Day of the Mummy

Out of the over 260 Found Footage films I have seen, only a handful combine exotic locales with a setting rich in history (see list at the end). There definitely needs to be more, for when a found footage movie manages to take advantage of the setting, the result can be an amazing vicarious experience. Unfortunately, it does not happen too often, and here the result is mixed.

DAY OF THE MUMMY is a found footage horror adventure movie in which a team of archaeologists are looking for the tomb of a cursed pharaoh, and the protagonist in addition is secretly given the task by the wealthy financier of the expedition, played by Danny Glover, to find a valuable gemstone.

The movie feels very much like a live-action video game, with the gimmick of a camera being clandestinely installed in the protagonist's eyeglasses and the financier boss periodically adding commentary to the happenings on screen through a hidden ear piece. I take it that the protagonist, an Indiana Jones type, is meant to be drawn as a complex character, not entirely good and not entirely bad, but he ends up feeling like a video game character, too.

Although the film has some atmosphere, the happenings on screen are always at arm's length and therefore fail to involve the audience. There are also some major requirements of suspension of disbelief (e.g. A signal going through even while deep inside a cave: the group reaching a chamber full of lit candles and never even asking who lit them and when, and so on). The ending was less than satisfying.

Still, there was enough to at least keep me entertained. So, while it is not a good found footage movie, I think the IMDB rating (2.6 as of this writing) is too harsh. The film may well have an audience in those who, like me, enjoy found footage movies with an adventure component and exotic setting.

There is one other ancient Egypt-themed FF movie I know of, made even the same year as this, THE PYRAMID (2014), which is a couple of notches better (see my review). Some other comparable movies I liked are

1. JERUZALEM (2015)

2. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW (2014)

3. FINAL PRAYER (2013)

Only one Mummy movie, in my opinion, is worse and that's The Mummy Resurrected, which had eerily similar problems to the ones that this had. Day of the Mummy does have one redeeming quality(whereas The Mummy Resurrected had none) and that's the location of the inside of the Mummy's tomb, suitably claustrophobic and effectively creepy. In fact the locations in general are not too bad. But it was very difficult to enjoy them because the movie had such a dreary look and the way Day of the Mummy was shot was highly suggestive someone having the complete inability to keep a camera/video-recorder straight.

Day of the Mummy does use the found footage-like/picture-in-picture idea. This could have worked and could have potentially been creative, but it is way over-used and often at points where it was not needed. To say it was distracting was an understatement, so much so that a lot of the time it was used it took me right out of the movie. The script is incredibly weak, some of it sounds like it was improvised on the spot but most of it sounds like the actors only received the dialogue just minutes before and were reading from cue cards, hence why it was acted out in such an uninvolved and awkward manner. As for the story, there are glimpses of one but there is strong emphasis on the glimpses, what there is of story is painfully predictable, interminably slow in pace and lacking in everything you'd expect for a horror to work(suspense, tension, horror, fun, scares, thrills etc.).

The characters are walking clichés ridden to death, and they are not developed or interesting at all so it's impossible to root for them. To make things worse the acting is awful from actors who clearly did not want to be there in the first place, even from Danny Glover who squints and winces his way through his screen time giving the impression of why did I ever agree to do this. However that he is actually the best actor in the movie is testament to how bad the acting is, William McNamara is a long way from a dashing hero and actually looks bored out of his skull, even the most bored-sounding answering machine has more energy than him. Don't expect the Mummy/monster to save the movie, it doesn't look too bad but it's under-utilised, it acts intoxicated rather than imposing so it doesn't come across as scary at all and it's hard to shake off the feeling of that it's a man in a costume. Apparently the director has prior experience, but considering the ineptness of the direction here that's hard to believe.

In conclusion, awful movie in every way apart from the tomb location. Maybe see it to see for yourself how Glover fares here and how his career has gone down the toilet, otherwise while not quite as abysmal as The Mummy Resurrected Day of the Mummy should have stayed buried. 1/10 Bethany Cox

For goodness sake, do yourself a favor and close your eyes for 80 minutes instead of watching this, you will be more entertained.

After having sat through 80 minutes of the worst movie I have ever seen, I spent the next almost 4 hours with self torture techniques trying to remove any recollection of having watched it.

I must admit it was only because Danny Glover was cast I watched it, but never has he acted so poorly. I have been a long time fan of his, but how he was directed to be so bad, I will now question any future movies he is in.

The directing was pathetic. I thought this was his first, so willing to cut some slack, but nope, he has done this before. One thing for sure he will never see red carpet in his life.

All in all this movie might have been made on a McDonalds meal budget, but directing could have made this acceptable.

Johnny Tabor failed. He is now Johnny Ta-boring..........

It shot the movie with a handy cam. It's constantly shaking and it makes me dizzy from the beginning to the end. All my 3 kids and my wife and I vomited. The movie has basically no plot, but full of dumb cheesy conversations.

About 10 minutes before the end, a couple of mummies showed up a bit and they were all played by humans in cheap Halloween costume. Not scary at all! It'd be nicer if it could use computer-aided scenes. Waste of my time and money and physically made me uncomfortable. I feel the director has stolen money (a few dollars) from me.

I strongly suggest you not rent this movie. It borrows the name Mummy and has similar scenes on its DVD cover and hence makes you think it is a sequel to the wonderful movie -- The Mummy.

What a load of Rubbish.

1 hour and 20 minutes of my life I will never get back. Although as I had it on fast forward much of the time due to no dialog taking place perhaps only an hour lost.

Shocking acting and lousy story line.

I should have known as Danny Glover was listed. A cameo role. Seems like all these "has been" actors are nowadays giving up 15 minutes of their time to appear briefly in a "B" or "C" grade movie so they can get a cut.

Don't bother with this at all.