Based on Dracula author Bram Stoker's 1903 novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars, this is fourth and last mummy movie from Hammer Films. Set in the "modern" era, it departs significantly from the previous flicks — there isn't even really a mummy in the story per se — and is actually better off for it. At any rate, the film is a vast improvement over its predecessor, 1967's abysmal The Mummy's Shroud.
    Gorgeous Margaret Fuchs (The Spy Who Loved Me's Valerie Leon, in a black Vampirella wig) is on the verge of her 21st birthday. Her father Julian (Quatermass And The Pit's Andrew Keir), an archeology professor, gives her a huge ruby ring as a present. (More suitable as a paperweight than jewelry, we think.) Within the gemstone can be seen what looks like seven stars set in the configuration of a constellation. Dad is cryptic about the ring's origins and Margaret seems drawn to the humongous thing. Her fiancé Tod (Mark Edwards) is intrigued as well, and takes Margaret to see his friend, antiques dealer Geoffrey Dandridge, to ask about the ring. Dandridge (Hugh Burden) nearly has a heart attack when he first spies Margaret.
    She is the reincarnation of Tera, an ancient, evil queen whose perfectly preserved body — without the slightest trace of decomposition — was brought back to England by Prof. Fuchs shortly after Margaret was born. Tera's tomb was initially discovered by Fuchs and his partners during an expedition in Egypt, her sarcophagus opened by them at the precise moment Margaret was born in London. (Her mother died in childbirth.) Fuch's companions in the enterprise — fellow academic Prof. Berigan (George Coulouris), spiritualist Helen Dickerson (Rosalie Crutchley), the mysterious Mr. Corbeck (For Your Eyes Only's James Villiers) and Dandridge, whom Margaret is unaware was once an associate of her father's — each took a relic from the tomb back to England with them: Berigan a statute of a cobra, Dickerson a statue of the Egyptian cat-god, Corbeck a scroll and Dandridge the skull of a jackal. Fuchs has kept Tera's lifelike corpse locked away in his basement for over 20 years. The ruby ring, presented to his daughter as a birthday gift, came from the severed hand of the queen herself. Dad, you see, has a sick fascination for the undead Tera. He half-hopes and half-fears that Margaret, who's been suffering from bizarre dreams of late, will become Tera when she turns 21. As the appointed hour draws near, his daughter's strange behavior escalates — Tera's astral spirit is gaining more and more control. The sinister Corbeck shows up to complete the transmutation, gaining Margaret's confidence; Fuchs is left bedridden by a sudden stroke. The three other members of the expedition begin turning up dead, their throats horribly slashed...
    Blood From The Mummy's Tomb will likely prove too leisurely paced for the casual viewer. Well acted and competently helmed, there's just not much that's genuinely scary here. For a PG-rated flick it's surprisingly bloody, with torn throats and Tera's wrist stump spurting plenty of the red stuff. (There is one supremely cheesy moment to report: you can clearly see a victim wiping a blood sponge across his neck at the moment of death.) We're even treated to a nude scene, shot from the back, involving Leon's body double. Director Seth Holt (who died one week before the film wrapped) seems keenly aware that the movie's chief asset is his lead actress. Valerie Leon is simply drop-dead luscious. Lovingly photographed, she spends much of the time in sexy nightgowns and there are slow-mo shots of her with a fan tousling those faux raven locks. Happily this babe isn't too terrible an actress, which aids the film in that she at least doesn't sabotage it. (Leon's voice is dubbed, though.)
    Still, the lack of tension or suspense — not to mention the non-appearance of horror icons Cushing and Lee — leaves this one firmly in the "for Hammer diehards only" camp. Or for fans of Ms. Leon, of course. (Note: Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars was filmed again in 1980 as The Awakening, with Charlton Heston in the Prof. Fuchs role. Its glacial pace makes the pedestrian Blood From The Mummy's Tomb come off like a Jackie Chan movie in comparison.)