EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mummy’s Curse was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 25, 1965 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, February 10, 1968 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 30, 1972 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, January 25, 1972 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 20, 1975 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, April 23, 1977 at 1:00 a.m.

The fifth entry in Universal’s original Mummy franchise, this is a direct sequel to The Mummy’s Ghost. Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) and his beloved Princess Ananka (Virginia Christine ) remain in the swamp, even if the swamp has moved from Massachusetts to Louisiana—even if the accents don’t always sound right.

The Southern Engineering Company — one of those TVA or New Deal kind of public works projects — wants to drain the swamp, but the locals are afraid of even going there. Sure, they’re poor, but would you want to deal with a mummy, much less two?

Scripps Museum sends Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore) and Dr. Ilzor Zandaab (Peter Coe) to investigate, just as a worker is killed with all the handmarks — literally of Kharis. But never trust science, as Zandaab is really a priest of the pharaohs and is working with Ragheb (Martin Kosleck) to fully return the Egyptian royalty to life within the mucky confines of this deep southern bog.

Thus follows brewing the tea leaves and killing a monk as Kharis rises, filled with power anew. Ananka also rises, being found by a bulldozer and washing herself clean. She’s found by beloved local Cajun Joe (Kurt Katch) and, of course, taken to the local bar before Kharis busts in and starts killing people. She’s found by Halsey and Betty Walsh (Kay Harding) and is shocked by how much she knows about Ancient Egypt. I was shocked finding out how much English she could speak.

Of course, it ends as it always does, with evil scientists pushing their luck and the Mummy being dead all over again.

Directed by Leslie Goodwins, this had a huge list of writers attached, including Bernard Schubert, Leon Abrams, Dwight V. Babcock, Ted Richmond and Oliver Drake, who would go on to make another mummy movie, many years later and somehow with an even lower budget, The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals which, outside of the Las Vegas setting, feels like it could be the lost sequel for this film.

Universal had one left — Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy — but Joe Dante in Famous Monsters Vol. 4 No. 3 wrote that this was one of the most disappointing horror films the studio would release, packed with footage from The Mummy and The Mummy’s Hand instead of new scenes. Between the stock footage and stunt men stand-ins for the occasionally drunk Chaney Jr., The Mummy is played by at least three people, including Boris Karloff and Tom Tyler.

I kind of love this, as the swamp is a fun place. If we follow the timeline of these movies, with The Mummy’s Tomb set in 1970, The Mummy’s Ghost two years later and this twenty-five years after all that, it should be 1997. It does not feel like 1997 at all.