One of the better parts of the awful reboot THE MUMMY (2017) starring Tom Cruise was that it featured a female mummy, but it wasn’t the first film to do this.

Hammer Films did it and did it better back in 1971 with BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB, a film based on the novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker.

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB is completely unlike the Hammer Mummy movies which came before it, and for that matter from the Universal Mummy movies as well. Gone is the lumbering monster wrapped in bandages.  In its place is a  beautiful woman whose otherworldly powers are just as deadly.

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB is the story of a young woman named Margaret Fuchs (Valerie Leon), the daughter of famed archeologist Professor Julian Fuchs (Andrew Keir).  Margaret is troubled by nightmares in which she catches glimpses of an expedition led by her father which discovered a female mummy, Queen Tera, which strangely had not suffered any decomposition.  Even stranger, Queen Tera is a dead ringer for Margaret.  What’s a girl to do?

Why, investigate, of course!  Which is exactly what Margaret does, with the help of her boyfriend Tod Browning (Mark Edwards).  No, not the guy who directed Bela Lugosi in DRACULA (1931), but obviously the use of the name here is a nod to the famous director, and it makes sense here, since Browning directed DRACULA, which was based on Bram Stoker’s famous novel, and of course this Mummy movie was based on Stoker’s less famous novel.

What Margaret and Tod find out is that Queen Tera is very much alive and intent on walking the earth again, but to do that, she must kill, kill, kill, which she does by using Margaret.

While I wouldn’t place BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB up there with Hammer’s best shockers, it does belong in the better-than-average category.  My favorite part is that it is so different.

Director Seth Holt— who would die from a heart attack before the film was released— uses a slow almost artistic style to tell this story.  The effect is quite mesmerizing.  While you won’t be jolted out of your seat from in-your-face scares, you will be captivated by a haunting tale that subtly gets under your skin.

The music score here by Tristram Cary is also quite effective, as it lends a sense of eeriness to the proceedings.

The screenplay by Christopher Wicking is a good one.  It tells an interesting story and creates some intriguing characters.  The plot also builds to a bloody climax in which survivors are hard to come by.

Valerie Leon is okay as Margaret Fuchs/Queen Tera.  It’s kind of a one note performance, as she doesn’t exhibit a lot of range.  I enjoyed Mark Edwards much better as her boyfriend Tod Browning.  I thought he came off like a real person, and he seemed quite natural inside this supernatural environment.

I’m a big fan of Andrew Keir, and he’s very good here as Professor Julian Fuchs, in a role that was originally intended for Peter Cushing, but Cushing had to drop out to care for his ailing wife.  My favorite Andrew Keir role in a Hammer Film is his performance as Father Sandor in DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966).  His role here as Professor Fuchs isn’t as significant, but Keir’s presence adds dignity and respectability to the story.

Also memorable is James Villiers as the mysterious Corbeck, a member of the Fuchs expedition which discovered the tomb of Queen Tera, who later contacts Margaret and Tod and has his own ideas as to what needs to be done regarding the mummy.

If there’s one thing I don’t like about BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB it’s that it lacks energy.  At first, its slow-paced eerie style works, but the film never builds on this, never becomes more suspenseful.  It does have a violent conclusion, but it’s not as powerful as you would expect.  And that’s why for me it’s not up there with Hammer’s best. It’s an atmospheric thriller and generally satisfying, but there’s just something rather passive about the whole thing.

Stoker’s novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars would be filmed again in 1980 under the title of THE AWAKENING starring Charlton Heston with similar if not lesser results.

So, really, female mummies haven’t fared all that well in the movies.  In fact, you could make the argument, that this above average thriller BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB is the best of the lot.

Either way, if you’re looking for a change of pace and want to watch a Mummy movie not about a slow-moving monster in bandages, one that features a female mummy in a story that is far better than the one told in the 2017 MUMMY, give BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB a try.

Its subtle style might be just the thing for a starry September evening.

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