The Mummy's Shroud (1967)

Touches You

Sadly Over-hyped

Good start, but then it gets ruined

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Well, going in expecting nothing but hoping to enjoy myself, I put this movie into my blu-ray player. I've got a major Hammer DVD collection and this was one of the movies I hadn't seen before.Starting of with the main thing that defines this movie: When you've got a movie solely designed to show your Mummy killing people, you might want to invest time in developing your characters. This wasn't the case unfortunately and brings the movie down for me. The best thing in the movie though was Michael Ripper. The Hammer regular gave one of his best performances and was perhaps the most likable character in the movie. (perhaps because he got more opportunities to make his character seem emphatic than for example the underused Andre Morrell) Another great element in the movie was the musical score. I think, for me, this is one of the more memorable music cue's that Hammer produced for their movies. On another positive note, the way the Mummy sneaks up on it's victims were different in a creative way every time. Director John Gilling tried to visually make those sequences as interesting as possible. (although the Mummy suit looked like a worn-out pyjama ha ha) I'm a huge fan of the first Hammer Mummy movie and I also found Blood of the Mummy's Tomb pretty good. In comparison, this movie was a bit underwhelming. It could have done a little more with the content it had. This movie is a simple slasher. An interesting watch nonetheless and surely a fine addition to my Hammer collection.

I thought I'd throw a Doctor Who joke in there because this movie stars Roger Delgado, the original Master.Which is really about the only thing anyone would remember about it. Other than that, it's another rehash of the tired Mummy trope of someone raids to Mummy's tomb and the mummy proceeds to hunt them all down and kill them.While it does have some of the great Hammer direction and scene construction, it's really just kind of tired and uninteresting and forgettable.I would be remiss if I pointed out the film's biggest flaw. The mummy didn't even look like a mummy. NO bandages, and a cheap costume where you can clearly see the zipper down the back.

Virtually a remake of The Mummy (1932) – including even a re-run of the climax in the museum – but with the most interesting characters originally played by Boris Karlof and Zita Johann watered down and definitely not changed for the better. In both acting and personality, Eddie Powell and Maggie Kimberley are definitely no substitutes. I was also disappointed in both John Gilling's script and his direction. The script is full of padding and repetitive dialogue. The acting is full of much B-grade shuffling – a device originated to spin a "B" movie's tight budget out to feature length at minimum cost. In fact, Gilling's direction shows only three or four flashes of the atmospheric imagination that distinguishes some of the "B" movies he made on budgets much smaller than this. Admittedly, some of Arthur Grant's color photography provides a few good atmospheric effects, but mostly Grant's work here rates as competent but undistinguished. True, some of the special effects are mildly shocking, some of the sets show a teeny bit of Egyptian flavoring, and some of the actors try very hard – particularly Michael Ripper as a harassed, sycophantic press agent, and Richard Warner who actually makes a big effort to sound a trifle like an Egyptian police inspector. Other players, however, try too hard, particularly Roger Delgado as the mad guardian of the tomb (compare Boris Karloff's chilling but infinitely more restrained performance), and Catherine Lacey as his fortune teller accomplice. The mummy's make-up doesn't bear comparison with the 1932 film either. Mind you, a few thrills do manage to surface in the welter of marking-time dialogue, but this movie offers mild entertainment at best – especially for undiscriminating fans who wouldn't know Boris Karloff from Norman Wisdom.

There's nothing really wrong with this entry in Hammer's Mummy series - there just wasn't really anyplace further to go with these stories (the Universal ones in the 1940s got progressively worse and inane) - this one's almost a remake of Hammer's previous entry, CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB, without the bombastic performance of Fred Clark. But there are good performances here - Andre Morrell, John Phillips, David Buck, Catherine Lacey and the ever-reliable Michael Ripper (in a larger-than-usual role), and the production maintains the good Hammer standards. It's really nothing to be ashamed of, and quite enjoyable - this was my second viewing (the first was five years ago, though I first heard about the film when it was released in 1967) and the beauty of most Hammer productions is that they can be re-watched at intervals of several years with no loss of enjoyment - 'comfort films' indeed.