Time Walker (1982)

(NOTE - I'm probably going to reveal one or two spoilers during the course of this review. So, if you're one of the few people who haven't seen this movie late at night on HBO or even rented this one out of the local video place's "cheapie bin", proceed with caution.)

Is it really in a movie's best interest to contradict itself?

Time Walker is, essentially, not just a horror movie but an entire conglomeration of movies styles (monster film, suspense film, dumb campus comedy, mad killer flick) that get rolled into one big, ugly ball. You can sometimes get away with combining different genres in one film (The Bride of Frankenstein is an example of such cross-pollenation that works) but most often it ends up confused and confusing. One doesn't watch Time Walker, one tries to interpret it.

The movie begins with archaeology professor Doug McCadden (Ben Murphy, TV's "Alias Smith and Jones") discovering a hidden antechamber within the tomb of King Tut. Actually, "discovering" may not be the right word to use. The producers show a lot of still pictures of the outside of Tut's tomb with McCadden speaking over them - and they call that an expedition, but oh well.... In this antechamber lies the tomb of Ankh-Venharis. This translates into "Noble Traveler", so they say, but since I know no Egyptian I'll have to give them that one. The stone coffin (but none of the other items in his tomb, oddly enough) are shipped back to the California Institute of Sciences for proper study and display. However, upon doing an x-ray of the coffin, an overzealous student technician (Kevin Brophy) discovers crystals buried within it. He steals the diamond-like crystals and, to cover his theft, x-rays the coffin again. But due to all the x-raying going on, not only is the mummy within awakened (as one might expect in movies like this) but a strange green fungus that eats away flesh is also revived. Soon, not only are the crystals being distributed throughout campus, but people are also dying left and right.

Will the rampaging mummy get all his crystals back and kill those who stand in his way? Will McCadden discover the truth about what's happening? Will the campus president (James Karen) eventually believe that a long-dead mummy could be responsible? Will McCadden's beautiful student girlfriend (Nina Axelrod) be the next victim? Will the sniveling weasel professor (Sam Chew Jr., Serial) get what's coming to him? Will the film-makers be able to make an 86-minute film feel like a three-hour panorama through a pothole? To answer all of your questions - yes.

To look at the facts of Time Walker (let alone the cover of the box it comes in), you have to wonder what they had in mind; were they trying to give away the whole movie before we've seen it? In its cover artwork three things are prominently displayed: the moon above, three pyramids lying below and a round-headed humanoid with long fingers and a glowing chest standing between both. If you can put two-and-two together you've probably already figured out the plot (and plot twists) of this movie. Not that director Tom Kennedy would let on; instead, he proceeds to draw out the obvious twist and treat it like he had just discovered the wheel, so to speak. However, a few things have conspired to sabotage his noble ideals - his budget, his script and his actors.

This movie is the result of a budget of $750,000 - most of it going to the fog machines and the blue-lit special effects near the end. This is about as low a budget as you can get, it seems, when dealing with mummies and flesh-eating fungi. That sarcophagus alone must have had a lot of money sunk into it for its authentic look. Sad to say that it's the most realistic looking thing in the whole movie. But at least it looks like they set the whole movie within an actual college campus, so realism points go to them for that.

The script is another matter - created as it is by Jason Williams, Tom Friedman and Karen Levitt, it seems to get mighty confused as how to stage certain scenes, settling instead on gathering people together and having them read their lines. Badly. The actors here simply don't seem to have a lot of faith nor conviction in what they say (more on that later) and most of the dialogue that's supposed to be forceful, dramatic or even just conversational is delivered in a manner that's stilted and monotone at the same time. A lot of the script is scientific mumbo-jumbo combined with archaeological mumbo-jumbo and the remainder is just plain old mumbo-jumbo with some occasional swearing and an oh-so-brief flash of female nudity (this was 1982, when you could still get away with that in a PG-rated movie). Truth be told, with a little editing here and there, this could have been an "ABC Movie Of The Week".

And another plot point (in keeping with the film's changing consistency); the campus president is persuaded by the weasel professor that McCadden is the one responsible for not only the disappearance on the mummy but also for the deaths occurring on campus. Fine, but why not arrest him right off, if just to show he's innocent while the murders continue? And something else: the mummy, who is shown to only attack those who possess the crystals, kills some poor jerk custodian who happens to wander into his field of vision. Isn't that, you know, inconsistent with his/its modus operandi, to get back the crystals from those who have them, of which the custodian doesn't? And if the mummy was just killing random people, why not attack indiscriminately (like at the stupid Egyptian/Mummy frat party later on)? Why bother to ask questions that no one (especially the writers) has the answers for?

Then we get to the actors. Ben Murphy was always an easy-going presence on TV in shows like "Alias Smith And Jones" and "The Gemini Man", but he had less success in the movies. He tries, he flashes his smile and is the second-best actor here, but it could also be that a laid-back manner on TV doesn't work in movies that deal with murderous mummies and other-worldly powers. James Karen (the FIRST-best actor) is a name best-known to devotees of films like Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster and Return Of The Living Dead I and II. He's dependable and his part isn't too intrusive, making him good by default. A pity he's best remembered as "that Pathmart guy", but more people have shopped at Pathmart than have seen Time Walker, so there you go.

The rest of the cast is rounded out by deadweight (pardon the expression). Pretty faces like Axelrod, Shari Belafonte (TV's "Hotel"), Melissa Prophet (1985's Invasion U.S.A.) and Greta Blackburn (Yellowbeard) serve no more nor less a part than either 'Victim' or 'Innocent Bystander'. Brophy is okay but is barely used. You may recognize other actors here and there (Alan Rachins plays a jeweler for a few seconds) but why bother? The main thing the largest part of the cast does is serve as mummy fodder or witnesses to the lurid events.

So, a whole bunch of people die (for which a campus cop and a police detective are all the law in the vicinity to handle this, I suppose), then the mummy is found and everything comes to a head as it reveals its true nature....as an alien. Blue skin, big round head, huge black eyes and long fingernails. It looks no more detailed than your average Don Post mask (those ones they used to sell for twenty bucks in "Starlog" Magazine in the early '80s) and wears a stylish black unitard with a glowing E.T.-style chest.

Now, you may think I've ruined the ending, but I HAVEN'T! Right after the alien's appearance, McCadden gets accidentally shot by the campus cop (although he's 15-20 feet away from the alien. Great aim, campus cop.) and then, as he lies on the ground bleeding, for some reason he reaches for the alien, and then....

Okay, THAT I'll leave for you to discover. If you want to find out what happens so badly after I spent all this time warning you away, you DESERVE to watch Time Walker.

And if you walk away enjoying every last of the 86 minutes of this film, then congratulations; you have truly won your stripes as a battle-scarred veteran of B-moviedom.