Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1971
Running Time	89:42
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Seth Holt
Studio Distributor	Hammer Productions Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Andrew Keir Valerie Leon James Villiers Hugh Burden George Coulouris
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Tristram Cary

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I never realised that Bram Stoker wrote a novel about mummies. The novel that this film is based on, Jewel of the Seven Stars, was first published in June 1903. It is interesting to note that the latest edition was published in June 2002, quite a run for any book. It is also available free from Project Gutenberg.

    The film was regarded as being cursed during it's production due to the sudden deaths of its director, Seth Holt, and the wife of Peter Cushing who was originally slated to star in this film. He got as far as filming a single scene when he had to pull out. He was replaced by Ander Keir. Starring next to Ander Keir is the beautiful Valerie Leon. Appearing in a string of Carry On films as well as two James Bond films, she is one of the classic British sexy screen sirens of the sixties/seventies.

    This is one of the later Hammer horror films and the blood/gore and the sexuality/nudity (or near nudity) is definitely more prevalent than in the earlier classics. There are pumping arteries, ripped out necks in close-up, along with a very large chest that is covered with the minimum necessary for most of the film. The classic scenes that I most associate with these films, close-ups of people's faces are they recoil in terror remain along with the appropriate musical accompaniment. One difference between this and other mummy films of yore is that the mummy is not wrapped in bandages but is perfectly preserved and wearing only a bejewelled skimpy costume.

    The film opens with Margaret Fuchs as a young woman. She is the daughter of a British archaeologist, Professor Julian Fuchs. He and a group of Egyptologists returned from Egypt many years ago after discovering the ancient tomb of Queen Tera. As is typical of so-called archaeologists of the time, they promptly grabbed everything in sight and buggered off back to England. Now, as we all know, nicking stuff from the tomb of a mummy is never a very wise move and invariably leads to nasty things.

    Each of the original team brought back something of importance, but the professor brought back the mummy herself. As a time approaches where legend foretells that the queen will rise again, the daughter, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mummy, gets caught up in strange happenings. Her boyfriend (also involved in Egyptology), a mysterious stranger and a disembodied hand search for the missing treasure that was looted from the original tomb.

    A slightly strange and sudden ending wraps up what is a fun film, not the best from the Hammer Collection but still a good film within its genre.

Video

    The transfer is presented at 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. I could not find a truly authoritative source but it appears that this is the original aspect ratio.

    The sharpness of the image could definitely be better, considering the grain in the source material and the fact that this is a single layered disc. Combined with the fact that the compression is running at a very low rate, I suspect that some measure of high frequency filtering has been applied. Shadow detail is not bad but again could be better. There is a very small amount of low level noise triggered by the grain in the source material. Overall contrast is also a little flat with the top and bottom ends of the spectrum a little closer together than they should be.

    Colours are a little faded, though the reds are still pretty good as the blood shows up pretty well. The colours are also slightly degraded by the ever-present grain.

    I could not spot any really noticeable MPEG artefacts. In fact, there are almost none at all. Film artefacts such as marks and spots are relatively rare but there are some rather annoying scratches. The first appears at 10:32 on the right hand side but the next scratch appears on and off for a good 15 minutes and is centre of the picture. One of its many appearance is at 16:56. The image shakes on several occasions. During the opening credits, both the credits and the starfield in the background both wobble. A later example is at 9:24, most clearly seen if you watch the statue in the top right-hand side of the image. I cannot decide if this is source related or telecine wobble.

    There are no subtitles on this disc. The disc is single layered and thus no layer change is present.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are no problems with the dialogue quality nor with the audio sync.

    The music is very typical of Hammer films. I often wonder if 'creepy' music is written to trigger some basic instinct within us, or it is merely that we are trained to react to this music by constant association - I suppose this is yet another chicken and egg question. It does its job for the film very well and adds some lovely atmosphere to just the right moments.

    The surrounds and the subwoofer remained quiet throughout the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    Presented at 1.78:1, the menu has a static background with a montage of scenes from the film. It is accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack.

Theatrical Trailer (2:30)

    A long trailer presented at 1.85:1 and also accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack. The quality is similar to the main feature, although I wonder about the voice-over - the imparted information does not really tell the exact story of the film and seems to get a couple of plot points wrong.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• TV Spots
• Radio Spots
• 9 minute featurette interview with star Valerie Leon and writer Christopher Wicking
• Stills gallery
• Easter egg: image of Peter Cushing's only day on the set.
• Bonus disc of Hammer trailers (first 10,000 copies sold only)

    The region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• nothing

    This put R1 in the front on the extras.

    The star of this film is definitely Valerie Leon - she carries the entire film and does a very good job of it. Playing two parts, she is in almost every scene and manages to play the part in a wonderfully understated way with just flashes of melodrama that fit into the right places. For Hammer fans, this is a must-own (though the best region is a bit doubtful). For the rest - this is very different from the current crop of horror films; there are no teenagers for starters, and the R rating may be deserved but it is pretty tame by current standards.

    The video is not very sharp.

    The audio is the original mono soundtrack.

    Extras are limited to the trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall