Margaret Fuchs’s 21st birthday nets her an impossibly huge ruby ring from her archaeologist father (Andrew Keir), and even more nightmares of ancient Egypt. She doesn’t yet know that she was born at the precise moment Professor Fuchs and his band of grave robbers recited the name of an ancient queen over said queen’s 3000 year old fresh as a daisy body. Grave robbers they are, academic standing aside, as each member of the expedition returned to England with secret treasures from the tomb which they hide, never telling a soul. Daddy Fuch’s prize was the entire body of the queen, which he keeps in the basement and gazes at with far too much affection considering his daughter is the spitting image of the dead woman. Margaret’s all around ‘70s dude boyfriend thinks the ring is a clue to what happened on that unreported dig, and starts investigating. His timing couldn’t be better when one-by-one the archaeologists turn up dead and the sinister Corbeck (James Villiers) offers his own kind of help.
Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb never manages to jell. It could be the film’s strange never-land of hip ‘70s mixed with Victorian London. Or its desire to be an exploitation flick (with long lingering shots over Valerie Leon’s prone body) without wanting to show any real skin. Or maybe its uncertainty over who the protagonist is or what character we should be following. It is a bit of a puzzle, since there are the makings of a good film, floating around, lost.
Perhaps the explanation might be in the often discussed curse on the film. Peter Cushing was set to play Julian Fuchs, but his wife took ill (and later died), so he left the production after a day. More damning, director Seth Holt died with a week of shooting left, leaving Michael Carreras to finish it off. That might explain the confused mishmash on screen, or maybe not, but it is a mishmash either way.
The title suggests an old school wrapped up mummy shambling about the place causing blood to flow, but there is none to be seen. Instead we get a very unwrapped Valerie Leon, looking beautiful, and most of the blood is her’s. A few thousand years of laying on a stone slab has not sealed the wound where her hand was cut off and it tends to spurt in a very un-artery kind of way from time to time. Rather than following the format of the previous Hammer “Mummy” films, Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb could be considered a sorceress story, and is based on the less than revered novel Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker. It has made it to the screen four times.
With more focus, a protagonist we could care about (or maybe just a protagonist), and some consistency of tone, this could have been a strong horror film. With more flesh and blood, it could have been an enjoyable exploitation romp. As is, it isn’t clearly anything.
Hammer’s “Mummy cycle” include The Mummy (1959), The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), and The Mummy’s Shroud (1967).