“Someone or something is trying to kill us. I believe it will find us wherever we go!”

We’re back in ancient Egypt, thanks to Hammer’s relentless mining of the Universal monsters back catalogue. And there’s trouble afoot – a lengthy (and ultimately pointless) tale of family infighting unfolds, first in the form of hieroglyphs (which I’m betting probably actually translate as “dog, people, house, Aunty Cleo, dog, offensive stereotype, palm tree, palm tree, Aunty Cleo again, house”*), and then in filmed form.

Which goes about as well as you’d expect on this budget, with ancient Egypt reduced to one room (interior) and a sand quarry (exterior), peopled by a mixture of white people in blackface, actual black people mainly doing all the menial jobs (apart from one notable exception), and white people who apparently couldn’t be arsed to bother with the blackface.

It’s 2000BC, and as the Pharoah (Bruno Barnabe, white bloke) is usurped by his evil brother (or something), he sends his young son Kah-to-bey (Toolsie Persaud, black) to “safety” in the desert, accompanied by a few slaves (black) and his protector, the noble Prem (Dickie Owen, white bloke with a distinctly shoe polish-y complexion).

Things don’t go well, this being the desert and all, and the sand claims them all – one by one, but surprisingly quickly (kudos for the slaves though, for insisting on carrying all those fuck-off vases right up until the point where they keel over dead).

Prem somehow sorts a makeshift tomb for the body of the boy king and scratches a warning on a nearby rock before succumbing himself, a smear of brown cherry blossom from his sweaty hand his last mark on the world (not really, but it’s a powerful image).

Titles! And make them as overblown and fanfare-y as possible, please! (Jaded art team: So, the same as all your other films, then, Hammer?)

It’s now the early 20th century and annoying rich bloke Stanley Preston (John Phillips) has arrived in Egypt worried about the fate of his expedition party, who have gone missing looking for the tomb of Kah-to-bey.

We then join the ill-fated expedition party, a sweaty bunch of crumpled actors – some of whom look like people might have done in the 1920s, but the majority looking like they’d be more at home in a Soho nightspot circa 1966. Is it really so hard to get your hair cut for a lead role in a film?

They’re led by Sir Basil Walden (Andre Morrell, and making it “Basil’s Expedition”! One for you Gen Xers there), ably assisted by:

Preston’s son Paul (David Buck, 1960s);

A woman of all things, Claire (Maggie Kimberly, 1960s) who as well as being a cunning linguist (hey, it’s pretty much said in the film, don’t blame me) is also vaguely psychic, and if I’m honest, a bit of a buzzkill;

Photographer Harry Newton (Tim Barrett, 1960s), who is clearly from the off only there to get brutally murdered. Someone should have told him (Claire, I’m looking at you).

They know that “If we go on, we get farther away from the water”, but Claire insists on going on. She somehow knows they’ll find what they’re looking for, but adds a cheerful “When the desert is behind us begins the real danger… and some of us won’t survive!”

The expedition is attempting to discover the provenance of a mummy Preston has already procured… is it the mummy of Prem the cancellable slave, or the young prince? Well, we’re about to find out – because as soon as Claire predicts success, they find the “rock of death” just around the next corner, check out the hieroglyphs Prem scratched into it 4,000 years ago, and immediately rush to the supposedly hidden cave. Inside lurks a guardian (a wildly over-egged performance by Roger Delgado), who jumps out of the shadows, threatens the group with a knife, tells them his family have guarded the cave for centuries, and then walks off. They ignore his bug-eyed antics and continue into the darkness, only for Sir Basil to get bitten by a snake.

It’s at this point that Preston Sr and his search party turn up in this supposedly unexplored region of desert, and the two groups break into the tomb, finding the young pharaoh’s mummified remains (wrapped in… a shroud!). So it’s back to civilisation with their ill-gotten gains, where Sir Basil, still suffering from his snake bite, collapses at Preston’s publicity event to mark their success.

Even by Hammer’s standards, this film is a slow-burner. We’re 45 minutes in and not only are we yet to see any full-on mummy action, but there’s not been anything vaguely horrific shown on screen (or off it, for that matter).

Preston, who in modern parlance can only be described as a massive dick, shoves the ailing Sir Basil into an insane asylum so that he can take all the credit for the find. But Sir Basil escapes, unfortunately (for him, but at least it gets the bloody film moving) running into an evil fortune teller (Catherine Lacey), who not only predicts his imminent death (“I see death! You’re going to die very soon but not the way you think!”) but actually causes it**.

Her son is the guardian of the tomb, and while a pale Sir Basil sits listening to her witter on about the spirit of the tomb taking them one by one, the original mummy (Prem) is being wound up and set off by some incantations. He lumbers along to the fortune teller’s house and crushes Sir Basil’s head as she looks on, cackling like a loon.

The mummy then rips through most of the expeditionary team, and we’re treated to deaths by acid AND fire, throwing-out-of-a-window (ouch), and bouncing-off-a-wall as Claire takes it upon herself to figure out what’s going on and Preston expands on his dickishness by focusing on simply running away from the problem.

The Mummy’s Shroud is what it is – Hammer milking the never-as-popular-as-its-other-franchises franchise for all it’s worth, with the diminishing returns you’d expect. There’s fun to be had once it gets going, and one tremendous performance from Michael Ripper as Preston’s unfortunate PA Longbarrow (his death is genuinely upsetting – due solely to Ripper’s scene-stealing performance). All the other performances are either hysterical or underplayed.

And for the record, what’s the actual answer to the problem here? Is it “only he who holds the power of the shroud has the power to destroy”, or “any fucker with a gun”? Cos it’s not exactly clear.

*Don’t bother checking, these words were simply chosen for comic effect. Although bless you for thinking I’d have given it that much thought.

**And let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to be a fortune teller if you just say something’s going to happen and then make it happen.