A group of students have discovered and ancient Egyptian tomb in Southern California. Little do they know they are about to resurrect the remains of an evil ancient Egyptian queen. Once risen, she plans on raising an army of the undead to fulfill a prophecy that would give her the power to rule both the dead and the living.

Well, I rented this one simply because the title contained the line "of the dead”. Since I am a sucker for any movie containing this phrase I snatched it up. Still I was not expecting much of anything when I saw it was made by “Asylum” and starring Mr. Gremlins himself, Zach Galligan. But it was actually a decent flick. As far as straight-to-video horror goes it is very difficult to find a good film (come to think of it lately it seems easier to find one that makes you contemplate making your own horror films and watching them). So you could also do a heck of a lot worse.

As mentioned above a group of students led by their professor have stumbled upon an ancient tomb buried in southern California. If that sounds lame, you’re right, it is. However I will give them credit for trying to explain it in a way that makes some sort of sense. Most of these types of films won't even bother.

Anyway they unleash an ancient evil queen who wants to take over the world. I should also mention that said evil queen is REALLY hot! Also for you skin hounds yes, you will see her naked. So anyway she needs to kill some students in order to capture young souls. She also needs to sacrifice a virgin, and hey wouldn’t you just know she hit the jackpot here with the students who discovered her. What luck to find a virgin twenty-something right off the bat huh (actually multiple virgins)? To help fulfill this “prophesy” she raises a crew of some awesome looking mummies. I was expecting this to be a zombie flick because of the title, its not. It is, in case you haven’t guessed, a mummy flick.

This film had more strong points than weak ones. The effects were pretty darn good. You get some well done kill scenes that include some pulled out spines, hearts, and even a scalp. They executed theses scenes very nicely (get it, executed). Another feature I enjoyed was since they manipulated us with the title they made these gnarly mummies (In good ol zombie fashion) munch flesh. With a nice addition of some cool blood licking (you'll know it when you see it).

The acting was nothing to write home about, but I was not expecting it to be any better that’s for sure. Also the make up was done well. As mentioned above the mummies looked good. This is a credit to their make-up artist, I was impressed. The story was simple but pretty well done.

Now the bad. The story got real boring in the middle. I was on the verge of hating it but than the mummies arrived and brought me back on board. They waited too long to bring these creatures into the mix. Also the ending was awful. You get to meet the heavy in this ending and it looks ridiculous, especially when comparing the rest of the good effects that took place in the rest of the film. There were also plenty of WTF moments in this one involving the plot and behaviors of the characters.

So overall what you have here is a decent flick with overall solid effects. This is not one you need to run out and rent but considering how few solid straight to video horror flicks are out there, it’s worth checking out. It has decent gore, good kills, one smoking’ hot chick, and a fairly entertaining story. Considering all the bad horror flicks I've seen lately this one especially seemed better. Moderately recommended.

5.5 out of 10 Chicks named “Kevin”