Dawn of the Mummy

Plot synopsis:
In the opening scene in Egypt, in the year 3,000 B.C., five servants are carrying urns into a crypt. The High Priestess (Laila Nasr) chants: "Accept in paradise this poor Seferaman who awaits entrance. Don't listen to who waits, to those who say he was a cruel man, the way of Seferaman is sacred." The servant begins to cut the dead man open. "Hear me oh Egypt, should the riches of Seferaman be stolen, all Egypt will tremble and Seferaman will rise and kill. His armies will rise and kill!" The guts of the warlord are put into urns. "It is done" says the High Priestess after the ceremony is finished. She then says "All who know the burial place of Seferaman must die. They will arise when he arises. Kill when he kills." She then says: "He who enters the tomb after it has been sealed will die from the Dawn of the Mummy!"Present DayThe tomb's entrance is blown up and the entrance way appears. An old woman (Laila Nasr) comes running and says they must not enter... she warns them not to break the curse. Rick (George Peck) shoots a gun at the old woman and she runs away. Rick leaves two guards at the tomb. The old woman runs into three men on camels and tells them that the tomb is open and they must help because of the curse. The men on the camels say that the "crazy American" must be mad. The three camel men sneak past the guards and enter the tomb. Two of the men get their faces burned with acid caused by the poisoned air leaking from the tomb.A TWA jet flies to Egypt. A group of four young American fashion models disembark. They and their crew board two jeeps to drive them to the desert outside Cairo at the Pyramid complex at Giza for a photo shoot. One of the models, Melinda (Ellen Faison), is worried about her toe nails being chipped. One of the jeeps has a flat tire and Gary (John Salvo) just sits on a rock watching the tire being changed. One of the models finds a decapitated head in the sand. Meanwhile at the tomb, Rick's guide Karib (Ibraham Khan) is disappointed - he doesn't find any treasure in the tomb. The group makes a campfire with the tomb raiding gang at night.The next day, the photographer Bill (Barry Sattels) wants to "shoot" his models in the hills. Rick blows up a wall and his "gang" finds a sarcophagus. They open it and find a mummy. Karib shoots at the models and the photographer. The team go to where the tomb raider Rick was. Jenny (Joan Levy) is the first one in the tomb, then the others follow. Bill says that he wants his shoot in the tomb. The hot lights resurrect the mummy. Black stuff and gas comes from the mummy's body unnoticed. Everyone is happy with the shoot. Rick cuts the light cord and everything goes dark. Jenny finds guts and they burn her hand like acid.When he is alone, Karib takes gold from the mummy then a wall opens up. Karib dies as he is crushed by a wall and someone pulls his body back into the other chamber. The mummy oozes more black stuff and gas then moves. When the team departs, the mummy sits up.At another campfire that night, the group of models sing along. The team finds the bodies of the two Bedouin whose heads are mush. Rick arrives and tells the team they should leave. Bill says he needs one more day to shoot and then they will leave. Rick and one of the models make out. The old woman goes into the tomb and finds the mummy gone. She finds the mummy and he kills the old woman. At dawn, Seferaman's army rises out of the sand.The next day, Bill is still taking pictures. Bill says they need 48 hours more to shoot. One of the models gets lost in the tomb and she calls out. Meanwhile, Gary and Ahmed to go town. Omar (Ahmed Rateb) gives Jenny and Gary a "smoke". Jenny goes shopping and sees Rick. Jenny sees the mummy and gets hysterical and runs to Gary, but when he looks, the mummy is gone.Back at the tomb, the mummy chops one of the tomb raiders in the head. At the nearby oasis, two models, Lisa and Melinda, take a swim. One leaves and the other one runs from the mummy. She runs, the mummy walks and one of his "soldiers" bites Melinda and tears out the side of her neck with his teeth, killing her.The next day, Rick finds Tarak (Ali Gohar) dead and freaks out and drives away. Rick goes to the tomb and calls for the God of the Sun. A wall slides back and Rick finds the treasure. He screams in in delight and the mummy comes and kills Rick.Bill and Gary go to town to see Omar. Omar is celebrating his wedding. Gary gives Omar his western cowboy hat and Omar gives Gary his golden head covering. A woman in red is dancing in the street as