Pharaoh Sefirama is buried in a desert tomb. Several slaves are killed with poisoned gas and buried with him to serve him in the afterlife. The high priestess (Laila Nasr) puts a curse on anyone who enters the tomb after it has been sealed. Centuries later three men, Rick (George Peck), Tariq (Ali Gohar) and Karib (Ibrahim Khan) break into the tomb looking for gold. Knowing that there is poison in the tomb they wait a day until it clears. While they are looking for the treasure room they find the mummy room. Rick is certain that a treasure room is nearby.
While they are still searching for the treasure, a Photographer, Bill (Barry Sattels), his director, Gary (John Salvo) and a bunch of fashion models are riding around the desert looking for a place to shoot pictures for a magazine. Karib shoots at them thinking they are grave robbers. Rick smoothes things over telling them that they are on a dig and thought they were grave robbers. When Bill and the others see the tomb they think it is the perfect place to have their photo shoot. Rick is unable to stop them and bides his time until he can look for the treasure. Bill sets up the lights to do the photo shoot. What they don’t know is that Sefirama is the god of the sun. The huge lights that the photographer uses brings the mummy back to life. When the mummy begins to rise, so do the slaves that are buried nearby. The slaves are flesh eating zombies that roam around looking for people to eat. As the mummy begins to hunt down the grave robbers the zombies begin hunting the models. Although models be tasty, the zombies are still hungry so they head into town for the main course. “Dawn of the Mummy” was released in 1981 and was directed by Frank Agrama. It is an American horror movie that was mostly filmed in Egypt. The fact that the title of the film is similar to “Dawn of the Dead” may give you a hint as to what you will find here. I love the concept of a slimy mummy and zombie slaves; however, the zombie action didn’t really get going until the last fifteen minutes of the film. But when they did it was some really good zombie exploitation. Until then the film is on the tedious side with silly models doing dumb chick things. If you’re looking for characterization, don’t. It you’re looking for good acting, don’t. The first hour and fifteen minutes is average at best but after that it gets fast and furious with zombies. There are some impressively gory parts in that last fifteen minutes, some of which got cut in the British release. Another part of the movie that makes it worthwhile is the music score. In the first part of the film it’s not all that noticeable but when the zombies make an appearance the music blends in quite nicely with the mayhem. Although not a great movie it does have its interesting points.