There’s a certain dusty charm to Hammer Films’ The Mummy (1959), the kind of movie where the horror is less about undead revenge and more about British colonial guilt wrapped in gauze and shot through a sepia filter. But charm only gets you so far. Eventually, you want something—anything—to happen. A scare. A scream. Maybe a curse that doesn’t sound like it was written by a museum docent after half a sherry.
Instead, what you get is 88 minutes of very polite archaeology, a walking carpet roll, and Peter Cushing monologuing like he’s trying to bore the mummy back into its sarcophagus.
Let’s unwrap this bad boy—carefully, of course. Don’t want to disturb the dust mites.
☠️ The Plot: Slow Burn Without the Burn
The film opens in 1895 Egypt, where three British archaeologists desecrate—I mean, “explore”—the tomb of Princess Ananka. Naturally, they’re warned by a spooky local not to go inside because it’s cursed. Naturally, they go in anyway. One of them (John Banning’s father) sees something horrifying offscreen, starts screaming like he’s being tickled by Satan, and ends up in a mental institution. A promising start, you think. Wrong.
Fast forward three years later, and everyone’s back in England, where the curse of the mummy finally kicks in with all the urgency of a pensioner chasing a runaway scone. It turns out the tomb’s guardian, Kharis (played by Christopher Lee, under 90 pounds of rotting burlap), has been reanimated and is now out for blood—or at least mild inconvenience. He’s got the mobility of a hungover Frankenstein and the tactical awareness of a Roomba. But boy, does he mean business.
Business, in this case, being slow-motion strangulations and repeatedly smashing through the same two doors like he’s auditioning for Extreme Makeover: Victorian Home Edition.
🧻 Christopher Lee: The World’s Tallest Dust Bunny
Let’s talk about Christopher Lee, who does his level best to bring menace to a role where he can’t speak, blink, or move faster than a breadline. As Kharis the Mummy, he’s a tall, imposing figure wrapped in bandages and caked in so much plaster that he might as well be part of the set design. His eyes are menacing when visible, but mostly he’s lumbering in and out of swamps like the ghost of missed potential.
Lee is actually great—he’s acting through the equivalent of an Egyptian sleeping bag. But no amount of physical presence can save a villain who kills people like he’s on Dramamine. Every murder is telegraphed, every entrance so slow that his victims have time to monologue, make tea, and maybe update their wills before he even raises his crusty hand.
🎩 Peter Cushing: Politeness in the Face of Death
Peter Cushing plays John Banning, the archaeologist’s son, who eventually becomes the de facto hero. As usual, Cushing is a class act—his delivery is crisp, his jawline noble, and his ability to sell Hammer’s stiffest dialogue remains unmatched. But even he seems aware that the script isn’t giving him much to work with. He’s playing a man tormented by a mummy with all the emotional urgency of someone filing a noise complaint.
To his credit, he does get one standout scene—he confronts the villainous Egyptian high priest (played with delicious sneer by George Pastell) in what should have been a showdown of intellect and tension. Instead, it feels like two Victorian librarians debating the Dewey Decimal system while a corpse rots in the corner.
💀 The Horror… or Lack Thereof
Here’s the real curse of The Mummy: it is stunningly unscary. This was Hammer’s first mummy film, and they chose to make it feel like a long museum tour led by a man who keeps coughing into his elbow and muttering about hieroglyphics.
There’s some atmosphere, sure. Foggy moors, shadowy crypts, flickering candles. But the movie never capitalizes on it. Instead of dread, you get décor. The mummy never shows up when it matters, and when it does, it’s about as terrifying as a malfunctioning animatronic at a rundown theme park.
The violence is tame even by 1950s standards. There’s no real gore, no tension. Just lots of build-up, lots of stiff upper lips, and then—finally—a scene where the mummy punches through a window like a hungover uncle at a wedding.
🏺 Cultural Sensitivity? LOL.
Let’s not ignore the cultural elephant wrapped in linen: this movie’s take on Egypt is about as nuanced as a sarcophagus with the word “EXOTIC” scrawled across it in eyeliner. Egyptian characters are reduced to mysterious cultists, fanatics, and spooky background props. It’s colonial horror at its laziest: “Look what happens when we steal stuff from ancient graves! Oh no, someone’s upset that we did it. What a monster!”
Sure, 1959 wasn’t exactly a high-water mark for cultural awareness, but even for its time, the portrayal here feels like a leftover Halloween costume that someone found in a closet labeled “Problematic Tropes.”
🧯 The Climax: Who Lit the Fuse?
Eventually—eventually—the climax arrives. Kharis goes on a final rampage, chasing Banning’s wife (who, wouldn’t you know it, looks exactly like his lost love, because of course she does). There’s a struggle. There’s a swamp. There’s a rifle. Kharis meets his end sinking into the murky waters like a particularly emotional loaf of bread.
You sit there wondering what happened. You were promised ancient evil. You got a soggy Halloween decoration and some men in waistcoats discussing archaeology over brandy.
🪦 Final Thoughts
The Mummy (1959) is a lesson in missed opportunity. It had the budget, the cast, the color cinematography, and the pedigree. What it lacked was urgency, scares, and a monster that didn’t move like it was navigating invisible stairs. Christopher Lee does his best. Peter Cushing tries to care. But the film itself is more lifeless than the thing in the bandages.
It’s pretty, yes. But so is a tombstone.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Canopic Jars
An ancient curse never felt so… sleepy. If you’re looking for horror, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for colonial guilt gift-wrapped in fog and furniture, well, dig in. Just don’t expect the bandages to hide the fact that The Mummy is DOA.
