After a friend makes a special discovery, a masked wrestler is brought along by friends on a journey to recover a mummy's petrified remains, but the party's presence awakens the creature from its slumber and forces him to protect them from the creatures plans as it rampages through the group.
This one falls just short of the best of the masked wrestler movies from Mexico but still has a lot of enjoyment on hand. Among the film's strongest features is that it moves along at a nice enough pace to not be boring, providing plenty of fun moments here. The flashback to the original mummified figure stealing the girl and being chased by the imperial soldiers through the woods and then showing their capture and eventual sacrificial rites allows for some a strong start by giving this a real localized flavor. As well, the mummy's rampage on the villagers is quite fun with it using a bow and arrow to silently strike before resorting to more traditional hand-to-hand measures to strike everyone it can. Their eventual search for the missing individuals once they realize what's going on has some fun to it and once the mummy is released the frequent battling between the two is highly enjoyable and entertaining. On top of that, there's enough care in the rest of the film to stand out. The atmosphere here is a big part of that, with their digging through the catacombs adds a real sense of the underground filled with falling rocks and dirt before getting to the grand burial tomb which is pure Gothic splendor and feels like an elaborate ceremonial room. The camp where all the stalking of the villagers goes down is pretty decently used for setting up some suspenseful moments where the figure emerges from the darkness to terrorize the helpers on the expedition. Several of the nighttime encounters in the jungle offer some suspenseful stalking here, from an encounter with the mummy inside a corridor in the cave to the later wrestling matches that take place which adds atmospheric action to the mix. Along with the great look of the mummy costume that's effectively tattered rags and dried-out skin, there's enough to like to hold this one up. There are some minor problems with this one. Among the biggest issues is the build-up to the mummy's release in the party taking way too long to get to the tomb, as the Adventure Film surroundings seem like time-padding and only there to feature the titular hero wrestling with animals that threaten the group. This could've been trimmed down somewhat to allow an explanation for why he's even there in the first place which is never brought up and makes no mention of why they even need him specifically even though he does prove his worth eventually. As well, this one changes his behavior around pretty drastically to where the virtuous hero is now talking down to the villagers and dismissing their mummy claims as pure superstitious which is completely out of his character to not be supportive of his heritage. The twist ending is a little hard-to-follow in terms of adhering to storyline continuity, but beyond that, there's a lot to like as it's pretty solid.
Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.
