“When the desert is behind us begins the real danger... and some of us won’t survive.”

"Beware the beat... of the cloth wrapped feet..." if you can get past that awful tagline this isn't a bad effort at all. It's not really a comedy, although it has a few funny moments, but if people were expecting some kind of Carry On Screaming affair, they would have been disappointed. Disappointed and scared. Perhaps. Well, it was 1966.

As with most of these things, the story kicks off in Egyptian times, complete with nice heiroglyphics to help the plot along without costing Hammer too much money. After a battle between a bunch of blacked-up East End lorry drivers in what looks like a broom cupboard, the Pharoah's young son is spirited away by the faithful slave Prem, only to die anyway in the desert. So that was worth it then, eh?

Moving to the “present day”, a group of English people are looking for the young prince's last resting place (why anyone would know where it was anyway is never explained). Claire a psychic, predicts that "When the desert is behind us begins the real danger... and some of us won't survive."

Prem's mummified body has already been found, and now vain and egotistical millionaire Stanley Preston is financing this latest expedition. He's following on behind, wondering what his money's being spent on and worrying about missing out on any glory that might be going spare.

Of course, the first group find the tomb, only to be hassled by an overacting Roger Delgado, who on informing them that his family have guarded the tomb for thousands of years, walks away and lets them get on with it. In the tomb they find a shroud over the body of the prince, on which is an ancient curse of some kind which Claire refuses to read. Sir Basil, the leader of the first expedition, gets bitten by a snake. Then Preston's party turns up (quite a small desert, this one) and they cart the body and the shroud back to town.

The Egyptian cure for snake bite appears to involve locking the unfortunate victim in an asylum and threatening to shoot them if they try to escape. Bad news for Sir Basil. Sir Basil escapes anyway, only to have his head crushed off-screen by the vengeful mummy, brought back to life by Roger Delgado's eye-rolling antics and forceful reading of the curse off the shroud. Still with me? The mummy then goes on a short kill-crazy rampage, setting fire to a photographer, throwing Michael Ripper out of a window, and giving Preston a vigorous massage before slamming his head against a wall. 

Finally, Delgado gives the game away somewhat (the dolt) by telling what's left of the search party that the shroud holds the key to controlling Prem's mummified remains. Claire reads out "the words of death" and the mummy turns on his former controller, before committing mummy suicide by crushing its own head into dust.