User reviews

First up, the only reason I am writing this review is I fear the low rating the movie has will drive some viewers away. A 4.2 rating implies junk and that is not the case at all.

The opening sequence showing the civil unrest in Egypt is well done and gives a nice back drop to the ensuing story. I won't repeat the synopsis which many have covered, except to say it is a little different, which is welcomed. The leads, particularly Mark Dana were quite good and earnest in their performances. The film manages to build suspense nicely and the short run time is probably a help.

The negatives are it doesn't have the glitz of a Hammer flick and there is zero gore that modern horror fans require. Also the Mummy is not in the film at all during the first half of the picture. This is no masterpiece by any means, but it is a well made low budget monster movie from the 1950's. If you love old B movies from the 1950's then this is a nice way to spend 75 minutes.

I always find it a bit tricky to really be critical of older films. There's so much in them that may have perfectly fit that era that just don't work now. I don't even mean social or political issues so much as things like writing, acting, cinematography and plotting.

In the case of the Pharaoh's Curse, I think it does some things really well, like jumping right to things rather than having to spend a lot of time on pointless talking. It's so campy and cheesy though that it's hard to take seriously.

With something like this, I'm going with my gut and when the credits rolled I wasn't upset for watching it but it wasn't exactly a great time either. It's more fascinating just because of its age than the film itself, I think but it's not a bad watch. This is really only a movie for people that enjoy old cinema and movie buffs. There's nothing really exceptional here to make it worth the average viewer's time.

The Pharaoh's Curse is a basic mummy movie. A British captain in Cairo during an uprising is sent to shut down an archaeological dig before the local natives discover it and become even angrier than they already are. The captain,played by Mark Dana,is ordered to escort the wife of the expedition leader to camp to help persuade her husband to shut down the dig.On the way they encounter Simira,a local woman whose brother is part of the expedition.Mysterious occurrences begin and people start to die once the mummy's sarcophagus is opened. I wouldn't plan my day around watching this movie but it's okay for a rainy afternoon.

I saw this film when I was just a little kid. I saw it close to the time that I saw "Curse of the Demon," and thoughout my life I always wondered if these two films were real films or some kind of nightmare I remembered that I just thought were movies. I found "Curse of The Demon" a few years ago for sale, and I was able to record "Curse of the Pharaoh" about a year ago when it was shown uncut and without commercial breaks on the Tele.

Now, as a grownup, I have a little of a hard time finding just what scared me so awfully much in "Curse of the Pharaoh." I guess I was very young at the time. However, I still rate the film as better than most others rate it and have watched it about four times since I recorded it. That compares with many of the new films on DVD that I have watched on once after purchasing them. Perhaps it is just that I remember it as such a good film from when I was little, but I still enjoy it today. Many of the early "classic" horror films are not as scary as it is, and they certainly move even slower. I feel that the audience for a good mummy film was not there when it was released back in the late 50's.

In closing, I can truthfully say that I enjoy an average horror film much more than an average film of any other genre. I can spend a whole evening watching horror and mystery movies. How weird?

Well safe in the knowledge that this production got no nearer Egypt than California's Death Valley, we set off in search of a tomb. Remarkably, after what seems to be very little effort they discover Ramotep's last resting place and a-plundering they go. Thing is, though, the tomb starts to fight back - and when one of their number starts doing more desiccating than desecrating, a curse would appear to be on them. To be fair, the curse was probably already on the whole thing from the storyboard to the clapperboard. The cast are pretty C-list, led by Mark Dana's wooden-as-a-sarcophagus "Capt. Storm"; featuring Ziva Rodann doing her best Joan Collins impersonation as the sultry "Samira" as well as a few others going through the motions as Lee Sholem offers us nothing at all new with this rather dry and unremarkable mummy story. It's only an hour, and it isn't terrible - but that's not really any reason to watch it.

