Villain(s)  Undead mummy

Actor(s):  Lon Chaney Jr., Dick Foran, John Hubbard, Elyse Knox

Brief Description  The Mummy's Tomb (1942) is an American horror film produced by Universal Pictures, directed by Harold Young, and starring Lon Chaney Jr. in his first appearance as the ancient Egyptian mummy, Kharis. Serving as a direct sequel to The Mummy's Hand (1940), it marks a major turning point in the franchise by moving the setting out of Egypt and into the United States for the very first time.

Plot:
The movie takes place 30 years after the events of The Mummy's Hand (putting the fictional timeline around 1970, though the world still visually reflects the 1940s). The film opens in Mapleton, Massachusetts, where an elderly, wheelchair-bound Stephen Banning is hosting a dinner. He regales his son John, his sister Jane, and John's fiancée Isobel with the story of how he unearthed the tomb of Princess Ananka and destroyed the living mummy Kharis. This storytelling framework utilizes extensive flashback clips from the 1940 film to recap the backstory. Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the sinister High Priest Andoheb is revealed to have survived his injuries from the previous film. Now frail and near death, he passes the sacred duty of the Priests of Karnak to his young successor, Mehemet Bey. Andoheb explains how to brew the mystical tana leaves to control Kharis: three leaves a night to keep him alive, and nine leaves to grant him the strength to walk and kill. Mehemet Bey is ordered to smuggle the crate containing Kharis to America and murder every surviving member of the Banning expedition as revenge for defiling Ananka's tomb.

Mehemet Bey arrives in Massachusetts via a cargo ship and secures a quiet, unassuming job as the caretaker of the local Mapleton cemetery. During the first full moon, Mehemet brews the tana leaf fluid and commands Kharis to hunt down Stephen Banning. The limping, heavily bandaged mummy creeps into the Banning manor at night and strangles the helpless Stephen to death. Local authorities are baffled by the strange mold residue and brutal bruising left on the victim. Shortly after, Kharis is dispatched again, this time murdering Stephen's sister, Jane Banning. Hearing of his old friend's death, Babe Hanson rushes to Mapleton to warn John Banning. Babe realizes a mummy is responsible, but before he can convince the skeptical local police, Kharis corners him on a dark city street and murders him as well.

As is typical for Universal Mummy films, the plot shifts when Mehemet Bey catches sight of John Banning's beautiful fiancée, Isobel Evans. Smitten by her, Mehemet decides to break his priestly vows of celibacy. Instead of simply killing the rest of the family line, he orders Kharis to abduct Isobel from her bedroom so that Mehemet can inject her with tana fluid to grant them both eternal life together. Kharis successfully abducts the fainting Isobel and carries her away to the cemetery shack. However, John Banning and a growing mob of angry townspeople—armed with guns and blazing torches—track the creature's path. John confronts Mehemet Bey at the graveyard, and the villainous priest is shot and killed by the police. Kharis, left without a master, grabs Isobel and retreats into the nearby Banning estate. The angry mob surrounds the house and sets it on fire. John rushes into the burning structure, successfully rescuing Isobel from the mummy's grasp. Trapped by the spreading flames, Kharis is consumed by the fire, seemingly destroying the monster and ending the curse of the Banning family.