Notes: Global Pictures.
Dr. Mohassid: Tony Curtis
Sandra Barnes: Leslie Hardy
Dr. Carey Williams: Greg Wrangler
Lord Maxton: Jack Cohen

Executive Producers: Yoram Globus, Christopher Pearce
Line Producers: Allan Greenblatt, Chaim Sharir
Produced: Harry Alan Towers
Associate Producer: Anita Hope
Directed: Gerry O'Hara
Screenplay: Nelson Gidding
Music: Dov Seltzer

Summary: "Bound by destiny. Consumed by sin. His vengeance is eternal." Whatever.

The credits include a cataloguing of astrological symbols. We see pyramids, camels, and airplanes. Sandra Barnes narrates her impulse to come to Egypt after the death of her father and breakup of a relationship. Something is so . . . familiar. Meanwhile, arrogant millionaire Lord Maxton heads a dig; a tomb entry is interrupted by the Department of Antiquities.

Sandra dreams of an ancient ritual and then of Aziru, a high priest of Zoth, and Kia, a sacred concubine of this supposed god of vengeance, being caught together in a tent. The priest is condemned "never to pass into the hereafter" and is wrapped mummy-style alive. This dream is intercut with scenes of Maxton and the archaeologists sneaking into the tomb, encountering a cobra, and opening the sarcophagus. The entrails were not removed and the cutting of the linen reveals "no physical damage," so we decide he was buried alive. Removal of the mask reveals a skeletal scream. An Egyptian guide steals a few pieces. Another graverobbing official is strangled by the reclining mummy, and the mummy is soon ambulatory.

On the way to a Cairo museum, Sandra yammers in often fragmented monotones: "The pyramids always drew me to them. That the entrances are aligned with stars is magical. Hidden passageways as mysterious diversions, and of course the elaborate farewell to the loved one, with the beautiful stories and paintings to guide one into the future. You were loved and respected; you will be remembered; you were part of something large and lovely while you lived here. And once all the many layers are peeled back, once the stories have been etched into the outer layers of the sarcophagus and then removed, you are left with the ornate shell of a life, even wearing the rings and necklaces part of a breathing day far away from the insulated walls of the pyramid. A dry hot sandy breeze. Pouring water and looking into the eyes of your loved one, and seeing that spark of recognition that you and he are alive and that anything is possible."

In the museum, she insanely breaks a glass case and rips a hand off a mummified arm, presumably because of the ring. She faints and is tended to by psychiatrist Carey Williams.

Among snakes, the hideous mummy prays for restoration and turns into Tony Curtis in time to greet the archaeologists, point out the inscription's curse to anyone defiling the sacred precinct, and announce himself as Dr. Mohassid: "I am the protector of the dead." The graverobber's corpse is found.

Sandra has a dream in which the hideous version of the mummy attacks her. She calls the shrink and subsequently sees him on dates which involve psychoanalysis, horseback riding, and scampering away from oddly misplaced rattlesnakes.

Tony Curtis promises the god Zoth that he "shall purge this land of the unholy plunderers of our graves." As Dr. Mohassid, he visits one of the archaeologists, corrects him on finer points of ancient life (insisting on the popularity not of wine but of beer from Memphis), and disappears when a snake eats a pet bird.

Sandra and the shrink visit a marketplace, and she wanders off, becomes increasingly terrified, is harassed in a lowlife tunnel underground, and wakes up in Dr. Mohassid's car going back to her hotel where they meet the shrink. Mohassid tells him, "There is very little in the modern world we Egyptians did not have 3000 years ago." After announcing his passion for antiquities, he claims laughingly to be one himself. Afterwards, the shrink thinks Mohassid was afraid to be touched.

Sandra makes another museum visit and sees a statue of Kia, a mummified cat return to life, and various other visions ending with her entombment by jackals. The shrink tells her it's death anxiety and guilt since the dreams always end in suffocation (which they don't).

At the tomb, the Dr. identifies artifacts so well that Maxton calls him "a phenomenon." But he also has the lid of a sarcophagus fall and crush the skull of a researcher he calls "graverobber." At a cocktail party later, Mohassid berates Maxton as another graverobber and threatens to dig up Westminster Abbey. He later apologizes by giving Maxton a cat, but the cat scratches the millionaire's eyes and his face blows up in infection. Mohassid prays to Zoth to allow more time for further vengeance and the voice of Zoth demands revenge for the graverobbing and that Aziru "return the girl." Mohassid visits the hospital and kills Maxton.

Sandra dreams of a snake in her bed. She runs out into a storm and to Mohassid who places her in his bed. She next realizes the hideous mummy is next to her. Awake, she learns of the astrological "night of the embrace" when, every 3300 years, Jupiter and Mars (with their ancient Egyptian names which make them male and female) align in retrograde motion; if lost loves reunite in this time, "the gods will allow them to enter paradise where they will live in divine ecstasy." Sandra turns down a ring offered by Mohassid. The shrink meanwhile does some research and realizes it's a race against time to Luxor.

The two remaining archaeologists are killed, one by a snake, the other apparently by embalming after Mohassid binds him in mummy wrap and shows him eviscerating tools. At Luxor, Sandra is summoned in the middle of the stormy night by Mohassid, who says, "I've calculated the exact time of the embrace," and who gives her drugged wine and makes her up to look like Kia. He carries her into the tomb, and is slowly changing into the rotting version of himself. He triggers a tomb-passage collapse and takes Sandra to be embalmed so that she can be reborn into eternity, or something: "Your hour of eternity is here." (Huh?) "Your body will be a house you can return to without death." She knocks a tray of acid in his face, a fire starts, bullets tear into him as the Minister of Antiquities arrives with the shrink, and the hideous version of Aziru collapses in flames while Sandra, the shrink, the Department of Antiquities guy, and a cheesy Egyptian run to escape the cave-in. Only Sandra and the shrink make it out. The film ends with the starry sky showing the alignment of the planets.

Commentary: The video box claims that "this macabre tale [was] suggested by horror master Edgar Allan Poe's Some Words with a Mummy," but this Poe work is a satirical short story simply involving a reanimated mummy being unimpressed with the supposed accomplishments of nineteenth-century western culture. The only trace of Poe is Mohassid's claim that "There is very little in the modern world we Egyptians did not have 3000 years ago."

The film is annoyingly choppy, but at least this keeps it moving. The themes are all here, in slightly more coherent form than in most mummy films, but not much. Dream sequences are occasionally effective, but the vengeance in each case seems arbitrary and certainly the larger structure on this score is not organized clearly.

The god Zoth occasionally replies to Tony Curtis and sounds like Skeletor from the He-Man cartoon (or Megatron from the Transformers).

But dear God, why Tony Curtis?! That adenoidal New Yawk accent as ancient Egyptian? "Zoth in dy praise. Zoth in dy ways."