This was the Hammer film that gained a reputation as being cursed due to the accidents and deaths involving its crew during the shoot. First up, on the very first day of production, Peter Cushing received a phone call informing him of his wife's death and he had to leave the unit to be replaced by Andrew Keir; himself a regular Hammer cast member having worked on the Quatermass films. When the film was nearing completion, its director Seth Holt also keeled over and therefore post-production and indeed the entire shaping of the final product was presided over by Michael Carreras, one of Hammer's top fangs.

The film had been written as a mysterious tale of celestial sorcery and had lengthy scenes of nude women performing satanic rituals and blood rites which were hacked from the final product which was considerably watered down from the original script. The film follows the tale of Margaret, a beautiful daughter of an archaeologist with a dark secret. Margaret suffers from recurring nightmares in which she witnesses a queen (who resembles herself strikingly) being put into a sarcophagus and having her hand chopped off. The hand is thrown to a pack of wild jackals who receive the shock of their lives when the hand turns on them causing horrible lacerations around the throat region.

Slowly it transpires that Margaret is being invaded in spirit by the evil queen Tera and that she is being used as a vessel by the vengeful Mummy to exact revenge on those who desecrated her tomb a few years ago. The "desecrating" party included Margaret's father who unknowingly unleashes Tera's vengeance by giving his daughter her ring to wear. It's quite a mumbo jumbo of a plot and doesn't have the sinister atmosphere and style of the work of masters like Terence Fisher. Though it comes across a little bit too much as a vehicle for its buxom seductress frequently pictured in low cut night gowns, its does manage to retain some of the Hammer old world charm with its cheesy gore and its floating mists and overwrought performances.

Sadly due to his personal tragedy Peter Cushing was unable to take on his leading role in the film which instantly robbed the film of the star quality it needed. Cushing's presence alone elevated many an average Hammer production to being that little bit special and his absence in a generally uninspired effort such as this is sorely missed. The weakest link in the film is the actor who plays the role of the sinister Dr. Corbeck (James Villiers) who comes across as high camp rather than ooze the sinister evil that he is supposed to exude. The film clearly misses the class that an old hand like Sir Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing would have leant it (what's that, Lee hasn't been knighted? Well, it won't be long then before he is).

The film has its adequate sprinkling of utterly ludicrous scenarios particularly when an ancient cobra statue springs to life attacking its astounded victim in the most brutal manner. Then it's the turn of an equally harmless looking cat statue. Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is far from vintage Hammer, but then the 70's had begun signalling the rapid downward spiral of Hammer output and in fact the studio stopped its cinema production by the end of the decade, switching their attention to TV instead. The film scores highly in the silly stakes but manages yet to retain an element of the old world Hammer style which renders it just about passable - when compared to Hammer at its best however, the less said the better. Anyone notice the homage to one of horror's true masters? Margaret's boyfriends name in the film is Tod Browning and he dies a particularly cheesy death -seen clearly squeezing his plastic blood capsule thingy onto his neck as he kicks the bucket!