The times were changing in the horror world, and Hammer was trying to catch up. Despite being on the cutting edge in the 50's, the late 60's and early 70's were not kind to the studio. The final Mummy film proved to be almost as cursed as its subject matter.
Professor Fuchs (Andrew Keir) is leading an expedition searching for the tomb of Princess Tera, a site rumored to be cursed. He finds the site and more. The biggest find is the princess's body (Valerie Leon). That's right, body, not mummy. Instead of a withered and prepared corpse the professor finds a body that could have been put there hours ago. Spiriting the body back to England, Fuchs builds a shrine in his basement.
His daughter Margaret (also Leon) is worried. She stats having wild mood swings and coupled with her uncanny resemblance to the princess, she starts getting worried. More so when she notices a strange man (James Villiers) across the street, a figure that only she seems to be able to see.
The figure is real, however, and he knows the Professor. Corbeck is his name, and he shares a similar obsession with the professor, namely he worships the princess. The catch is he wants more than to simply kneel at the feet of a body. No, he wants to bring the princess back to the world of the living. With an increasingly enthralled Margaret in tow, Corbeck murders the other defilers of the tomb. Can Fuchs restore his daughter or will Tera walk the streets of London?
The making of this would make a better film I think. Multiple fires, the director Holt dying midway through (Michael Carreras finished the film uncredited), and Peter Cushing bowing out due to his wife's illness, one wonders if the makers didn't open a tomb themselves.
With that said, not bad, although the mummy is rather absent. Tera functions more as a ghost than a mummy, but I suppose there's only so many times a bandaged figure can shuffle after people.
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