1956's "Pharaoh's Curse" at first looks to be a simple 50s update of The Mummy, and certainly better than its current DVD cofeature "Curse of the Faceless Man." The screenwriter was Richard Landau, responsible for quite a few genre titles: "Lost Continent," "Stolen Face," "Spaceways," "The Glass Tomb," "The Quatermass Xperiment," "Voodoo Island," and "Frankenstein-1970." The production team of Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch were also responsible for "The Black Sleep," "Voodoo Island," "Frankenstein-1970," and "X-15," but were more prolific at Westerns, action and crime dramas. At the helm was director Lee 'Roll 'Em' Sholem, no stylist but an efficient craftsman whose only other genre credits included "Tarzan's Magic Fountain," "Tarzan and the Slave Girl," "Superman and the Mole Men," "Jungle Man-Eaters," "Cannibal Attack," "Doomsday Machine" and "Tobor the Great." Set in 1902 Egypt, a party of four march into the desert to find the expedition of noted archaeologist Robert Quentin (George N. Neise), who hope to uncover the tomb of Pharaoh Ra-Antef without government authority. The opening reels are a tough slog, watching this quartet lose a horse, food, and water before the film shifts focus to Quentin's forbidden discovery, which naturally bears a curse declaring that the spirit of the Pharaoh's high priest will take the form of another to ingest human blood. Native guide Numar (Alvaro Guillot) becomes the victim of possession, aging rapidly in a matter of hours before stalking anyone stupid enough to venture alone inside the tomb (the best moment has his arm pulled off by the hero, as the ghoul's entire body is disintegrating into dust). It's not executed particularly well (only two blood drained murders), but the performers acquit themselves nicely (excusing the multiple accents) and the idea of merging the Mummy with the vampire legend would recur exactly ten years later in "Beast of Morocco." Another interesting touch is making the archaeologist an unsympathetic glory hound, hardly batting an eye when his wife announces the end of their marriage. Theatrically double billed by United Artists with Karloff's "Voodoo Island," the poster's ballyhoo gives away the entire mystery: "a blood-lusting mummy that kills for a cat-goddess!" The one actor with previous experience on Egyptian findings was Kurt Katch, who was a casualty of both "The Mummy's Curse" and "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" (he meets a similar fate here). Terence De Marney was feted to work opposite both Bela Lugosi (1935's "Phantom Ship") and Boris Karloff (1965's "Die, Monster, Die!"), before playing a denizen of darkness himself in the aforementioned "Beast of Morocco," a better take on the subject if still a slow moving affair (interestingly, the British thespian would find himself a staple of TV Westerns).

Logically, you'd think that a horror movie would have lots of tension and excitement. Well, think of "Pharaoh's Curse" as a film that defies logic! It's excruciatingly dull from start to finish and I can't see any reason to recommend it. It's not even fun like a bad movie--it's just dreadfully uninteresting.

The film begins at a British outpost in Egypt. An officer is ordered to track down an unauthorized archaeological expedition and force them to return to Cairo. On the way, this tiny group of British soldiers meets up with a loopy Egyptian lady who promises bad things will occur if they don't stop the expedition...and soon. Unfortunately, they arrive too late. The archaeologists not only discovered the Pharaoh's tomb but they've opened it and unleashed bad stuff. Specifically, a member of the group is turned into a dessicated mummy-like guy who kills and apparently cannot be killed.

All this sounds pretty exciting...but it isn't. Nothing happens until very late in the film and as a result, I was half asleep when the action (such as it is) began. It also didn't help that the acting and script were also poor. Not terrible...just nothing to make it of any interest to anyone but someone trying to get rid of their insomnia! Dull, dull, dull in every way. And the ending....very, very unsatisfying.

By the way, I liked watching the guy sucking out the scorpion venom from its victim. What a dodo and about as effective as pouring sauerkraut on her head to treat the wound!

A drab horror film that runs only 66 minutes but feels like it's 166. A group of archaeologists in Egypt encounter a curse that starts to affect a sick member of their group, gradually transforming him into a wrinkled, mummy-liked ghoul wearing pajamas. All the characters are bland and uninteresting, and the pacing is like sludgy molasses which plods along endlessly. Once the mummified man starts walking and doing his thing, there are some good moments of chills, but that does not occur until about the 40 minute mark (which may sound like a short amount of time, but it doesn't seem like it), by which time it's already too late. The makeup is pretty good, but the pj's had to go. While writing these notes I couldn't help comparing the structure of PHARAOH'S CURSE to THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940). That was another similarly short film around the same length where its monster doesn't get to work until later on, but the differences between the two are astounding. At least in HAND we are invested in the main characters and don't feel so bogged down. Interesting wrong and right way to do this type of film. *1/2 out of ****

I watched this movie often when I was a lad and "Chiller Theatre" ran it on Saturday nights. Even then I sensed there was something different about it, the mummy looked like he was walking around in his pyjamas! Oh I had already seen THE MUMMY (1932) and THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940) and those other mummy movies done by Universal in the 30's and 40's but this film was lots different from them! This was no bandage wrapped monster; to my young eyes the mummy looked like a very old man wandering around an underground tomb. I could not figure out why everyone else in the movie was afraid of him; of course there was that scene where someone tried to grab the mummy and only succeeded in pulling his arm off!

