to their role and the way in which the script throws together frat boy comedy and killer mummy elements results in a pretty inconsistent tone and pace.” Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop!
In a movie called Time Walker, the title character doesn’t walk at all, nor does it do anything involving time (besides waste it, maybe). I did like how it made use of its hovering ability to peep in on a naked girl, though. In one of the few inspired directing choices, the mummy is largely unseen for a while, and we instead see the world through his eyes, which seem to be filtered with a lime green Jello mold.” Brett Gallman, Oh, the Horror!
“Though mercilessly ridiculed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Time Walker is a naively charming low-budget horror and sci-fi thriller, a real throwback to a more innocent time.” Stuart Galbraith, DVD Talk
Choice dialogue:
“That’s enough radiation for one night! Just deliver those damned plates to my office.”
Suzie: “Well, maybe you’ve found the first civilisation to use polyester?”
