From 'The Mummy's Hand (1940) through 'The Mummy's Curse (1944)' some interesting things but none more bizarre than the fact Kharis and Ananka sank into the Massachusetts swamps in the 'The Mummy's Ghost (1944) but end up rising in the Louisiana swamps in 'The Mummy's Curse (1944)'.

How did they end up in Louisiana? All we know is the townspeople and the sheriff's office (supposedly) chased Kharis and Ananka to Louisiana but the last film was set in Massachusetts... they chased them that far??? LOL The one major flaw with The Mummy's Curse but the film is fine otherwise.

If can go with or overlook the strange explanation given and can get into the idea of The Mummy ending up in Louisiana then you will find the film is is really just about as good of a B-Film as rest of the films in this series. Kharis can finally rest in peace.

7.5/10

Universal made the original Boris Karloff film, THE MUMMY in the early 1930s. To date, I think it's by far the best of all the mummy films. The, starting in 1940, they made a series of four mummy films. While they were not as good as the Karloff one, they provided a lot of fun and entertainment. They were not designed to be cerebral or for snobs but to appeal to kids and adults alike as the B-picture in the Saturday afternoon lineup at the cinema. And, in this role, they did exactly what they were intended to do.

This movie is the weakest and last of these films. Part of this is because of repetition--most of what occurs seems pretty old hat. Plus, the only real innovation was pretty silly--this Egyptian menace somehow made it to the bayous of Louisiana!! Yep, a decent film but it probably was time to stop making them when you had to resort to such plot devices because you ran out of ideas!

Of the Universal Kharis Mummy films, the only one for me that came close to good was The Mummy's Hand, though that also had its uneven spots. The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse are watchable at least but also heavily flawed and uninspired, of which The Mummy's Curse fares the worst.

The Mummy's Curse highlight is, agreed, the resurrection of Princess Ananka. It is a splendid, atmospheric scene that provides goose-bumps, and along with the ending of Ghost is the best scene of all the Universal Kharis Mummy films. It is sadly though the only great scene in the film, the only one to show any sense of care or directorial flair. Anne Codee makes a memorable appearance, and her Hey You number provided the film with a brief flicker of charm that the rest of the film was sorely lacking in. Of the cast(of which most of the cast were not very good),Virginia Christine comes out on top, she has an alluring appearance, and as well as making one's hairs stand up on their neck she is poignant too. Martin Kosleck is fun and menacing in his role, while Holmes Herbert is appropriately silky voiced. The sets are very atmospheric and there is some nice shadowy lighting, the camera work is the resurrection is most effective. And there is one amusing line, Goobie's 'The devil's alive and he's dancing with the mummy'.

Lon Chaney Jnr sadly completely goes through the motions here, he at least had some intimidating moments in Tomb and Ghost but here it seemed as if he didn't care. He is disadvantaged by that Kharis here has very little screen time and whenever he does appear he has nothing to do, nothing that wasn't done before in the previous Kharis films anyhow. Peter Coe is also by far the worst high priest of all four films put together, he brings very little authority or sense of threat to the role and instead he's wooden. Napoleon Simpson provides some mostly unfunny and often embarrassing comic relief(apart from that one line) as the film's most stereotypical character, in a film where all the characters are stock and uncompelling, and Dennis Moore and Kay Harding, while an improvement on the leads from Ghost, are a little dull. The script on the most part is as lumbering as Kharis himself and all the humour falls flat. As with the previous three Kharis films the romance elements don't come off strongly either, feeling saccharine and underdeveloped.

Princess Ananka's resurrection sequence and the Hey You number aside, The Mummy's Curse is slow-moving and dull with a lot of the storytelling feeling like an even blander retread of Ghost, the attacks and chases being especially repetitive. Unlike the previous three films, there is very little attempt at trying to do something different to before. The previous three films for all their problems had some campy fun and a little suspenseful atmosphere, plus Kharis also showed signs of being intimidating before, but again with the resurrection scene aside none of those can be found in Curse. The music doesn't sound bad at all by itself, it sounds quite haunting, but is very stock and doesn't always fit, a couple of placements sounded random. While the production values have their moments, some close-ups of Kharis don't look particularly good and the editing is shoddy, it was made virtually straight after Ghost(which was also made quickly, and looked it) and it really does show.

In conclusion, the last of the Universal Kharis Mummy films and sadly it is also the weakest. Pretty weak a lot of the time, but thanks to the song, that one great sequence and a few performances it's watchable. 4/10 Bethany Cox