Pharaoh's Curse (1957)

Really Surprised!

hyped garbage

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A drab horror film that runs only 66 minutes but feels like it's 166. A group of archaeologists in Egypt encounter a curse that starts to affect a sick member of their group, gradually transforming him into a wrinkled, mummy-liked ghoul wearing pajamas. All the characters are bland and uninteresting, and the pacing is like sludgy molasses which plods along endlessly. Once the mummified man starts walking and doing his thing, there are some good moments of chills, but that does not occur until about the 40 minute mark (which may sound like a short amount of time, but it doesn't seem like it), by which time it's already too late. The makeup is pretty good, but the pj's had to go. While writing these notes I couldn't help comparing the structure of PHARAOH'S CURSE to THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940). That was another similarly short film around the same length where its monster doesn't get to work until later on, but the differences between the two are astounding. At least in HAND we are invested in the main characters and don't feel so bogged down. Interesting wrong and right way to do this type of film. *1/2 out of ****

I saw this movie last weekend and it is silly and mindless. An ancient curse turns a man into a mummy in his pajamas? The victims are scared senseless and can not run from a slow moving old man. They drop their torches and shiver instead of attempting to ward him off or,duh, burn him. Quentin alias Mr. Fabersham of the Honeymooners is married to Diane Brewster alias Miss Canfield of Leave it to Beaver fame, who is unhappy in marriage. Wow, love plot. The rest of the cast just follows each other in the tombs and wait for screams to react and run to their aid. The Egyptian girl is not bad looking but does not lend much to the film. Where is the mummy? Really just a curse unleashed. This does not hold a torch to Universal Mummy films in the least.Watch this movie if you need sleep, because you will dose off.

I watched this movie often when I was a lad and "Chiller Theatre" ran it on Saturday nights. Even then I sensed there was something different about it, the mummy looked like he was walking around in his pyjamas! Oh I had already seen THE MUMMY (1932) and THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940) and those other mummy movies done by Universal in the 30's and 40's but this film was lots different from them! This was no bandage wrapped monster; to my young eyes the mummy looked like a very old man wandering around an underground tomb. I could not figure out why everyone else in the movie was afraid of him; of course there was that scene where someone tried to grab the mummy and only succeeded in pulling his arm off!This is not an easy movie to find these days but I did manage to locate it on late night TV once. Knowing it might be my only chance for a long time I videotaped it. After watching it carefully I learned all the nuances that had escaped me back when I was 7. The mummy of the Pharaoh does not come to life, its spirit takes over the body of a young Egyptian man (Alvaro Guillot) and uses him to get revenge on those who have desecrated the tomb. An original idea, I must say. The downside of this is the young man begins to age at an accelerated pace until he looks no better than the mummy itself. His method of execution was different too. Instead of strangling his victims leaving a telltale mark of mold on their necks he bites their throats (admittedly a difficult thing to do when his teeth get more and more rotten by the minute!) and drains their blood.Let's not forget the mysterious woman (Ziva Rodann, using the name Ziva Shapir in this movie) who appears out of nowhere and joins the expedition. She treks through the scorching desert and never takes a drink of water or gets tired. She also seems to know what is going to happen before it happens. Is she the cat goddess Bast in human form? Perhaps!The moral of this story, if scary movies are meant to have morals, is Stay Out of Egyptian Tombs. They don't want to be disturbed and you probably have better things to do anyway.Director Lee "Roll 'Em" Sholem also directed movies like TOBOR THE GREAT and SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN. He knew how to get a movie done on time and under budget and still make it look good.

I saw this film when I was just a little kid. I saw it close to the time that I saw "Curse of the Demon," and thoughout my life I always wondered if these two films were real films or some kind of nightmare I remembered that I just thought were movies. I found "Curse of The Demon" a few years ago for sale, and I was able to record "Curse of the Pharaoh" about a year ago when it was shown uncut and without commercial breaks on the Tele.Now, as a grownup, I have a little of a hard time finding just what scared me so awfully much in "Curse of the Pharaoh." I guess I was very young at the time. However, I still rate the film as better than most others rate it and have watched it about four times since I recorded it. That compares with many of the new films on DVD that I have watched on once after purchasing them. Perhaps it is just that I remember it as such a good film from when I was little, but I still enjoy it today. Many of the early "classic" horror films are not as scary as it is, and they certainly move even slower. I feel that the audience for a good mummy film was not there when it was released back in the late 50's.In closing, I can truthfully say that I enjoy an average horror film much more than an average film of any other genre. I can spend a whole evening watching horror and mystery movies. How weird?