This is not an easy movie to find these days but I did manage to locate it on late night TV once. Knowing it might be my only chance for a long time I videotaped it. After watching it carefully I learned all the nuances that had escaped me back when I was 7. The mummy of the Pharaoh does not come to life, its spirit takes over the body of a young Egyptian man (Alvaro Guillot) and uses him to get revenge on those who have desecrated the tomb. An original idea, I must say. The downside of this is the young man begins to age at an accelerated pace until he looks no better than the mummy itself. His method of execution was different too. Instead of strangling his victims leaving a telltale mark of mold on their necks he bites their throats (admittedly a difficult thing to do when his teeth get more and more rotten by the minute!) and drains their blood.

Let's not forget the mysterious woman (Ziva Rodann, using the name Ziva Shapir in this movie) who appears out of nowhere and joins the expedition. She treks through the scorching desert and never takes a drink of water or gets tired. She also seems to know what is going to happen before it happens. Is she the cat goddess Bast in human form? Perhaps!

The moral of this story, if scary movies are meant to have morals, is Stay Out of Egyptian Tombs. They don't want to be disturbed and you probably have better things to do anyway.

Director Lee "Roll 'Em" Sholem also directed movies like TOBOR THE GREAT and SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN. He knew how to get a movie done on time and under budget and still make it look good.

An expedition led by hunky Captain Storm (Mark Dana) travels to the Valley of the Kings in Cairo to find out what happened to an earlier expedition. They meet beautiful mysterious Simira (Ziva Rodann) who joins them. They soon find themselves faced with a blood drinking mummy...and only Simira seems to know what's going on.

A real snoozer. I caught this on late night TV when I was about 10. It put me to sleep! Seeing it again all these years later I can see why. It's slow-moving, the mummy doesn't even show up until 40 minutes in (and this is only 66 minutes long!), the acting ranges from bad (Dana) to REAL bad (George N. Neise) and there's no violence or blood to be found. This movie concentrates more on second rate dramatics (involving a silly love triangle) than horror.

This rates three stars because it actually looks pretty good, everyone plays it straight, there's some good acting from Diane Brewster, it's short and the mummy attack scenes (all three of them) aren't bad. They're not scary just mildly creepy. Still, this movie is pretty bad. A sure fire cure for insomnia.

Pharaoh's Curse is one of my all time favorite "BAD" movies. I had a big crush on Ziva Rodann, billed here as Ziva Shapir, and to have Diane Brewster in the cast as well was double fun. Mark Dana was a busy TV leading man in the 1950's but his career ran out of gas by the mid 60's. He tries to effect a British accent for his role but fails badly. George N Neise had a four decade career as a character actor in films and television.He's a bit overblown here as the films obsessed archaeologist.Ben Wright's voice was as familiar the his face. He worked for Disney in 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, and the Little Mermaid. Director Lee "Role Em" Sholem was a favorite of "B" movie and television producers all over Hollywood because his reputation for staying on schedule and within budget and being able to do the most with the least. He delivers a creepy and entertaining fright film here. Make up men Gordon Bau and Ted Cooley created a very realistic and frightening mummy based on Nick Volpe's concept.

The mummy is a little different from most of the other movie mummy's in that it is really one of the expedition members whose body has been possessed by the mummy's vengeful spirit. It is also a bit of a vampire too, in that it needs fresh blood to keep on going. After several mules and a few expedition members meet their end it finally dawns on the group what is going on. Although they still can't seem to determine what to do about it.

Pharaoh' Curse was made to be a low budget Saturday Matinée shocker for junior high aged kids. That and a film for the drive-in movie crowd. It holds own with most any of the black and white horror films that were being released at the time. It's not Boris Karloff but it's a fun little film that is worth a watch.

Half asleep and bored to my senses, I checked the timer to see how far along I was into watching "Pharaoh's Curse". It was at 32 minutes... I don't have to tell you it's quite problematic and frustrating when nothing even remotely significant has happened after 32 minutes, especially if the total running time of the film is only 66 minutes! I considering turning it off, but I'm glad I didn't because the second half suddenly became eventful, fun, and quite good!

During the first half we learn there are riots in Cairo because of an archeological mission. The local populace protests because they fear the careless British treasure seekers will desecrate the tombs of the pharaoh, and thus the military sends Captain Storm and Sylvia - the wife of lead archaeologist Dr. Quentin - into the desert to go and abort the mission. That, ladies & gentlemen, covers the first half hour: people talking, people strolling through the desert, and Sylvia falling in love with a man other than her husband. They arrive too little too late, obviously, because the tomb has been opened. It does mean the start of entertaining second half, though!

