When western infidels begin to unearth sacred artifacts in the Egyptian sands, a lone high priest summons Kharis from his grave to rid the ancient sands of the foreigners. Once awakened, mighty Kharis begins to search for his lost love and not even his former keepers will be able to stop him from finding his resurrected love.

The Mummy’s Hand is the 1940 follow-up to the 1932 Universal classic The Mummy. Unfortunately, this time there is no Boris Karloff and the body wrappings just isn’t as tight.

The weirdest thing about this flick is that it uses some of the exact footage from the first film; it just basically changes everything from Imhotep to Kharis for some reason. It’s really almost the same movie in many aspects just slightly altered here and there.

Even the two main leads are rip offs in a way, the straightforward hero Steve Banning and his paunchy sidekick Babe seem like second rate Abbott and Costello for their entire screen time. Other than that, this is the same old foot-dragging mummy horror movie you are used to.

One cool thing I did like about this film was how the blacked out Kharis’s eyes in all of his close up scenes, it’s no great special effect by today’s standards, but it did look pretty creepy watching Tom Tyler shuffle around with these soulless, black, shark-eyes.

The Mummy’s Hand is a ho-hum sequel to a ho-hum film. Hey, can I help it if The Mummy is the weakest link in the Universal Monster chain? I mean c’mon, it’s basically Dracula with bandages anyway. Worth a look if you’re a fan of classic monsters, but if you’re not, I recommend Creature from the Black Lagoon or one of the Frankenstein flicks.

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