LA VENGANZA DE LA MOMIA/THE VENGEANCE OF THE MUMMY

1973

Director: Carlos Aured
Screenplay: Jacinto Molina
Producer: Francisco Sanchez
Music: Alfonso Santisteban, CAM Espana
Cast: Paul Naschy (Am-Im-ho tep & Assad Bey), Rina Ottolina (Amarna & Helen), Jack Taylor (Norton Stark), Maria Silva (Abigail), Helga Line (Zannuffer), Eduardo Calvo (Sir Douglas Carter), Luis Davila (Inspector Taylor), Luis Gaspar, Fernando Polack, Jose A. Soler, Celia Cruz, Pilar Bardem

Approximate running time: 91 minutes

 

   

Here is a film that cries out to be seen in its complete, unexpurgated form, as it a nasty exercise in sexual brutality, even outdoing director Carlos Aured's previous work with Naschy, HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, a film it shares certain elements with. Naschy plays a dual role: the evil Pharoah Am-Im-ho tep, who becomes the mummy, and Assad Bey, an Egyptian servant dedicated to reviving and serving the mummified pharoah. The past, with its decay and strange customs, intrudes into the chaste and proper Victorian era with, literally, a vengeance, as the Naschy mummy is a compact bolt of ugly retribution and indifference to man, thinking nothing of squashing a man's head till the eyes nearly pop out or smashing a woman's face into a gooey pulp. Naschy the screenwriter tries to take a different approach to the common "sympathetic" mummy of traditional mummy films. Yes, there is a love interest here, but the lovers in the Ancient Egypt sequence are wicked sadists whose religion is filled with blood drinking and who can casually eat grapes while innocent victims are tortured in front of them. LA VENGANZA DE LA MOMIA doesn't hold back on showing us that the ancient world had its own agenda. Contemporary man is warned.

[Source prints: Two versions were viewed, the Unicorn Video official release of the film and a recent "fully uncut" print being offered by Video Search of Miami. Unfortunately, neither version is the "hard" version of the movie, meaning there is no nudity to be found anywhere, though much opportunity to display it. (This "hard" version is so elusive and sought-after that even Naschy himself has hunted for it.) Both Unicorn and VSoM have used the same "soft" version of the film, which does not delete the violence, however. VSoM shows several seconds more of bloodletting (along with the original Spanish titles) than Unicorn, but their tape is so murky and seemingly duped generations distant from the original source material that it is, frankly, unwatchable--and doesn't run at 96 minutes as proclaimed, but a little over 91. Aside from this, the VSoM version is terribly pan-and-scanned in the beginning (that's where the extra bloodletting appears), so that the Unicorn video is even preferable here, slight cuts and its own pan-and-scan treatment notwithstanding. The audio track of both versions is full of pops and crackles, with the Unicorn version being the worst. If anyone ever finds the "hard" version and releases it in its full aspect ratio, that video will be knockout on an emotional and visceral level, and will blow away the "soft" version clear out of the collectable Naschy video water.]

Interior spread of the film's pressbook. (Thanks, Denetia)