the camera pans closer to her breasts. Bill looks for Rick.Back at the camp, Lisa looks around the tomb. Bill finds the gold in the tomb and calls out. A severed head falls from the ceiling and lands in Bill's arms. He screams and flees back to the camp. Bill runs from the mummy's "soldiers." Jenny sees the mummy and freaks out. Bill shoots the mummy with a gun, but to no effect. The mummy strangles and tears off Bill's head. The models run and scream. Jenny gets torn apart and eaten alive by the mummy's "soldiers" while the models flee in a jeep.Back at the wedding celebration in town, there is dancing in the streets and the mummy's "soldiers" are seen eating a female guest in a tent. At this point, carnage ensues as everyone runs and the mummy soldiers grab and bite and tear into the guests. Total mayhem and gore in the streets. The mummy is standing in the street looking at the carnage.The two surviving models, Lisa and June, try a stick of dynamite on the mummy. Nothing happens. The models go into a shack, spread gasoline, light a fuse in a box of dynamite and blow up the shack with the mummy in it. Lisa and June celebrate with Gary and they all walk away. But in the final shot, the mummy's hand rises from the rubble.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Some of the makeup even resembles that film, only Fulci obviously had a lot more to work with than this director did.The attack of these mummy-zombies has to be seen to be believed, especially the climactic village raid following the wedding party.
Some fashion models and their photographers decide to shoot a fashion spread in Egypt for the fashion magazine.At the same time,three bandits are excavating the burial site of the Mummy, who was introduced during the film's opening.The two groups cross paths and the fashion photographer decides that the Mummy's tomb would make a really great backdrop.Unbeknowst for them the place is cursed and the ten foot Mummy comes back to life,bringing an army of zombies with him.A flesh-eating rampage ensues!But before that occurs,an hour of film passes by and actors act very badly.Frank Agrama's "Dawn of the Mummy" is often regarded as the goriest mummy flick ever made.It is surely loaded with lots of gore and gut munching,especially during its last 30 minutes,so fans of splatter should be pleased.Still the action is rather dull and the film offers nothing fresh or new.However if you are a gore-hound you may give it a try.7 out of 10..
The title of this very low budget Egypt/US co-production suggests a melding of the mummy movie with the zombie movie that was extremely popular around the time of the film's release.
After a gory flashback opening to ancient Egypt and a somewhat amusing scene where people stagger out of the mummy's tomb with gored-out faces {and who exactly committed this dastardly act is left unexplained,because the mummy has yet to be awoken},very little happens for nearly an hour.
The dialog and acting is pretty poor and it's obvious that much of is to to pad out the running time,although there is a little bit of tension at times.Then at last the mummy and his zombie followers are awoken and it's mayhem typical of Italian horror potboilers of the early 80s-eye gougings,flesh eating,etc,although nothing that would probably shock today's viewer.
The mummy,who looks a lot like the one Christopher Lee played,seems to show up all over the place so much that one wonders if he teleports himself,and the film's geography is really screwy.
Still,there is a little bit of {intentional} humour,such as somebody asking why do some clothes on a market stall possess Made In Hong Kong stickers, and the climactic bloody rampage through a village is well staged,after which the film abruptly stops,as it they ran out of film.Director Frank Agrama doesn't show much skill and fails to make the most of some scenes,like the zombies rising out of the sand as the sun sets-just think how good some other directors of zombie movies like Lucio Fulci would have made this scene.
Dawn of the Mummy is not a very good film,even on a fun trash level,and it really show how good something such as Fulci's Zombie really is.
I've been wanting to see this movie for nearly a decade, my mind awash with the creepy premise: Fashion models and their photographers trapped in an egyptian tomb with the titular creature and his zombie minions.
A pair of tomb raiders open the mummy's crypt looking for gold, but their plans are thwarted when a group of models and photographers show up and decide to use the tomb as a backdrop for their pictures.