Suddenly there's room for a cool plot about an ancient curse, a random Egyptian servant who turns into a creepy 3000-year-old mummy, victims going into a catatonic state to get murdered more easily, the nasty dissection of an arm (!), the lead archaeologist turning into an obsessive maniac, and Sylvia not even having to file for divorce. 30 minutes well spent!

Archaeologists in Egypt find one of their crew has been turned into a blood sucking mummy after they have unleashed a three thousand year curse by entering a Pharaoh's tomb.

The only person I know from this film is Les Baxter, who conducted the score. Not sure if that means anything... maybe these people were better known in the 1950s, or maybe they are all amateurs. I suppose I could check.

I expected, based on the plot, for this to be a ripoff of "The Mummy". Not so. While it does have a mummy's tomb, that is just about the only connection. Hammer films featuring mummies are more like "The Mummy" than this film is. (And, I should point out, this film is shot very crisp and acted fairly well... that it gets low ratings and is largely unknown seems unfortunate.)

Egypt, 1902: Faced with violent uprisings, British rulers send Captain Storm (Mark Dana) to put a stop to an archaeological dig that could further anger the dissidents. Storm leads a small group, including Sylvia (Diane Brewster), wife of explorer Robert Quentin (George N. Neise), to the Valley of the Kings, but they arrive moments too late: Quentin and his team have already unleashed the spirit of an Egyptian high priest, who possesses the body of a young man, turning him into a crumbling monster who sucks the blood from his victims.

Despite taking a slightly different approach to the whole Egyptian curse schtick, Pharaoh's Curse is still essentially a mummy movie, the slow, shuffling, desiccated killer only a threat if you're unable to outrun it. Amazingly, the victims in this film don't leg it on sight of the creature, but cower on the spot in fear, allowing it to drain them of bodily fluids (one particularly dumb victim even throws his blazing torch to the floor in fright, instead of using it as a weapon). It's all rather silly and not in the least bit frightening.

With a good half of the film devoted to the journey to the pharoah's tomb, during which the group encounter mysterious woman Simira (Ziva Rodann), plus some pointless emotional strife between Sylvia and Robert, this is a barely passable programme filler that has justifiably faded into obscurity.

Probably the most interesting thing about this film is that part of it was filmed at Death Valley. and the fact that the star Mark Dana doesn't even have a photo on imdb tips us off to the fact that this a a LOW budget horror, with a capital L. At the open, we learn that this takes place in 1902. It's a flashback to the story of raiding a tomb in Cairo, and strange things started happening when they set out to find the tomb. The story and the acting are all pretty hokey. As things start happening to members of the traveling party, they keep saying "Yeah, we should head back to a hospital."... but they never do. It's an acceptable kind of a non-ending, but it'll do. i guess. Directed by Lee Sholem, king of the cheap horror films.

Set in 1902, 'Pharoah's Curse' is well acted, with a characteristically atmospheric score by Les Baxter. The location work - apparently shot in just one day in Death Valley - and Col. Cross's office in the opening scene and the Pharoah's tomb itself provide atmospheric backdrops (possibly recycled from other productions); but once the cast eventually open the tomb they spend most of the rest of the film just wandering back and forth along its passages carrying torches and talking. And talking. The monster itself behaves more like a vampire than an Egyptian mummy, but looks memorably dessicated and demonstrates how brittle he has become when his arm breaks off in the hero's hand; thus obligingly providing a sample for the doctor to examine.

The exotic-looking and even more exotically accented Ziva Shapir as Ziva Rodann later played Nefertiti in the 1966 Batman story 'The Curse of Tut'/'The Pharoah's in a Rut', and Richard Peel, who played Sgt. Gromley, also featured in 'Batman' as Sandman's henchman 'Snooze'.

I was hoping this was going to be one of those so bad but so much fun to watch film but it isn't. Nice Egyptian sets and only a couple of scenes that are interesting and that's it. The movie is drab, the story is below average. The mummy isn't your bandage wrapped mummy instead it's old age of one of the characters (one of the curses).

There are many older mummy movies that are actually very fun to watch - and I can easily recommend most any of them but not this film Pharaoh's Curse of Boredom. I still recommended one to watch the older Universal Mummy movies and the Hammer Mummy films - those are actually enjoyable, fun to watch movies with more mummy action going on, plus the stories are not so dull.

