Dawn of the Mummy (1981)

‘They came from the dead… A monstrous, chilling terror stalking the living.’

Dawn of the Mummy is a 1981 American/Egyptian supernatural horror film produced and directed by Frank Agrama (Queen Kong), from a screenplay co-written with Ronald Dobrin and Daria Price. Original director Armand Weston (The Nesting) left the production.

It should not be confused with Roger Christian’s 2013 film Prisoners of the Sun (written by Peter Atkins and Anthony Hickox), which was retitled Dawn of the Mummy for its British DVD release by 4Front Films.

Plot:

A photographer and a group of American models travel to Egypt for a fashion shoot. While shooting in an ancient tomb, their hot lights accidentally revive a mummy and his followers, a band of flesh-eating zombies…

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Reviews:

‘A mummy-zombie invasion hybrid isn’t a half-bad idea, unless it’s burdened by predictable scripting and unremarkable acting, and backed by an incongruous slasher score (picture frenetic music accompanying low-speed mummy chase).’ Peter Dendle, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, McFarland

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‘The last half hour is an eye gouging, skin ripping, mutilating and eviscerating good time and yes, most definitely worth the wait. I am even willing to ignore the fact that Surferman and his friends are able to almost simultaneously be in town and at the fashion shoot campground despite the fact that there was clearly a huge distance between the two as set early on. The gore really is just that satisfying.’ That Which Should Not Be Measured

“Some praise should be given to the special effects and zombie/mummy make-up in the film. While not looking as delightfully rotten as the zombies in Fulci’s films, the corpses look appropriately decayed, while Sephriman looks terrific despite spending most of his time staring confusedly at nothing in particular. The gore is plentiful, and is usually realized quite effectively, aside from the brief cleaver to the head scene, which is really the fault of some rough editing.” Movie Feast

“The gore’s the main emphasis (the promise of sex is a red herring) yet nothing here is particularly innovative or even well executed.” Jamie Russell, Book of the Dead

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“The story, dialogue and performances are so absurd that the film’s extremely violent bits are more amusing than tasteless. And the mummy make-up is surprisingly excellent: naturally thin actors are wrapped in dirty, bloody rags with sections of dried flesh exposed. Make no mistake – Dawn of the Mummy is truly a bad movie but is also a hilarious one…” Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide