The Mummy's Tomb (1942)

 The Mummy's Tomb (1942)

Thirty years after the events of the previous chapter shown in The Mummy's Hand, which if we pay attention to a dialogue line about 'the Russian Front' which places this story in the WWII U.S. involvement present and the previous chapter sometime around 1912, we find out the religious mummy sect is alive and well in Egypt and the mantle, (or medallion, to be more precise,) has been passed on to a young high priest.

He is commissioned to take the living mummy to Mapleton, Massachusetts (so that's how it gets here!) to expedite the curse and take care of the surviving members of the Ananka/Kharis expedition and their progeny, if any.
There is no mention of Ananka's mummy's whereabouts, or even if she was ever found or transported to America.

The young priest settles in as a funeral home and cemetery caretaker, (and I don't ever want to hear anyone make fun of Ed Wood's flimsy headstones, since Universal Studios makes the exact same cinema sin here,) and begins to send out Kharis to kill the remaining survivors.

A last-minute change of plan happens when the priest catches a glimpse of the would-be daughter-in-law of one of the expeditioners, not that I blame him even when it smacks a bit too much of the heathen who can't keep his filthy mitts off our Western women.

Oh, well.

This chapter being much less humorous and more horrific in tone, Kharis proceeds to do just that; with the surviving expeditioners trying to convince a doubtful police force and populace of the reality of the fantastic menace, though the newspapers have no problem publishing headlines alluding to the supernatural.

An hour-long movie might seem much too short for contemporary audiences, especially when a setup utilizing footage from the previous film takes ten minutes to unfold before we begin the movie proper. The efficiency and effectiveness of the storytelling here should be proof that all those hour-long supernatural shows had no excuse to be that slow or that boring.

This is yet another little Horror gem that is not long enough to overstay its welcome, but long enough to include all required elements: exotic locales and characters, a memorable monster, plenty of murder, chases, and a fiery conclusion.

Lon Chaney Jr. takes over mummy duties with the differing physique explained away as fire damage, but he is not able to imbue the monster with any sort of character, more a fault of the script than of anything else. The most he gets to act is when the priest reveals his change of plan to Kharis' near-violent reaction.
While supposedly simply a living mummy, he is now shown to be impervious to gunshots, (what, bullets don't damage his still-alive internal organs?)

The returning cast all have decent enough aged make-up with the script ruthlessly not minding doing away with them; it makes sense, these are after all still desecrators, and the whole basis of the series was the infamous Curse of Tutankhamen.

The lyrical qualities of The Mummy are all but forgotten and the emphasis is now on thrills of a quite different nature, likely to appeal more to Monster Kids.

With Dick Foran, John Hubbard, Elyse Knox, Wallace Ford, and Turhan Bey.