Of all the movie monsters that populate the horror landscape, I'd have to say that mummies have to be my least favorite. Give me a bloodsucking vampire, stitched up monster, drooling werewolf, horny sea creature, teen-stalking killing machine or any variation on the above and I'm pretty happy for the next 90 minutes. But throw down some dross about a sack of ancient sawdust shambling after its victims and it's like a big old cinematic shot of diphenhydramine.
So when ISIS RISING: CURSE OF THE LADY MUMMY hit my mailbox it should have gone right into the pile reserved for other reviewers.
However, I am a simple man and one look at Priya Rai on the cover convinced me that maybe it was worth a look. Not familiar with Miss Rai's um, body of work? I'll give you a minute to check out her filmography, though you might not want to use your employer's computer. Or the one in your family room.
The star of such adult offerings as MOMMY GOT BOOBS 2, TITTY SWEAT and BRA BUSTERS, the tiny but top heavy Indian (by way of Minnesota) stars here as Isis, an Egyptian princess who swears vengeance on her hubbie's brother after he has her lover's body cut into pieces and cast about green screen Egypt.
Cut to present day as a professor, an Egyptologist and six students out of central casting (Jock, Rocker, Trashy Babe, Busty Skank, Asian Nerd, Dork) set out to spend the night in a museum on an archeology project, unaware that the centuries old resurrection incense is going to, you know, resurrect Isis.
What follows is a slow, surprisingly talky horror flick in which Isis possesses the female members of the team while the dudes get their comeuppance. Luckily, the ancient Book of the Dead – which looks suspiciously like a dictionary – holds the key to surviving the night.
Shot with the same bright SOV porn vibe as Bruno Mattei's THE TOMB, ISIS RISING fails to deliver on whatever promise the box held. Priya Rai is in the film for maybe five minutes and while I don't know if she has the acting chops to pull off a feature-length performance, her other assets could have made the 80-minute running time not feel like it was soaked in molasses.
What might have been a good opportunity to crank out a sexy, bloody, low-budget mummy movie is instead wasted on masturbating security guards, oral sex gags and meatheads who say things like "what's up, Reading Rainbow?"
Yo! Reading is stupid! – Dan Taylor
Dan Taylor is the editor/publisher of Exploitation Retrospect and really should be working on the new issue instead of watching stuff like ISIS RISING. You can get all the latest about new reviews and the upcoming issue by following ER on Facebook and Twitter or keeping tabs on this blog and our website.
ISIS RISING is available from Amazon.
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