This is a really scary movie. This is scarier then The Mummy's hand. And that is not easy to do. This is also scarier then the The Mummy's tomb and that is not easy to do. This is also scarier then The Mummy's ghost and that is not easy to do. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. 5.6 is a good ratting. But this is such a great movie that 5.6 is underrating it. This is a 9. If this movie does not scary you no movie will. It is scarier then The Shining. And that is not easy to do. This is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street and that is not easy to do. This is scarier then Halloween and that is not easy to do.

If "Bride Of Frankenstein" was the crown jewel in Universal Horror, the Mummy sequels were the ankle bracelets from a Cracker Jack's box. Oddly, many kids probably loved these more than the strange and wonderful Karloff "Mummy" where you only got to see him fully wrapped at the beginning. There must have been some Barton Finks who passed these silly stories around as if they were wresting movies. The idiotic plot is basically retold from the first film. Still, the striking form of the Mummy, oddly invisible to the world beyond the stock characters (didn't anybody EVER notice him?) was oddly effective, as he ever so slowly, inch by inch, approached his prey. That's about all "Curse" has going for it. The unintentional laughs of the more fun "The Mummy's Ghost" are mostly gone. Thank goodness Boris quit after one.

The final entry in the Kharis the mummy series is also the weakest, although still a good watch. At the end of the last film, Kharis and Ananka disappeared into the swamp. Decades later, the swamp is drained. For some reason, this film moves the location of the swamp from New England to Louisiana! So obviously somebody didn't think continuity was that big of an issue. Anyway, Kharis is revived by yet another Egyptian high priest (Peter Coe). Meanwhile, Ananka resurfaces from the mud and we discover she is played by Virginia Christine. Why Ramsay Ames didn't return to the role I'm not sure, but Christine does fine. Needless to say, Kharis is once again anxious to find his lost love. This was Lon Chaney Jr.'s last turn as the mummy. This one's got some marks against it but it's a fun movie. Nice atmosphere and some creepy moments. Universal horror fans like myself will like it most.

And the scene I'm talking about is of course Princess Ananka's awakening from the swamp. Played by the pretty Virginia Christine, this one scene alone stands out from what is a fairly ordinary movie (if still better than the Mummy's Tomb). Ananka's hand slowly rises to the surface of the newly drained swamp, and Ananka herself pushes her way up through the mud and sludge looking like some grotesque manikin. It's a genuinely eerie moment, and one of the best in any Universal 40s horror flick.The rest is basically Lon Chaney's Kharis strangling his way through the cast of characters when they get in the way of his reunion with Ananka. Even if you've seen the previous movies very little of the story makes sense. The swamp into which he sank in The Mummy's Ghost has mysteriously moved from New England to Louisiana; Ananka for some reason is given life and health by the sun (unexplained, though possibly something to do with Amon-Ra being a Sun God), she frequently runs away from her mummified suitor and then calls for him when he's not around (the soul of the princess presumably coming and going at will - or when the script-writers needed it). Chaney lumbers through the part. He publicly stated he hated the role, but in truth there isn't really anything inventive for him to do.This is still an atmospheric little B-movie for all its plot inconsistencies. Some nice moonlit shots of the Mummy lurching down the steps of the abandoned monastery and a good sequence where Kharis almost reaches a car containing Ananka before it speeds away just in time. Universal don't really, er, wrap things up with the end, which seems to suggest another sequel was just around the corner. The Mummy's Curse would prove to be last in the series. At least until Abbott and Costello roughed him up!