3.5/10

For some reason, this film wasn't on DVD until this year, but it was shown a LOT on late night television back in the day. I saw it as a little kid and thought it was frightening and effective back then. Of course I am older now, but some of the veneer of seeing it back then still holds up.

The mummy is dressed a little odd (no bandages), but his face is certainly hideous enough, and there is a reason for his strange garb which is unveiled later on. A fair number of people get killed, and we see the mummy quite a bit, really.

Some people complain we don't see it for the first half of the film, which I guess is true, but on the other hand, the film is only 66 minutes long for Pete's sake. We don't see the monster in the first half hour of many movies, and this is no exception.

If the movie dragged on for 90-120 minutes, it would be a disaster, but for only 66 minutes, it holds up. I pine for the days when a film-maker felt free to make a shorter subject, particularly when the topic doesn't hold up for a longer time. I wish the makers of Pearl Harbor had had the guts to cut THEIR movie back.

It is 1902, Egypt is in upheaval over the present government. We get gory statements of atrocities.

An unauthorized dig is in progress. The wife of the digger is in the city. She must be kept from talking to the local rabble and the dig stopped before they find out someone was diddling with history.

On the way to the dig Sylvia Quentin (Diane Brewster) turned to Capt. Storm (Mark Dana) and says, "Just treat me like one of your men." Of course, we have no idea what goes on between the captain and one of his men out on the desert.

Oh, no, everything is going wrong. Sylvia gets scorpioned (a cute little thing.) Storm gets to suck out the poison. See them volunteer for this same service in Bananas (1971).

Meanwhile back to the tomb where after hearing a blood curtailing curse, an remember this is long before the Beatles, we here, whispered words of wisdom "Let it be." Looks like they go ahead and pull the duct tape from around the coffin lid.

Will they get there in time to prevent the "Pharaoh's Curse?" or will we have fun watching a one-by-one bloodsucking as the Pharaoh has his way?

It is intriguing to watch Ziva Rodann listed as Ziva Shapir, pussyfoot around. She could bite me any time.

Lots of fun standard mummy movie in black and white.

Infamously shot in six days, mostly in Death Valley, the Bel Air Production PHARAOH'S CURSE stars their next years' HOT CARS villain Mark Dana...

Here in the square-jawed lead, awkwardly juggling a British and American accent while subtly romancing the token greedy adventurer's wife, Diane Brewster, during the initial twenty-minute trek through the desert where gorgeous Israeli bombshell Ziva Rodann appears with the usual "turn back or die" warning...

But none heed her call, as the journey winds up at a pharaoh's tomb, which is actually a pretty neat-looking set full of secret doors and shadowy corridors, but the body count deaths from a cursed local, morphed into an ancient unbandaged mummy, sucking the blood of horses and humans, trudges along as clumsily as the monster... A shame since the rudimentary aura is spooky enough, making this CURSE a let-down of ungodly proportions... but the ladies are great to look at. It's a b-movie after all.

I saw this movie last weekend and it is silly and mindless. An ancient curse turns a man into a mummy in his pajamas? The victims are scared senseless and can not run from a slow moving old man. They drop their torches and shiver instead of attempting to ward him off or,duh, burn him. Quentin alias Mr. Fabersham of the Honeymooners is married to Diane Brewster alias Miss Canfield of Leave it to Beaver fame, who is unhappy in marriage. Wow, love plot. The rest of the cast just follows each other in the tombs and wait for screams to react and run to their aid. The Egyptian girl is not bad looking but does not lend much to the film. Where is the mummy? Really just a curse unleashed. This does not hold a torch to Universal Mummy films in the least.Watch this movie if you need sleep, because you will dose off.

British soldier, Captain Storm (Mark Dana) is enlisted to escort the wife of an archaeologist through the desert. Along the way, Storm and his team encounter a beautiful, enigmatic woman named Simira (Ziva Rodann). Soon thereafter, odd occurrences begin. Is Simira somehow responsible?

Upon their arrival at the dig site / tomb, the real, supernatural shenanigans unfold. But first, a soap opera-like love triangle made up of Storm, the archaeologist, and his neglected wife ensues. In between spats, a mummy causes trouble.

PHARAOH'S CURSE is a fairly entertaining entry in the mummy movie sub-genre. The novel idea of including soul transference and a vampiric mummy works quite well.

Actually, Simira is the most interesting aspect of the film, with her cryptic words and far-off looks, she pretty well steals the show...