Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
                                
Director: Seth Holt
Year: 1971
Rating: 7.5
This is the fourth film in the Hammer Mummy series or at least the fourth film that has the word Mummy in it. There is no Mummy in this, at least in the traditional sense of being wrapped up in bandages and cloth with a slit cut out for its eyes. But there is a dead body that may be brought back to life with the right words, but if this is a Mummy, give me one. It is a spectacularly beautifully preserved female body with only its hand missing. The film opens by thrusting the audience squarely into the ample heaving bosom of actress Valerie Leon as she is in the middle of a nightmare. She spends so much time in a revealing nightgown that it only seems fair that her cleavage should have had their own credit. Her dream is of an ancient time in which a number of religious high Egyptian Priests are securing the body of a woman with evil powers safely in a tomb. And cutting off her hand and throwing it to the wild dogs outside. But in a chilling scene the priests are all killed outside with their throats ripped out as they leave and the hand crawls away. One of many great scenes in this terrific tale of the supernatural. 



This is based on a book from Bram Stoker titled The Jewel of Seven Stars in 1903. I had no idea that he wrote about Mummys as well as vampires. A synopsis of the book is surprisingly close to this film. It is available on Kindle for free. I may have to give it a read. It seems that the idea came to him when Howard Carter, who discovered King Tut's tomb, uncovered the tomb for Queen Hatshepsut who ruled Egypt from 1479 BC to 1458 BC - one of the few female rulers in their history. There have been three other adaptations of the book - The Awakening in 1980, House of Ka (2023) and Bram Stoker's Legend of the Mummy in 1998. It also strikes me that the Tom Cruise film The Mummy may have been influenced by the book.  



Hundreds of years later, an expedition led by Andrew Keir (who got the role after Peter Cushing had to drop out) and a number of colleagues uncover the tomb. But rather than notifying the world and giving the contents to a museum, they keep them all including the flawlessly preserved body of Queen Tera. Minus the hand that is still bleeding. Down in Keir's basement. It turns out that his wife died giving birth at the same moment they opened the sarcophagus and the baby is a girl. The beautiful Margaret (Leon playing both roles). The colleagues all go their own way falling into madness, paranoia, secrecy and a desire for power. They all sense that She Who Has No Name as they originally called her is coming back to life and bringing evil with her.



But they don't destroy the body - they want to see what happens. And poor Margaret is being slowly possessed by the Queen and killing people. The moves along like a drug fueled rocket and there are just so many great moments- perhaps the best in the mental institution where one of the colleagues has ended up. It is directed by Seth Holt with flair and a great eye for mise en scène. He had directed two films for Hammer - Taste of Fear and The Nanny but sadly he died while directing this with a week to go. Of note also is actor James Villiers who always seems to play an upper class arrogant superior bastard who almost always gets his comeuppance. As soon as you see him on the screen, you know he will be a bad guy.  A fine Hammer film - would have been great to have had Cushing in it though Keir is fine. But the star is Valerie Leon and her assets. And if they don't get you, her weird opaque eyes will.