The Mummy's Curse (1944)

Best movie ever!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The last Universal mummy movie. This one transports Kharis and Ananka from Massachusetts to Louisiana! When last seen they sank in a swamp together. Here they're unearthed by yet another high priest from Egypt. He plans to bring them back to Egypt and will kill anyone who tries to stop them. However (in a genuinely eerie sequence) Ananka (Virginia Christie) claws her way out of the swamp and wanders around with no knowledge of who she is.It's silly but it works. The setting is atmospheric, the acting isn't bad (Christie is excellent) and her resurrection is more than a little spooky. It also has an ending that left the room for no more sequels. Not a great movie but much better than "The Mummy's Ghost" which preceded it.

At the end of the previous movie "The Mummy's Ghost" the mummy known as "Kharis" (Lon Chaney) carried the beautiful "Amina Mansouri" (Ramsay Ames) into the Louisiana swamp and while they were sinking into quicksand she had morphed into the "Princess Ananka". This movie essentially picks up where the previous movie ended with some workers for the "Southern Engineering Company" trying to drain the Louisiana swamp where Kharis and Ananka sank some 25 years earlier. While work is progressing two people from the "Scripps Museum", who go by the names of "Dr. James Halsey" (Dennis Moore) and "Dr. Ilzor Zandaab" (Peter Coe), come to see the owner of the company "Pat Walsh" (Addison Richards) to tell him that they want to dig up Kharis for their museum. Unfortunately, while they are talking the dead body of one of the workers is found near that site. Also found is a bandage which could have only come from Kharis. Not long after that Princess Ananka (now played by Virginia Christine) is also freed from her underground resting place and as she wanders in the swamp she gradually changes back into her old identity of Amina Mansouri. Naturally, Kharis wants her back and he will stop at nothing to get her. Anyway, rather than detail the rest of the movie and possibly ruin the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is the 4th sequel to the original movie "The Mummy" which was filmed back in 1932. As such it follows the same standard plot which admittedly gets a bit old in subsequent re-tellings. And while there are a couple of twists thrown in which have a certain appeal the fact that this movie only lasted 62 minutes doesn't allow for any depth to the characters or the plot. That said, in my opinion this "paint-by-numbers" approach doesn't lend any quality to the movie and as a result I rate it as slightly below average.

The final entry in the Kharis the mummy series is also the weakest, although still a good watch. At the end of the last film, Kharis and Ananka disappeared into the swamp. Decades later, the swamp is drained. For some reason, this film moves the location of the swamp from New England to Louisiana! So obviously somebody didn't think continuity was that big of an issue. Anyway, Kharis is revived by yet another Egyptian high priest (Peter Coe). Meanwhile, Ananka resurfaces from the mud and we discover she is played by Virginia Christine. Why Ramsay Ames didn't return to the role I'm not sure, but Christine does fine. Needless to say, Kharis is once again anxious to find his lost love. This was Lon Chaney Jr.'s last turn as the mummy. This one's got some marks against it but it's a fun movie. Nice atmosphere and some creepy moments. Universal horror fans like myself will like it most.

This was a sequel to the Mummy's Ghost, which didn't even try to be accurate in the continuity area.Mummy's Ghost and Mummy's Tomb took place in Massachusetts, but inexplicably, we are now in Louisiana. Unless the Mummy got tired of chowder and wanted some gumbo, this doesn't make sense. Can you make Gumbo with Tana leaves?Nor would the Scripp Museum's interest in the Princess's mummy. That was destroyed. The only think in this swamp should be the corpse of the poor girl who died in "Mummy's Ghost", who was played by a totally different actress. (they couldn't get the sameactress again? The movies were only made a few months apart.) So this is 25 years after the Mummy's Ghost, even though technology hasn't changed much. While draining the swamp, they uncover the mummies, which the cult of Arkham is looking for, too.You just can't watch these things without feeling pity for Lon Chaney, Jr., who saw himself as a dramatic leading actor, and got typecast into this kind of horror schock.You know, I'm noticing a pattern in these movies is that all the middle eastern characters are not only portrayed as bad guys but almost always as potential rapists.