Time Walker (1982)

I first saw Time Walker (1982) when ITV showed it in a late night slot somewhen in the eighties.  I remember that I found it mildly amusing in a schlocky way.  I caught up with it again via streaming channel a couple of years ago, then saw it again last night on another steaming service.  These last two viewings haven't changed my opinion of the film.  It represents an attempt to meld a traditional mummy movie with the whole 'ancient astronaut' nonsense, doubtless to try and capitalise upon the popularity of science fiction movies which followed the releases of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters (1978) and the boom in direct-to-video low budget horror films.  Unfortunately, it simply isn't gory enough to satisfy hardcore horror fans, nor does it have the sort of budget and special effects to really appeal to fans of the contemporary science fiction cycle of films.  That said, however, it is nowhere near as bad as many critics have made out.  Despite its many inadequacies, it does at least manage a reasonable pace and incorporates a fair amount of 'mummy' action.  The 'mummy', of course, turning out to be an ancient alien who had come to earth in ancient Egyptian times and his mayhem the results of his attempts to regain the crystals he needs to complete his teleportation device and return home.

The university setting makes it feel a little like one of the 1940s Universal mummy movies - The Mummy's Ghost (1944) in particular.  It also provides opportunities for some gratuitous nudity with female students being spied on as they take their tops off.  The whole sub-plot involving campus politics is somewhat ludicrous and tends to slow down the action - it's clearly just there to pad out the running time.  Ben Murphy in the lead - an unlikely archeologist if ever there was - is, as ever, an amiable presence, but pretty much sleep walks his way through the film.  The movie is notable, though, for reuniting Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston, stars of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), as a doctor and a cop, respectively.  Overall, Tom Kennedy's direction is less than inspired and, not surprisingly, Time Walker remained his only directorial credit.  The film ends on a cliffhanger, with the caption 'To Be Continued...'  It never was.  Not a great film, but also not a really terrible one, Time Walker is an inoffensive entertainment that starts reasonably intriguingly, but quickly loses focus and spends too much time on sub plots before anything really happens.  Still, there are worse ways to spend eighty three minutes.