EDITOR’S NOTE: The Pharaoh’s Curse was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, January 2, 1965, at 1 a.m., Saturday, May 6, 1967, at 11:20 p.m., and Saturday, April 6, 1968, at 1:00 a.m.

King Diamond once sang,

“Now, if you breaking the seals

And disturbing the peace

Then you’re startin’ up a curse

Bringin’ evil disease

Don’t touch, never ever steal

Unless you’re in for the kill

Or you’ll be hit by the curse of the Pharaohs

Yes, you’ll be hit and the curse is on you”

Maybe King wasn’t singing about off-brand mummy movies, but man, I love movies unconnected to the Universal Monster Mummy yet totally want to be in the same universe.

I am Sam and I am now obsessed with mummy movies.

Lee “Roll ‘Em” Sholem had so many credits, from Superman and Tarzan movies and shows to directing Criswell’s TV series and the movies Tobor the Great, Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki, Hell Ship Mutiny and probably a few thousand other things. Literally. There are so many urban legends about his work, like how Phyllis Coates got knocked out on an Adventures of Superman episode and he revived her and shot all her scenes for the day before her face swelled up. Or how he kept bringing the same attractive blonde to be the new Jane in the Tarzan movies, only to get turned down by producer Sol Lesser, only for that girl to end up being Marilyn Monroe. Who cares if these stories are true? What matters is that they are great stories.

But hey — we’re here for mummies.

Welcome to Egypt. Cradle of civilization. Also, the home of mummies. A bunch of scientists are digging where they shouldn’t, which means Captain Storm (Mark Dana) has to save them and maybe even pull a John Ashley with one of the wise guy’s wives, Sylvia (Diane Brewster, Miss Canfield on Leave It to Beaver). Or maybe he can get with local Simira (Ziva Rodann, who played Nefertiti on Batman and Venus de Viasa in Macumba Love).

How wild is it that this mummy — spoiler warning! — Is it really someone transformed into a mummy? And it drinks blood! It also lives without an arm, which is the best kind of mummy.

Shot in six days, one in Death Valley, this is the kind of movie that also has a cat monster and then sort of forgets it. I mean, it’s an hour long. Some people reviewing it expect it to make out with them or something. Perhaps you’ve never seen a 1950s generic mummy movie and were expecting a Criterion-level epic. I mean, it has the tomb of Pharaoh Ra-Antef to find, the disintegrating marriage of Sylvia and Robert Quentin (George N. Neise), and a possession film lurking inside the bandages of a mummy movie.

I mean, the poster says, “A blood-lusting mummy that kills for a cat-goddess!”

That’s good enough.

You can watch this on Tubi.