Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)

Plot Outline: A group of Egyptologists discover the tomb of an evil queen and just at the moment of discovery, the wife of the leader of the expedition gives birth to a girl. As she grows up it becomes evident she has inherited the beauty and the soul of the mummy. The expedition's members suddenly become worried because they each took something from the tomb and the mummy needs to retrieve them all in order to be resurrected.

The Review: The early 70s was a testing time for Hammer as it drastically tried to breathe new life into it's dying franchises. Ralph Bates was brought in to replace Peter Cushing as a younger Baron Frankenstein in The Horror of Frankenstein and the Dracula series was moved into the 20th century with Dracula A.D. 1972, as well as the introduction of more graphic sex and gore into other Hammer films. So it was deemed necessary to turn it's mummy franchise away from watching a man in bandages stalk old explorers to something a little more interesting and appealing. And thus we get the introduction of Valerie Leon into the film. Wow. There's sexbombs from the 60s and 70s but she's got to be right up there with the best of them. She's not a great actress but looking like an extra from a Russ Meyer film. Leon slips into a variety of skimpy outfits to reveal her extremely ample figure more than once. The director knows she's the major attraction of the film and he's not wrong there. Leon is just drop dead stunning. It does seem a little weird to think we could be watching this film, only with a bandaged guy playing that role. The departure of the traditions of the series works for and against the film. It's leisurely paced which basically means it's pretty plodding, only picking up half-way through once the queen becomes active again. It's surprisingly bloody too with neck bites and a stumpy wrist spurting out the red stuff. There is a foreboding sense of doom that starts to build and reaches quite a decent height when the queen is finally re-awakened in the tomb during the finale. There's no major Hammer star involved here as Peter Cushing had to withdraw during the first week of shooting after his wife became ill. Andrew Kier, a solid Hammer actor, stands in quite well for him although he's not really given too much to do. It's also one of the first Hammer films to bring the "gothic" touch into a more modern setting as they tried to change with the times instead of churning out period horror all of the time. And it looks like some sort of modern nightmare because the two have become mixed. Streets, houses and alleys suddenly take on a whole new menace with the sense that something malevolent is lurking there.

Final Verdict: Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is a decent effort from Hammer considering it's without it's major assets both in front of and behind the camera. However Valerie Leon more than makes up for that with her assets and there's not going to be an actress to capture her presence and aurora ever again. She's stunning (and the film ain't half-bad either).

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