Time Walker (1982) starring Ben Murphy, Nina Axelrod
Time Walker – a very different mummy movie, where an unscrupulous technician steals the gems buried with the mummy. Who wants them back! Then…
Review
Time Walker is an interesting take on the mummy movie genre. It’s not dreadfully entertaining, but it’s at least different. It’s a hodgepodge of the mummy movie, science fiction alien, and a slasher film. Time Walker‘s not a bad film, but it’s not a great film, either. But, it’s an enjoyable popcorn movie.
Professor Douglas McCadden: Ken, I want you to listen to this, I think I’m onto something. The scroll: it basically tells the story of King Tutankhamen’s soldiers discovering a stranger in the desert. Alright, because of his unusual appearance, the Egyptians assumed him to be a god, sent to advise their own god-king. So, King Tut goes forth to greet this deity, whom he calls Ankh-Venharis. Now, listen to this…
[Interpreting a scroll found in the mummy sarcophagus] “All-knowing Tutankhamen reached out to touch the weary traveler, and was sorely burned, and afflicted with a disease that consumed his flesh…
Likewise for all servants who laid hands on the boy king, all died, save only the strange traveler himself, who lay near death and without strength but would not pass into the afterworld.”
So, they simply sealed him alive in a corner of Tut’s tomb, along with all the afflicted servants
Dr. Ken Melrose: Tell me something, are you suggesting that our fungus is the same disease that killed Tut and his servants, and it’s been dormant for three thousand years? And now it’s not?
Professor Douglas McCadden: Suppose it were true.
Cast
- Ben Murphy (Alias Smith and Jones) … Professor Douglas McCadden. The Egyptologist who sends the coffin to the university in the U.S.A. He becomes the protagonist, as the mummy seemingly comes back to life.
- Nina Axelrod … Susie Fuller. Douglas’ girlfriend, who is given one of the crystals. And becomes one of the people pursued by the mummy.
- Kevin Brophy … Peter Sharpe. The unscrupulous technician, who steals the five crystals from the mummy’s coffin. Which is the catalyst for the mummy’s revenge quest.
- James Karen (The Pursuit of Happiness) … Dr. Wendell J. Rossmore
- Austin Stoker (Battle for the Planet of the Apes) … Dr. Ken Melrose
- Darwin Joston (The Fog) … Lt. Plummer
- Antoinette Bower … Dr. Hayworth
- Sam Chew Jr. … Dr. Bruce Serrano
- Shari Belafonte … Linda Flores
Editorial review of Time Walker courtesy of Amazon
From deep within the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, Professor Douglas McCadden ships the coffin of Ankh-Vanharis to the California Institute of Sciences, where X-rays reveal five diamondlike crystals hidden within the coffin. Technician Peter Sharpe steals the crystals, but he doesn’t notice that the powerful X-ray has revived a green fungus. When the coffin is opened at a university press conference, the reporters uncover more than they bargained for. The mummy has disappeared . . . the Time Walker is alive again!