cinema history class (dawn of the mummy)

Session: I Want my Mummy, Week 4*
Movie: Dawn of the Mummy (1979)
Directed by Frank Agrama

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A bunch of Americans visiting Egypt for a photoshoot find themselves chased by some zombie-like mummies. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
The defining thing about Dawn of the Mummy is that it's really a zombie movie dressed up as a mummy movie. In fact, Keith warned us in advance that it was a ripoff of 1978's Dawm of the Dead. Now, I never saw that particular zombie movie But, well, yeah...the mummies in Dawn (the one we just saw) are essentially zombies in an Egyptian setting and with a mummy backstory.

And that's not the only way that this movie had an identity problem. As the prologue begins, the movie looks and sounds like a spaghetti western. Then it feels like a porn, before settling down as a slow-moving horror film.

And that's another problem; too much time goes by with too little action. Eventually, it does pick up, and there's a lot going on at the climactic scenes. But at that point there's too much going on and the fast cuts make it hard to focus on anything.

All that isn't to say that there's nothing to like; the movie does have some good moments, though they're generally backloaded to the end of the film. And there are two actors who look like third rate Adrians Zmed.

The class was in general agreement about the movie being somewhat lacking. Joe in particular was clear about not liking it. So please see the footnote regarding his rating

Ratings:

Me: 6
Dave: 8.5
Ethan: 6

Joe: 9**
Sean: 2 out of 4

*Sadly I missed week 3, which was The Mummy's Shroud.
**In Joe's rating system, in-genre movies start at 9. This, a truly horrendously bad horror movie gets a 9.