"The Curse of the Faceless Man" is a rather inconsequential yet enjoyable horror film from the 1950s. It stars Richard Anderson of "The Six Million Dollar Man" fame.

The story begins with a body and a box of jewels being found in the ruins of Pompeii. This isn't that unusual. But the body itself is silly because it looks exactly like the ones they have on display there...but those are actually plaster casts of the bodies which had long disintegrated. Inexplicably, this is supposed to be an entire person....and looks exactly like one of the casts. However, it holds a secret...it's not quite dead! And, it has a murderous appetite if anyone comes between it and his beloved...much like in the old classic horror film "The Mummy".

So is it any good? Well, I must say that the costume looked really good. As far as the plot and dialog go, they are, of course, quite silly. But many folks (like me) like schlocky old 50s horror pictures...and it's well worth seeing and reasonably entertaining. Far from perfect, and with needless narration, it's worth seeing if you like this sort of nonsense.

It took the mountains to move to turn this man into rock, but somehow, 2000 late years later, his joints can move when he is pulled out of his volcanic dust hole. It's obvious a man in a full body costume, and when he is discovered by someone digging at an old volcanic site as part of an excavation, a murderous rampage begins as a part of his attempt to reclaim jewels that were taken from his resting place.

Well structured with its introduction covering the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, this is a fun late '50s horror movie that in spite of some of the illogical details is easy to get into and enjoy. Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards and Adele Mara are perfectly fine and some aging European character actors offer some enjoyable eccentric performances. The creature may not be as scary as Egyptian mummy's, but it certainly can induce nightmares as it stalks the streets of Pompeii looking for its jewels and claiming victims.

Excavated from an expedition at Pompeii, a professor and his assistant find that the recovered mummy of an ancient guardian believes that she is the princess he loved reincarnated and sets out to reclaim her forcing them to protect her while trying to find a way to stop him.

This here wasn't all that bad of a drive-in feature. One of the films' better features is the fact that there's quite a lot of work here on the build-up to the reveal of the mummy and its condition. The connection to ancient Roman history, setting the whole affair around the eruption of Vesuvius which is carried out rather nicely through the discovery of the mummy, and it's contents from the dig site which leads rather well into the dreams she has about the mummy coming for her which comes off as the vast majority of the first half here. When it gets to the point about him being alive and coming after the medallion, this one gets even more fun as these are where the film really offers its best scenes as the first resurrection in the museum in front of her is quite the impressive offering, while the main attack in her apartment after it chases them out after it's chamber and goes on stalking her throughout the building which is a really fun and exciting sequence which remains a nice highlight. Even the finale is rather nice, from the final abduction out of the museum and the trip through the countryside where they arrive at the beach when the police arrive and engage in the final confrontation with the creature which is a rather nice and unexpected finish that ends this on a rather fun note. Along with the great look and imposing features of the mummy, these here are what make this one fun enough to hold over the flaws. The issue here is the fact that a vast majority of the film has an annoying and utterly irritating voice-over narration that is completely unnecessary as a whole. The voice-over tells us absolutely nothing important about what's going on since it merely describes the action playing out on-screen or shoots off a quick blurb following up on what was just learned which renders the exercise quite comical as well as irritating. Since it's carried on throughout the whole film, oftentimes just for a line or two, it's pointless needling on the story really gets old, and becomes a hindrance due to its continuation while it stayed only for the beginning this wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, the only other problematic issue is the overall cheap and quickie feeling to it as there's just not a whole lot here that denotes too much went into this, from the cheap look and cramped sets to the flimsy look of everything which makes this look incredibly cheap. That does tend to lower this one, although there's still plenty to like overall here.

Today's Rating/PG: Violence.