Farouk (Frank) Agrama's Dawn of the Mummy (1981) tells the traditional story of an old mummy's grave being violated by greedy present day scientists and some other people as they're after a huge gold treasure that was left for the mummy as he was supposed to enter the beyond after his death.
The film ends in a hilarious gore carnage finale as the present day Egyptians and foreigners that caused it all learn that they really should have left the mummies in peace!
Still the film manages to maintain the interest with rather good balance between the action/horror scenes and the more restful ones.Dawn of the Mummy is a noteworthy example of the B level gore cinema of the early eighties with beautiful locations, some quite creepy and effective scenes and monsters, a universal theme about man's greediness and of course the "key thing", the graphic horror.
A film like this could be so much more painful to watch and so Agrama's effort will have its place in the book of the no-less-than-mediocre zombie/mummy horrors of the golden days of the genre!
Dawn of the Mummy (1981) ** (out of 4) Rather stupid but interesting American-Egyptian-Italian co-production has a group of fashion models heading to the pyramids of Egypt for a photo shoot.
Not only that but this mummy brings some zombie servants with him.DAWN OF THE MUMMY, as the title suggests, is trying to cash-in on Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD but it goes a step further and appears to have been really influenced by Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE, which of course was released in Italy as a sequel to the Romero movie.
This film isn't all that well made and features several flaws and boring moments but at the same time it's rather unique and has enough going for it to make it worth sitting through.What I enjoyed most about the film was the actual mummy.
The actor playing the part was extremely skinny and this gives the mummy a very unique look and helps separate it from other films in the genre.
The gore is scattered throughout but once the finale hits we get some very good gore effects with several people bitten and chewed up.The performances really aren't anything special and there's no question that whenever the mummy isn't on the screen that the film becomes boring.
Despite other Italian horror movies there are no scenes of nudity, the beautiful actresses even get to take a moonlight bath clad with bikinis - maybe the director didn't want to shock the mummy with the view of naked girls?
Well, as soon as the mummy awakes and goes on a rampage strangling its victims to death, its long-dead servants awake as well and go on a rampage eating people in a zombie-style manner.
This movie gives you nightmares - but not about the mummy but about the money you wasted renting or buying it and the time you wasted watching it.
They stumble across the violated tomb of one King Safirman (presumably he after whom the Safir hotel in Cairo itself is named?) and......well, talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.Cardboard sets, Z-Grade actors, $50 fx abound BUT, come that final scene as the mummy raises its hand in triumph, is heralded one of the most unexpectedly stirring film themes you will ever hear.
Usual plot of an ancient Egyptian prince having his tomb broken into - this time by gold hunters AND a group of American models on a fashion shoot - and wreaking his revenge.
The good points are that this was actually shot in Egypt, the sight of the Prince's zombie servants rising out of the sand is really good and there is, eventually, a fair smattering of gore.
Bad points are - terrible acting/dialogue, it's quite slow for it's first half & the gore is pretty cheap looking, not a patch on say Dawn of the Dead or Zombie Flesh Eaters.
They all inadvertently revive the bandaged baddie who then proceeds to slaughter everyone, with the help of his equally undead minions.The production went into the locations, the costumes and the special effects makeup sparing none for the cast, since no one acting in this film was by any means a familiar face.
*sigh* Maybe I'd just fashioned a better movie in my own head, but this didn't even need to deal with the mummy aspect.
O.K,i am just writing this to clear up the misinformation that the Anchor Bay DVD release is the "uncut" one.It isn't.In fact it is missing most of the gore.I have watched the true uncut version,a Greek VHS copy,a long time ago and i can still remember this film being much gorier that what Anchor Bay has released.Let me explain that in the mid-eighties ,Greece was a paradise for every gorehound cause the arrival of VHS had brought a ton of small Greek distributors that were releasing every piece of horror "video nasty" totally uncut including movies like cannibal holocaust,cannibal ferrox,every Fulci movie and many more, "Dawn of the Mummy" included.Anyway the movie is horrible but it has a few laughs due to the hilarious "acting" and the music is kind of neat.Other than that i was disappointed to find out that most of the gore is missing from the Anchor Bay version....
