I rent a lot of "B" movies, usually featuring a monster or a giant animal of some sort. Since seeing THE MUMMY with Brendan Fraser I have rented all of the shameful glut of mummy movies that have been released to capitalize on that film's success. Fraser's mummy was no prize winner but it was action packed. ANCIENT EVIL takes the prize as the worst of all the Mummy movies. First, an Aztec mummy? What self respecting mummy is anything but an egyptian mummy? I don't think the Aztecs did any mummification anyway. What was the deal with the sets? I read in one of the other reviews that this was filmed in four days. I have to wonder if they used a script or just ad-libbed. The so-called museum where the research was taking place looked an awful lot like someone's ranch house. People in horror movies are notoriously stupid. The folks in this fiasco spike the curve. One guy actually waits in bed for the Mummy to come and kill him. The mummy is also wildly erratic in its effectiveness. While it kills off all the supporting players, it is unstoppable. When the hero is finally confronted, he just punches it in the stomach and gets away. Also amusingly cast as the last of the Aztec priests is a white kid. The mummy is said to be intended to destroy all human life on earth. That is an interesting prospect for one lone resurrected Aztec warrior. It put me in mind of a possible sequel. A time traveller from the future comes back to stop the mummy's rampage before it single-handedly eliminated all human life one by one, city by city, country by country, continent by continent. Stay away from this flick if at all possible. I was afraid that it might melt the innards of my player. Maybe it could be used as high explosives if you have large rocks in your front yard or need to knock out a wall.....
