While Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is far from terrible and has a number of good things, it really is not Hammer at its best. If anything it's lesser Hammer, with enough to make it watchable but very much an uneven film and one where the troubled production shows.
Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, as ever with Hammer, is a good-looking film. Not their best-looking, mind you, sometimes like with some overly-bright lighting and tacky sets towards the end the low-budget does show but the photography is superbly eerie and rich in colour, the editing is tight and the sets and relics generally are suitably exotic and macabre. The music score is creepy and stirring, complementing the film very well. Blood from the Mummy's Tomb also starts off well, with an eerie opening and some parts do have a menacing atmosphere and a deliciously ironic touch, you do wish that that was sustained throughout the entire film but while it is frustrating that it does peter out Blood from the Mummy's Tomb thankfully is not completely inept and has its atmospheric moments.
Performances vary, with only three being good. Those three are James Villiers, Andrew Keir and Rosalie Crutchley. Of those three, if I were to choose who gave the best performance, my answer would be Villiers, who is terrifyingly unscrupulous and is clearly enjoying himself while still being careful not to dominate the film too much and being out of kilter. Keir is memorably astute and sympathetic and Crutchley gives charming, seasoned support.
Valerie Leon, in terms of her overall performance, is serviceable but not great; she is rather wooden and expressionless as Margaret but as Terra she does make quite possibly the sultriest Mummy ever on film with her exquisitely exotic looks and killer cleavage. A lot of her dubbed line delivery however comes over as detached and without much feeling which takes away from the performance. The rest of the cast are only so-so at best, and a stronger script and better written characters would have helped matters. The script has moments but most of the time sounds very awkward and underdeveloped, also not developing the characters well at all. The characters are very stock in fact and the way they believe comes over as confused and all over the place, the worst case being with Leon's dual role where a lot of her motivations don't make sense and the way she behaves almost erratic.
Despite starting off well, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb peters out. The story was initially intriguing with some menacing and ironic atmosphere, but for most of the time it dragged badly with a lot of filler talk and nowhere near enough suspense or sense of dread, so everything just became dull, dry and a mess of static interaction and all-over-the-place character motivations which made the film hard to follow at times. The direction is on one half technically accomplished and allows the atmosphere to speak, and on the other half it's only competent at best and often hackneyed and pedestrian, the film had two directors and it feels it.
Overall, watchable but very much a lesser Hammer effort. 5/10 Bethany Cox
Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, as ever with Hammer, is a good-looking film. Not their best-looking, mind you, sometimes like with some overly-bright lighting and tacky sets towards the end the low-budget does show but the photography is superbly eerie and rich in colour, the editing is tight and the sets and relics generally are suitably exotic and macabre. The music score is creepy and stirring, complementing the film very well. Blood from the Mummy's Tomb also starts off well, with an eerie opening and some parts do have a menacing atmosphere and a deliciously ironic touch, you do wish that that was sustained throughout the entire film but while it is frustrating that it does peter out Blood from the Mummy's Tomb thankfully is not completely inept and has its atmospheric moments.
Performances vary, with only three being good. Those three are James Villiers, Andrew Keir and Rosalie Crutchley. Of those three, if I were to choose who gave the best performance, my answer would be Villiers, who is terrifyingly unscrupulous and is clearly enjoying himself while still being careful not to dominate the film too much and being out of kilter. Keir is memorably astute and sympathetic and Crutchley gives charming, seasoned support.
Valerie Leon, in terms of her overall performance, is serviceable but not great; she is rather wooden and expressionless as Margaret but as Terra she does make quite possibly the sultriest Mummy ever on film with her exquisitely exotic looks and killer cleavage. A lot of her dubbed line delivery however comes over as detached and without much feeling which takes away from the performance. The rest of the cast are only so-so at best, and a stronger script and better written characters would have helped matters. The script has moments but most of the time sounds very awkward and underdeveloped, also not developing the characters well at all. The characters are very stock in fact and the way they believe comes over as confused and all over the place, the worst case being with Leon's dual role where a lot of her motivations don't make sense and the way she behaves almost erratic.
Despite starting off well, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb peters out. The story was initially intriguing with some menacing and ironic atmosphere, but for most of the time it dragged badly with a lot of filler talk and nowhere near enough suspense or sense of dread, so everything just became dull, dry and a mess of static interaction and all-over-the-place character motivations which made the film hard to follow at times. The direction is on one half technically accomplished and allows the atmosphere to speak, and on the other half it's only competent at best and often hackneyed and pedestrian, the film had two directors and it feels it.
Overall, watchable but very much a lesser Hammer effort. 5/10 Bethany Cox