Dawn of the Mummy (1980) represents one of the only Egyptian produced films to feature Egypt's most famous character.
Filmed on actual Egyptian locations, director Farouk (Frank) Agrama directs his cast of Calender models as they shoot in an ancient tomb!
Sure, Dawn of the Mummy draws many of it's themes from the popular Zombie films of the 70's/80's.
I really doubt that anyone from the BBFC actually watched this film during the onslaught of the video nasties in 1980 - I expect they looked at the genre; Zombie film.
Cheap, badly acted, poorly made Mummy/Zombie film, that plays like the soft version of a porn film - no plot drive or narrative, inconsistent editing and a dire script with non-actors delivering the lines.The story has American fashion models in Egypt for a fashion shoot - the location promises flimsy see-through dresses but their is little on show for the dirty mac brigade.Climax of the film introduces the zombie theme, with the Mummy's dead followers wrecking havoc on a nearby town in revenge for the desecration of their master's tomb.
In doing so, they unwittingly awaken an ancient mummy and his slaves, who proceed to kill those who disturb their slumber.Dawn of the Mummy, a US/Egypt co-production, is a pretty poor gore flick obviously inspired by the success of Romero's Dawn of the Dead and subsequent Italian rip-offs (most notably Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2).
After the best part of an hour spent following the futile attempts of the treasure hunters to find hidden gold and watching the models posing badly for the photographer, the mummy eventually rises from his sarcophagus to kill, closely followed by his shuffling zombie-like assistants.
Director Frank Agrama manages a couple of workmanlike scares, there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had, and the movie eventually dishes up plenty of cheapo splatter towards the end, but it really isn't really worth sitting through the tedious stuff to get to the juicy bits..
Another version of the same old story: people open a mummy's tomb, mummy is awakened and walks the earth to kill the annoying strangers, assisted by `an army of zombies' (backcover text).
Grade-Z in all departments, "Dawn of the Mummy" is a film to watch only if you're desperate.
Cinematography (it looks like a home movie), acting (complete with ear-piercing screaming), script (incomprehensible), directing (incompetent)....just about everything here is unbelievably bad.
Yes, if you're looking for a gory zombie feature, but as for a mummy presentation it's disappointing.
The gory make-up effects are pretty well-done with some nasty scenes involving the zombies (not the mummy).
The BEST zombie-mummy film ever !
"B" movie is the worst , zombie , mummy make me confused what are they ?
When you cut to the chaste, Dawn of the Mummy is a Yawn of a film.
This film is a bit of a clunker, slow-paced until the mummy and his flesh-eating zombies go on a rampage near the end.
Now that it's finally out on DVD (in a nice remastered, uncut print with cool audio commentary by the director), we can skip past the wafer-thin plot about fashion models in the desert entering a cursed Pharaoh's tomb and get right to the good stuff...
What makes Dawn of the Mummy so special is that it has a small army of diseased flesh-eating zombies IN ADDITION to the killer mummy, ultra-gory intestine-ripping violence, a great soundtrack, a hilariously cheesy rip-off title (George Romero's Dawn of the Dead had come out a few years earlier), and---surprise--it is actually shot in Egypt, unlike just about every other mummy movie ever made.
Dawn of the Mummy is cheap enough on DVD that die-hard splatter fans and/or zombie completist (when aren't they the same?) won't feel guilty for adding this moldy oldie to their horror collection..
I had heard about DAWN OF THE MUMMY quite a while back-both in terms of it's supposedly extremely gory ending-and also how bad the rest of the film is supposed to be.
Of course the tomb is cursed, and the photo crew's bright lights awaken the mummy and his zombie-like minions who eventually go on a feeding- frenzy at a wedding...The good points: I personally liked the gooey-looking mummy.
DAWN OF THE MUMMY has a few amusing moments-and those who are fans of super-low budget schlock films may get a kick out of it.
