El secreto de la momia egipcia

Count Dartmoor, a scientist and explorer reveals to a disguised Police Inspector a strange account concerning the mysterious events that took place at his spooky countryside castle when a sarcophagus containing mummified body of a young Egyptian believed to be the son of an Egyptian Priest was brought to the castle. The count reincarnates the mummy that feeds on human blood.

The young mummy with carved eyes has got hypnotic powers. He has got a particular desire for young women and enjoys innocent country girls in every horrific way.

Cinematography is reasonable. It is wonderful to see gorgeous country with open fields, streams, houses and of course the ghastly manor. Script and musical score are fine.

Except inept portrayal of the mummy on certain occasions, the performance of characters is up to the mark. The movie deserves six stars out of ten from my viewpoint.

Love Brides of the Blood Mummy (1973)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This rather bizarre Spanish horror film received a new title and seemed to cause a stir across the internet but sadly the actual film itself is quite poor. An expert on Egyptian mummies (Frank Brana) is told by a scientist (George Rigaud) how he discovered a mummy and managed to bring it back to life. Bringing this mummy back to life meant that he and his assistant had to kidnap women and "offer" them to the mummy who liked to fondle them and eventually drink their blood. This film has a catchy title but it was originally released as THE SECRET OF THE Egyptian MUMMY and it's easy to see why it was forgotten for nearly forty-years. The film is pretty boring, drawn out and there's simply nothing interesting that happens in it. I think the biggest problem is that it's rather bland looking and there's never an inch of excitement going on. Even worse is that it's quite repetitive because we simply see the same thing happen over and over throughout the running time. We see a woman. We see the assistant chase her. The assistant catches her, ties her up and then the mummy gets her. These scenes are just so boring and watching the same thing over and over simply doesn't help. Even worse is that I watched the Spanish version of the film, which has zero bits of nudity and really not that much blood. Apparently there's an American dubbed version that features more nudity and blood but so far this here hasn't been released. Maybe that version will be a cult favorite but take away the LOVE BRIDES OF THE BLOOD MUMMY title and you really have nothing here. Those expecting a bandaged up mummy will also be disappointed. It's really too bad someone like Jess Franco didn't get a hold of this story.

Without a doubt this is the most unusual and intriguing mummy movie you are ever likely to see. His doting father, the high priest refused to have his evil son's internal organs removed, or his body embalmed and wrapped after the obligatory tongue removal. Instead he put an occult spell on him after having him sealed intact in his sarcophagus and hidden. About three thousand years later, Lord Dartmoor, an eccentric antiquarian dilettante buys the still sealed sarcophagus and discovers the intact body when he opens it in his castle. He stimulates it back to life with a strange electric device, only to be enslaved by the mummy's strange hypnotic powers. The powerful mute Egyptian must drink fresh blood daily to remain living and so begins his demonic reign of vampiric terror in the surrounding countryside with many young women victimized to slake his thirst and lust. It's quite an effective film with many startling, imaginative sequences and a worthy competitor to the better known Hammer lexicon. The real surprise and standout is the striking actor who plays the mummy (Michael Flynn?) who certainly looks the part with expert make-up, despite the disappointing costume....its silhouette is correct, but the kilt should have been pleated white, nearly sheer linen and the collar beaded instead of both being cheap looking gold lame cloth. A few faults like these mar the total effect but overall it is in many ways as good or better than other films of this genre. Recommended if you enjoy vampire or mummy films.

Gothic castles, moody English countryside, sex...what is there not to like? There is a lot to like about this film, yet somehow it does miss its mark. Despite the great locations, fine period wardrobes and excellent cinematography, a scripting misstep and excessively contemporary score leaven what should have been a really great Gothic thriller from the '70s.

The plot is simple: The Lord of a crumbling castle brings back a mummy from Egypt for study. Upon opening the sarcophagus, he finds the mummy perfectly preserved. Clues left on a papyrus lead him to a method for bringing it back to life-a deed he soon regrets, as the mummy imprisons him in his own dungeon and proceeds to kill a host of unappealing '70s starlets.

Most of the film is spent depicting these women being killed by a decidedly un-macho mummy, who "rapes" them before death. While this writer enjoys a good cinematic rape scene (such as in 1978's "I Spit On Your Grave," or EuroCine's "Rape"), these assaults are totally un-sexy. With his fruity Beatles wig, Liz Taylor eye makeup and gold lame skirt, the mummy is neither scary or manly enough to be sexy.

This film could have been saved by canceling the mummy character entirely and replacing it with the son of the Baron who lived in the castle. The distraught Baron could use alchemy to revive his dead son, only for the (preferably hot) young man to go on a rape and blood-drinking rampage to sustain himself. This would have made the sex scenes a lot hotter and the visuals a lot more consistently Gothic.

Nevertheless, worth a look.

My 5/10 "neutral" rating is usually reserved for movies that are sort of difficult to assess in the forms in which they may be available. Such is the case here with his genuinely bizarre oddity of the Euro Horror fad from the early 1970s, a deservedly obscure ultra low budget attempt to make a vampire movie without a vampire.

The only version I have been able to see for myself is a somewhat ragged Spanish language print that has the trappings of a genuinely interesting film: Gothic location work galore, some demented shock sequences involving chains & manacles & vaulted crypt like dungeons, girls being abused and molested by some freak in a strange half costume, and an interesting aura of gloomy, autumn countrysides crossed with dank cloistered claustrophobia. Even if I don't understand the language it's a pleasure to look at.

There's some sort of story going on about a scientist (George Rigaud, looking respectable as always) who tries to tell a wandering occult expert (spaghetti western stalwart Frank Brana) about his efforts to revive the corpse of an Egyptian mummy who never quite decomposed after being shuttled into his coffin. He succeeds and quickly comes to regret it as the mummy starts to exhibit Christopher Lee like tendencies involving hypnotizing various supporting cast members to do his evil bidding.

One of the bizarre touches the film treats us to is the lack of a mummy costume. Instead we get a sort of 12th grade talent show production's vision of what an Egyptian sorcerer might have looked like before the gauze wrappings were applied. And once revived the fiend must glut itself on the blood of pretty half-naked Euro Horror babes who have been chained up by Rigaud's hypnotized servant.

Being a Spanish production from the early 1970s there were no doubt two versions made to appease dictator Generalissimo Franco's banning of frontal nudity from his cinemas during his reign, and sadly one of the few surviving home video versions was struck from a Spanish language print that doesn't contain the sexualized horror that this sort of material usually calls for. There's some adequate scenes of sadism on the part of the mummy that leads to the expected bloodletting, but something tells me we're only seeing half of the picture in this shaky 16mm Spanish print, and as such its somewhat difficult to assess.

There is one really effective sequence when the suitor of one of the abducted Euro Horror babes tracks her abductor down to the marvelously crumbled & dank castle (or castles, since some of the interiors have a decidedly French look to them, others look familiar from Spanish outings) and has to worm his way inside like Gollum, only to find himself pitted against an evil against which there is no real defense. The hopelessness of the situation is actually kind of compelling in a way, even if in the end it doesn't amount to much.

Fans of spaghetti westerns will probably recognize some of the Spanish & French countrysides used for the exteriors, and die hard fans of vaulted, decrepit Euro Horrors will probably be delighted by the results, which have been filmed with a unique sort of eye for detail including an interesting use of dissolves & editing segues. I wish I had a better idea what was going on however, and interested readers should follow the "External Reviews" link to a more comprehensive review of the film by Euro Horror expert Robert Monel, whom it just happens that I acquired my copy of the film from. Small internet somedays.

5/10: If you find an English language version let me know ...