None of the four Universal Kharis films are particularly great, and to me The Mummy's Hand is the only one that is near-good. This said, neither of them are bad either, and of the sequels to The Mummy's Hand my vote for the best of them goes to this, The Mummy's Ghost.

What makes The Mummy's Ghost the best of the sequels(if not exactly by much) is that it is the only one that tried to do something different. Even if the basic plot is still very flawed and formulaic, The Mummy's Ghost contains by far the boldest and most shocking ending of the four(and in a very good way, it's the highlight of the film),and is the only one to have almost non-existent stock footage material. The Mummy's Ghost does contain some campy fun with John Carradine and a few scenes with Kharis have some creepiness(others however just read of repetitive running around).

There are some attractively made sets, some atmospheric lighting and Ramsey Ames' costumes are to die for, though on the most-part The Mummy's Ghost is not one of Universal's most accomplished-looking films. Three performances register quite well. Best of all is John Carradine, who is deliciously diabolical and although he doesn't feature in much of the film he is still very memorable. George Zucco's role is also brief, but nonetheless played with sinister authority. Lastly, Lon Chaney Jnr's performance as Kharis is more consistent this time round, he intimidates much more and lumbers less, there even was glimpses of effort at giving Kharis a human side despite not having much to work with.

However, apparently The Mummy's Ghost was made very quickly and it does show in some shoddy editing, some terribly staged close-ups of Kharis and Kharis basically looks like a man very poorly wrapped up in bandages. While Chaney, Zucco and Carradine fare well, the rest of the cast on the other hand are bad. Ramsey Ames' alluring appearance and beautiful costuming are not enough to make up for how she spends her whole screen time looking bewildered and on edge, while Robert Lowery is hopelessly wooden to the point he veers on irritating. The chemistry between the two of them is non-descript.

The story does try to do things differently, but still manages to be on the paper-thin and formulaic side, with much of the plot reading of a series of familiar plot devices routinely handled. It also takes too long to get going, with an incredibly dull first third to the extent that the final fifteen minutes feels like a real relief, and is let down even further by tediously padded out college scenes(that are poorly played and add very little to the storytelling) and a sickeningly saccharine and passionless romantic subplot that seemed to only be there for the sake of it. The college and romantic scenes also suffered from the worst of the film's erratic(mostly lethargic) pacing and incredibly trite dialogue. The direction shows little care and style, with occasional glimpses of atmosphere that stops it from falling into ineptitude, and the characters are even more thinly written than the story, and some like Lowery and his friends are annoying.

All in all, has a lot lacking but has just enough to make it watchable. 5/10 Bethany Cox

The last time we left Lon Chaney, Jr. as Kharis the Mummy he was burned again in a fire. But you can't keep a good Mummy down if there is money to be made in a sequel which Universal Pictures has provided in The Mummy's Ghost. Although how you can have a ghost of an undead creature I will leave to the metephysicians.

George Zucco sends another handler for Kharis this time it's John Carradine. The assignment get the Princess Ananka's Mummy out of display at the museum and get them both back to their tombs in Egypt. And of course kill anyone who gets in the way.

In a plot element taken from the Boris Karloff mummy film, a young girl of Egyptian descent is the Princess reincarnated. Ramsay Ames is going out with Robert Lowery, but when Carradine starts his chants Kharis starts moving about, she gets all strange.

In fact Ananka's body finally turns to dust because Ames has become Ananka. Kharis still has a 3000 year old crush on her and he's had no nookie for that long so no wonder he's got such a bad attitude. Carradine like Turhan Bey the Kharis handler in the previous film gets his own crush on the leading lady.

Add Barton MacLane to the mix as the police inspector tracking down all these Kharis homicides and you've got a recipe for a film that was wearing a really thin premise to start with to death.

The Mummy films were getting weaker and weaker.

This is a definitely better movie than the previous Unviversal movie entry "The Mummy's Tomb", from 2 years earlier.

The story and characters are better again this time. Although this doesn't mean that the actual story is really that much special but at least they definitely put some effort in it. It's of course a quite silly story and it gets sort of tiresome how they keep bringing back the mummy back to life time after the time, no matter how often they have killed him off already in the previous movies. Same goes for the Andoheb role played by George Zucco. But oh well, at least the story keeps the movie enjoyable to watch. There aren't really any slow or dull moments ever in this movie.

The movie features both John Carradine and Lon Chaney Jr. again in the role of the mummy. They were both like THE Universal horror movies stars at the time. It's not that they roles are that interesting within this movie but nevertheless their presence is enough to uplifts the movie and makes it all the more enjoyable to watch for the genre fans of the Universal '40's movies.

Unlike the previous Universal mummy-entries, this movie does not feature an happy end, in which our hero kills the mummy and gets back the back. This was quite surprising and also a reason why this movie is better than just the average and typical Universal '40's horror attempt.

The movie has some good typical Unverisal '40's horror moments. Of course it's nothing too scary, at least not by today's standards but it's very classy and good looking all, with the use of shadows and some handy camera-work.

A perfectly watchable mummy-entry.

7/10

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