Main Cast: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist, Patrick Drury
Release Year: 1980
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
English archaeologist Matthew Corbeck (played by the emphatically-American Charlton Heston) undertakes an expedition to find the tomb of the Egyptian princess Kara, despite his awareness of a nefarious curse that is said to befall anyone who disturbs the tomb. Eighteen years after Corbeck's discovery of the burial site, his teenage daughter (who was born at the very moment of the tomb's violation) begins to behave strangely. Turns out she's been possessed by Kara's malevolent spirit, carrying out the princess's revenge by causing several deaths and developing a less-than-healthy obsession with Daddy. Based very loosely on Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars (itself the inspiration for Hammer's superior Blood from the Mummy's Tomb), this is basically Warner Brothers' attempt to jump on the big-budget horror bandwagon in the wake of The Omen's staggering success. The result is a good-looking but artistically hollow film -- with elaborate sets, lush cinematography and a sweeping musical score, but little in the way of logic or suspense. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
Bruce Myers - Dr. Khalid; Nadim Sawalha - Dr. El Sadek; Ian McDiarmid - Dr. Richter; Michael Halphie; Leonard Maguire - John; Miriam Margolyes - Dr. Kadira; Michael Mellinger - Hamid; Ahmed Osman - Yusef; Ishia Bennison - Nurse; Madhav Sharma - Doctor; Christopher Fairbank - Porter; Roger Kemp - Doctor
Credit
Lionel Couch - Art Director, Harry Benn - Associate Producer, Phyllis Dalton - Costume Designer, Mike Newell - Director, Terry Rawlings - Editor, Claude Bolling - Composer (Music Score), Michael Stringer - Production Designer, Jack Cardiff - Cinematographer, Andrew Scheinman - Producer, Martin Shafer - Producer, Robert Solo - Producer, Brian Simmons - Sound/Sound Designer, Chris Bryant - Screenwriter, Clive Exton - Screenwriter, Gina Berriault - Screenwriter, Allan Scott - Screenwriter, Bram Stoker - Book Author
Another adaptation of Stoker's novel was released directly to video in 1997, under the title Bram Stoker's The Mummy.
Plot synopsis
Heston portrays an archaeologist who opens the tomb of an ancient Egyptian queen at the exact moment his daughter is born. Years later, the girl (Zimbalist), now a teenager, starts to undergo frightening changes in personality and people begin to mysteriously die. Heston soon comes to believe that the spirit of the queen, a cruel monarch named Kara, possessed his daughter at the moment of her birth and intends to resurrect herself through the girl's body.