The film itself is very Egyptian - except for a few NYC street shots, most locations and sets, as well as many actors, and of course the director, were Egyptian.The other thing I really liked were the scenes in the tomb - whenever something gory happened, the camera went to the painted clay statues of goddesses, full face, and those faces seemed to express indignation or sometimes pity for the unseen horrors.
An attempt to merge mummy movies and living dead zombies into a gore/bore fest.
This is a film for bad movie lovers only, who enjoy over-the-top cheesy music, appalling acting and cheap gore effects which aren't going to give you any sleepless nights.How's this for an international production?
The entire cast can't act, from the Egyptian extras to the dumb fashion models (their grating characters do things like wander through the scrub land at night).
That comes as little surprise.After the numbing 'flashback' which predictably opens the movie, we're treated to lots of wandering about in cheap sets before the horror really begins.
Agrama achieves one good scare - the mummy sitting bolt upright in its tomb all of a sudden - which managed to make me jolt in surprise.Make-up wise, the thin leading mummy looks very much like Christopher Lee in Hammer's THE MUMMY, which is no bad thing at all.
A scene at the film's finale, in which a town square in Cairo is the setting for a massacre as the zombies jump on their prey, is absolutely hilarious and over-the-top and a lot of fun.
DAWN OF THE MUMMY: a treat for bad movie lovers, but beware discerning viewers..
"Dawn of the Mummy" is easily the goriest Mummy movie ever made.**SPOILERS**An ancient Egyptian king is locked inside a sacred tomb and it's protected by an evil curse, which Rick, (John Salvo) ignores and opens it anyway.
Almost as impressive is the look of the mummies/zombies in this film.
"I know what's on the other side of those dunes, sand." Tedious Mummy film..
Eventually the Mummy of Safiraman comes to life & together with his armies of the undead he sets about killing everyone in sight.This American, Egyptian & Italian co-production was co-written, produced & directed by Farouk Agrama as Frank Agrama & Dawn of the Mummy is quite simply a tedious film from beginning to end.
Dawn of the Mummy only adds some over-the-top gore scenes & a few zombies to cash-in on the success of Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) & Fulci's Zombi 2 (1979), & I'm sure the similarities between the title of this & Romero's masterpiece is not a coincidence.
Technically Dawn of the Mummy is a really cheap & nasty looking film throughout, amazingly it was indeed partly shot in Egypt although looking at it you could barely tell except for one scene set against some pyramids at the start as it spends most of it's running time in a extremely fake looking tomb complete with foam sarcophagus, items spray painted gold to use as treasure & painted by a five year old hieroglyphics's, a market street that is obviously a set & an indifferent looking oasis which probably counts for the location shooting.
The make-up effects vary from impressive to very poor, the main Mummy is maybe the best looking ever but the zombies pale by comparison, there are some scenes as the zombies eat intestines, someone has their neck bitten, eyes are poked out, there are some decapitated heads, a great bit when someone has a meat cleaver stuck in their head & various guts & blood being spilt at the climax but somehow it has little or no impact.
The acting is bad, the models aren't even good looking let alone beautiful & there is no nudity whatsoever.
Dawn of the Mummy is a pretty uneventful, boring & poorly made film but if you can stick it out there are some decent gore scenes & I love the main Mummy bad dude.
The movie is about a group of photographers and models who travel to Egypt in order to do a photo-shoot.
Check.As everyone already knows, DAWN OF THE MUMMY is an American/Egyptian co-production which was made only to cash in on Romero's success with DAWN OF THE DEAD.
But DAWN OF THE MUMMY is only 10 times worse than Fulci's ZOMBI 2.
A crew of models and photographers enter a tomb to do a fashion-shoot at the same time some archaeologists are there in search for a golden treasure.
Believe it or not but, strictly seen from a marketing-point-of-view, this "Dawn of the Mummy" actually is a rather clever movie!
The DVD-cover just screams out "the first mummy gore movie ever!" (at least, mine does) and even the title is clearly inspired by the 1978 cult-hit.
Unless you want to see every horror movie made, I'd advise you to skip "Dawn of the Mummy" as it is almost too stupid for words.