The Mummy And The Curse Of The Jackals

Taste The Blood
Of Jackal, ahhh!

The Mummy And The
Curse Of The Jackals
USA 1969
Directed by Oliver Drake
Vega International Pictures
Severin Films US Blu Ray

The Mummy And The Curse Of The Jackals is, from what I understand, a film bought by one of the heads of Severin Films in an estate auction of film cans. This film was shot in 1969 and, as far as I can tell, it never had any kind of legitimate release until a quite muddy 4:3 transfer in the 1990s on VHS casette. So, no matter what you think of the film, a big shout out to Severin for rescuing and fully restoring another obscurity of cine-art which may have stayed lost forever. Of course, many people who see this one might think that would probably have been the best fate for it but, not me. I loved it. Whenever you see one of those almost mythical ‘so bad it’s good’ films in the flesh, I am all for it.

This one stars Anthony Eisley as archaeology professor David Barrie who has found a perfectly preserved mummy princess and her less than perfectly preserved, bandaged guardian. And when I say perfectly preserved, the mummy Princess Akana (played by Marliza Pons) has no ageing… she’s just an Egyptian lady laying in a glass covered box. In one of many statements made by the film to anticipate accusations of continuity errors, this one from David’s best friend Bob (Robert Alan Browne)... he didn’t realise that the ancient Egyptians were able to make such sophisticated glass which they’ve only been able to make in America for a few years. Hmm. Another one is when, as the back story of the mummy and the princess is being covered (and it’s pretty much the same as all the old 1940s Hollywood mummy movie back stories), it’s said that Isis (who makes a cameo when Bob suddenly transforms into her midst a puff of smoke at one point) will ensure that Akana will be able to speak whatever language is being spoken thousands of years later when she awakens in… well… in 1969. Aha… they’ve thought of everything. Well, some things… well.. oh, never mind.

Anyway, when the moon is full, David comes under the spell of Akana and changes into a Jackal… so, yeah, this is a were-jackal film. So he attacks innocent bystanders at night and serves Anaka by day in his normal human guise. It’s not long before the Mummy (Saul Goldsmith) and the were-jackal come to blows of course and, it all ends unhappily ever after, as you would expect.

The film is perfectly silly. It’s not just the absolutely, ridiculously bad script which is entertaining… the inept acting in this means that there’s never any credibility to anything in the film (you have to witness the line readings in this to believe them). And the continuity errors come thick and fast… not to mention the little leaps in logic (or lack of) that the film is guilty of on a regular basis. For example, when David leaves Akana to go out shopping for 20th century clothes for her, he tells her he hasn’t got a car so it’s going to take him a while to walk the three miles. Well, when he returns home later in the movie… well, maybe this section was shot first from an unfinished script because, he arrives home in his car. Wait, what?

Okay, so the were-jackal make up is both terrible and, honestly, quite cute. It’s like a Lon Chaney Jr make up from the 1940s (and the director actually helped produce one of those and provided the story for it, actually… but this later movie is far less sophisticated) but, with added big ears and cute, protruding nose. A bit like a huggable werewolf, to be honest. The light jazz twangs accompanied by stripper saxophone when he goes prowling makes for a preposterous but also somewhat cool atmosphere, it has to be said.

And talking of Lon Chaney Jr, the ‘one crazy swollen eyeball’ bandaged mummy shuffles around with exactly the same gait as the Tom Tyler/Chaney Jr incarnations from the 40s, even down to the one gammy arm hugged close to the chest. So as not to spoil the tone, however, it also looks incredibly silly and, this silliness is exacerbated vastly when the two stalk each other in Las Vegas... as the crowds and passers by on the streets pause to watch the filming and laugh at them in their ridiculous costumes.

During the Akana/mummy back story there are the usual scenes of the slaves being speared to preserve the secret of the pharaohs and there’s also a tongue ripping effect which, I can only assume was inspired by Herschel Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast in 1963 (reviewed here) but that’s about as daring as the film gets, it would seem. Even the scene where David has to explain to Akana how to put on a bra is tamer than you could possibly imagine.

About a quarter of an hour before the end of the picture, the film’s number one billed star actor turns up… yep... John Carradine. Carradine was probably drunk but could always deliver his lines well and he seems to run rings around the other actors here (and of course, he has the required audience baggage in that he was in a few of those 1940s mummy movies himself). He’s there to name the creature as the ‘jackal man’ (just as the werewolf in the Lon Chaney Jr productions was the ‘wolf man’) and to basically explain the plot to the police and speed up the film’s inevitable ending, such as it is. It’s a bit of an anticlimactic conclusion to say the least and, also, makes no logical sense with the rest of the story, it seems to me. But this doesn’t matter because I could watch his film a fair few times without getting bored of it, for sure. Especially with the needle dropped stock music playing all the way through it… choices ranging from surf-instrumental bubble gum pop to the equally unsubtle topless jazz dance fodder. Great stuff.

The film comes with the usual Severin quality extras, including a 20 minute segment of Francophile Stephen Thrower telling us how much he loves the film and giving the complete, as far as anyone knows it, story of Vega International Pictures… pointing out just how shady they were. Included in the extras is another film, which is the only reason I’m gong to review that one for this blog at some point soon… the Vega soft core porn production Angelica: The Young Vixen, which I think was also picked up in the same auction as part of the same package although, the quality of it is so deteriorated that the film has been relegated to an extra rather than get its own release. I’ll get to it though and, honestly, if you’re a fan of the ‘so bad it’s good’, cringeworthy z-grade horror movies then, like me, you might just find you love The Mummy And The Curse Of The Jackals.