(Review originally written at 16 January 2008)
The beginning of the movie almost entirely consists out of archive footage from the previous Universal Mummy movie, "The Mummy's Hand", from 1940. What a cheap way of film-making and it also makes it petty redundant to watch "The Mummy's Hand", even though it's a far better movie. It makes the actual movie of course also even shorter. The movie already is only a mere 60 minutes short but with the archive footage this movie consists maybe only out of 50 minutes of original new material.
It's a pretty dull movie that moves along slowly and in which just not much interesting is ever happening. It isn't until halve way through that something happens in the movie but then it gets pretty slow and dull again soon after, until the ending.
So it's mainly due to the simple and dull story that this movie is by no means a great one, especially when compared to the other previous Universal mummy movies. The story is also quite ridicules which makes this a bit of a silly movie to watch, even for normal '40's horror standards.
This time the role of the mummy is being played by none other than Lon Chaney Jr. Lon Chaney Jr. of course never has been the greatest actor and he was especially not as good as his father but he's always a great presence in any horror film. And then again, how much acting skill does it actually require to play a mummy? All of the other actors within this movie surely aren't among the greatest of their time. Dick Foran and Wallace Ford (though his name for what every reason changed from 'Babe' Jenson to 'Babe' Hanson reprise their role again from the previous movie "The Mummy's Tomb".
The movie does feature a couple of good typical '40's horror moments, so fans of this shall still somewhat enjoy watching this. Also the make-up for the mummy is quite good looking ago. The movie is mostly made in the same style as the previous movie "The Mummy's Tomb" but it unfortunately is no way nearly as good.
Only still really truly watchable and recommendable if you're a die-hard Universal horror fan.
5/10
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