Horrorfest 2018: The Mummy's Tomb

If there was an opposite to the INVISIBLE MAN series, it’d be the MUMMY series – where Universal tried something new with most of the INVISIBLE MAN movies, the MUMMY movies seem to be one copy after the other, with exception of the first one, which is by far the best.

1942’s THE MUMMY’S TOMB, directed by Harold Young, is the third of the MUMMY movies and a direct sequel to THE MUMMY’S HAND (a victim of a previous Horrorfest). It’s a depressing affair because while THE MUMMY’S HAND was kind of a light hearted and fun adventure centering around the likable pair of heroes played by John Hubbard and Wallace Ford, this one is a grim affair that picks up 30 years later, featuring Hubbard and Ford now as old men, who each end up murdered.

Although it’s the 3^rd MUMMY movie, it’s the first appearance of Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Mummy, and as mentioned in another review, he’s wasted here. Anyone could play the Mummy. Karloff got a good crack at it in the original because in the original the Mummy could talk and was an interesting character. In all of these sequels he’s just a lumbering, murderous zombie. I guess they want the Lon Chaney name on the poster, but it might as well be anyway under the makeup.

In the last MUMMY movie, the MUMMY was seemingly killed by fire, but here he is, alive again. At the end of this one, he’s killed by fire again, but why anyone would think this would actually do the Mummy in when it clearly survived fire the last time is beyond me.