Prem

Prem
Continuity:	Hammer Horror
Notability:	Antagonist
Type:	Slave
Gender:	Male
Race:	Mummy
Location:	Ancient Egypt
Status:	Deceased
Died:	1920
First:	The Mummy's Shroud.
Actor:	Dickie Owen Eddie Powell

Prem is a fictional mummy featured in the Hammer Horror film series. He was the primary antagonist featured in the 1967 horror film The Mummy's Shroud. He was played by actor Dickie Owen in flashback scenes and by Eddie Powell in the rest of the film.

Biography

Prem as a slave in Ancient Egypt.

Prem was a slave to the Pharaoh, Men-Ta in Ancient Egypt circa 2,000 BCE. The Pharaoh's brother, Almen-Ta was next in secession to become the new Pharaoh, but this changed when the Men-Ta's wife gave birth to a son, Kah-to-Bey. Almen-Ta betrayed the Pharaoh and rallied an army against him. The Pharaoh entrusted young Kah-to-Bey to Prem's care, instructing him to safeguard him above all else. While Men-Ta was murdered by enemy soldiers, Prem took the child out into the desert. They struggled for weeks on end with little water and food. Many of the slave caregivers died off, but Prem kept vigilant. Ultimately however, Kah-to-Bey succumbed to illness brought on by exposure. In the Prince's final moments, he gave Prem the royal seal of the Pharaoh. Prem covered the Prince in a Sacred Shroud. Prem died sometime later. Both the prince and the slave were mummified and buried.

Around the turn of the century, a British expedition outside of Mezzara in Egypt recovered the mummy of Prem near the Rock of Death. Because his remains bore the royal seal, many mistakenly believed that they had discovered the mummy of Kah-to-Bey. Other Egyptologists disagreed, and the debate raged on amongst scholars for two decades.

In 1920, British industrialist Stanley Preston financed a dig to find the true Tomb of Kah-to-Bey, and hired archeologist Sir Basil Walden. During the expedition, a Muslim guardian named Hasmid Ali obstructed them, warning them against opening the tomb of Kah-to-Bey. The expedition ignored the warnings, and excavated the tomb, and recovered the sarcophagus containing the mummy of the true Prince. His body was brought back to Sir Basil's Restoration House, which also contained the mummy of Prem.

Hasmid, offended by the foreigners' despoiling the tomb, used the Sacred Shroud and incantations to invoke a curse, which awakened the mummy of Prem. The mummy set forth to avenge those who violated the tomb, hunting down each member of the party and murdering them. He first attacked Sir Basil Walden, by crushing his skull in his massive hands, and leaving him suspended in a closet for a housekeeper to discover. His next victim was dig's photographer, Harry Newton. He attacked Harry in his darkroom and splashed acidic photographic agents on top of him, which also set fire to the room. The mummy murdered a man named Longbarrow by tangling him up in bed sheets and throwing his body out of a high window of the Mezzara Hotel. Through Hasmid's manipulation, the mummy caught up with Stanley Preston. He strangled Preston, then smashed his head into the stone pavement of a back alley.

Hasmid sent Prem back to the Restoration House to kill Stanley's son, Paul Preston, and the clairvoyant linguist, Claire de Sangre. He nearly succeeded, but fortunately, Claire read a death spell aloud, which caused Prem to disintegrate into dust.

Abilities

• Resurrection: Mummies do not possess this as a direct ability, but rather are benefactors of this ability through external circumstance; usually through supernatural means, such as reading from an occult text, or being animated through an act of sorcery.
• Superhuman durability: Mummies are damned hard to kill. Though they may suffer physical damage similar to that of a human, they do not suffer the physical restrictions that usually accompany physical pain.
• Superhuman stamina: Mummies take a licking and keep on ticking. Shoot 'em, stab 'em, throw acid on them... it don't matter. They're going to keep coming after you unless you conduct severe physical trauma to their bodies such as cutting off a limb, setting them on fire, or blowing them up.
• Superhuman strength: Mummies are by definition "undead", which suggests a higher strength level than the normal human.

Weaknesses

• Mute: Mummies usually have their tongues cut out, which prevents them from speaking. Even if this is not the case, Mummies are essentially just undead engines of destruction, with no real thought or motivation.

Notes & Trivia

• The character of Prem was created by director John Gilling and writer Anthony Hinds.
• Other mummy characters from the Hammer Horror series include Kharis from 1959's The Mummy, Ra-Antef from Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, and Queen Tera from Blood from the Mummy's Tomb.
• Actor Dickie Owen played the slave version of Prem from the Ancient Egypt flashback scenes, but did not actually don the mummy wrappings in this film. However, he did portray the mummy Ra-Antef in Curse of the Mummy's Tomb in 1964.

Body Count

• Basil Walden - Crushed his skull with his bare hands.
• Harry Newton - Splashed with acid, then set fire to the room.
• Longbarrow - Threw him out of a hotel window.
• Stanley Preston - Strangled him then smashed his head on the pavement.

Appearances

• Mummy's Shroud, The

See also

Hammer Horror Hammer Horror pages Hammer Horror media

Hammer Horror films Hammer Horror images Hammer Horror characters