Review for…
DAWN OF THE MUMMY 1980

Fashion photographers on a shoot in Egypt desecrate a tomb and unleash a very tall mummy and his flesh-eating minions to kill everyone in sight including crashing a wedding celebration during the finale.

Not particularly well liked by fans, I have a soft spot for this movie. The locations help immensely and the gore from Maurizio Trani is quite good even though most of it doesn’t arrive until the final 20 minutes. The actors are nothing special and some of them overact quite a bit. This may grate on some viewers nerves. I’ve only seen one of the actors again and that was on a Cinemax After Dark movie so that was surprising.

The score is very good IMO. Sounding like an upbeat, synth, egyptian disco score at times, it has some nice suspenseful and action oriented sections that add to the movie especially the cue when you see the undead mummies rising from the desert as the sun rises. Some very good scenes are found in this movie. The Mummy Sefaraman’s first appearance scared the crap out of me when I saw this as a kid. It still sends a chill up my spine for some reason. I wasn’t expecting him to just jump up out of the sarcophagus like that with quick edits closing on his visage.

Another great bit is an attack on one of the models at night. Her throat is ripped out then she is pulled under the sand by one of the mummies. Then, the no-holds barred assault on various characters and the wedding party are packed with gore. The final confrontation with Sefaraman is quite good as well with one last shock before the credits roll. A CD issue of the score would be great. It was released on Record and Tape back in the 80s. The score was done by the same team responsible for importing the Japanese Tokusatsu shows here that became the POWER RANGERS programs.

The AB UK disc sports a commentary from the director. The actor playing Sefaraman was really as tall as he appears in the movie. A shame the print isn’t in very good shape. It’s miles away better than the HBO Video release.

I first saw this on television at 1 am and believe it or not the movie was uncut! How that passed I don’t know. What’s strange is that the tv version I saw is much clearer than any other version I’ve seen including the AB disc which is the second best. I remember clicking through the channels and came across the scene where the girl rolls down the sand dune and bumps into a torn up decapitated head in the sand and I watched from there on out. I caught it again on the same channel a year or so later.

A US-Italian-Egyptian co-production and the only flesh-eating mummy movie. A lot of gore, wonderful location work and a good score enliven the film. From the director of the formerly banned QUEEN KONG (1976).