Rating: C
Dir: Alejandro Martí
Star: George Rigaud, Michael Flynn, Frank Braña, Catherine Franck
Ok, you more or less had me at “Love Brides”. I’ve never much been a fan of mummy movies, finding them a slow and ponderous monster, without even the philosophical questions posed by Frankenstein and his creation. But what better way to jazz this up, or any sub-genre, than by adding copious quantities of nekkid EuroTotty? In some ways, this feels like it could have been a Hammer film, since around the same time, they were doing more or less exactly the same thing to the vampire film, with the likes of Lust for a Vampire. Indeed, as the title suggests, this ancient Egyptian has more than a little in common with certain European nobility, in terms of their dietary needs.
Egyptologist James Barton (Braña) is paying a visit to Lord Dartmoor (Rigaud) in his castle, to study the lord’s collection of mummies. He gets more than he bargained for, with Dartmoor telling him how he resurrected one such creature (Flynn). He is the disgraced son of a high priest, sentenced to death for lechery, but through the wiles of his father, only entering suspended animation. Dartmoor brought him back to life with the help of electricity. He should probably have thought this through a bit first, since the resurectee now needs blood to survive, and has the hypnotic skills to ensure he gets it. Only against Dartmoor’s lackey, however; the nobleman is above that sort of thing, so is locked in a cage in the basement (top). Why Dartmoor has a cage in the basement isn’t explained.
The middle section is kinda dull, because it’s the same thing on a repeat cycle. Lackey goes out, naturally only finding attractive female blood-donors, brings them back to the castle, where the Egyptian lightly tortures them, rapes them and drinks their blood. We get three laps of this, while I’m wondering why he doesn’t just hypnotize the women into being willing partners. Would seem better for everyone. Eventually, Dartmoor’s daughter, Lucille (Franck), comes back from boarding school with a friend, and things come to a head. Well, actually, it’s more of a severed arm, hohoho. There’s some kinda cute stop-motion used, as the mummy’s hand leads Barton around the castle before taking revenge.
To be honest, it’s not a mummy: no bandages are used here. It’s just a dead Egyptian guy, all eye make-up and one of those collars. Not sure he says a word over the entire course of the film, but then it’d be in hieroglyphics anyway. If the villain is thoroughly underwhelming, the overall look of proceedings is lush, with photography and general production values which quite surpass the seedy nature of much of the content. It doesn’t hurt that 19th-century Cornwall was apparently populated entirely by attractive women with an aversion to bras. Providing you get to see the uncut version, you’re not going to be exactly disappointed, since it does deliver on the title. I can’t help feeling there was still considerable room for improvement, however.