Glen McCulla Another dubious "classic" to file away at the back of the brain under "What the hell was i thinking watching this? - What the hell was anyone thinking filming this?!!?"This is another of those films that hold a rancid but special place in my black and evil heart due to repeated viewings via worn-out old VHS in the early 90s. Some annoying American students decide to trip out, drop out, and - thanks to our undead friend - check out in the Florida Everglades of the 1960s. Tartu himself is - so far as memory serves - a mummified Native American (can we say that these days?), who periodically lolls back and forth in his tomb in a spectacularly unmenacing fashion, before taking on such forms as a crocodile etc., to despatch the defilers of his tomb, like a z-grade mummy meets Manimal on acid. Only crapper than that sounds, because that actually sounds cool.Seemingly filmed on the '60s equivalent of camcorder on a budget of booze and jellybeans, this is film that i love to hate, and hate to love.With thanks to the now defunct Spotlight Videos of South Shields for causing me to suffer this circa 1993. I have never fully recovered. Thank you.:)

MartinHafer The film is set in the Everglades and is about some silly Seminole chief rising from his grave to kill the infidels. However, while we see his mummy in the coffin several times throughout the film, he apparently can transform into a wide variety of creatures--such as an Anaconda, a poisonous snake, a shark and his original pre-death warrior form! And, in these guises, he slowly tries to kill off a group of teens and their adult chaperones.This film is so awful that lovers of bad films might just want to seek it. Now it isn't as ineptly funny as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, but it is pretty bad due to it's extremely amateurish production values. Aside from the cost of the camera and film, I can't imagine very much money was spent to make the film. The writing is very basic and the dialog not especially good. At times, it didn't look like they exactly knew what to do next, so they had the four teens in the film break into dance and lie around necking for extended periods! However bad the film is, though, it isn't nearly as silly and shoddy as the director's other "masterpiece", STING OF DEATH--a truly hilarious and, believe it or not, worse film!

goodvibe-1 I have wondered for years exactly what budget this film was made. Mmmmmmmm...not tooooo bad...Actually, if you think about it, I don't know of any other similiar story-line from that time period in such a film, good or bad. I HATED the spider! Totally uncalled for! The webs and the psychotronic colors reflected in the cave interior was all that was really needed, and the Rise of Tartu in the climax was pretty good. The atmosphere was truly creepy, and the background drums could have been more subtle, though I have always believed effective. I really liked the final scene, corny as heck but the quicksand and the skull were right up my alley! The film obviously could have been done better, but HEY: it's a wonderful tool for the small-budget film maker to learn from and expand on. Great drive-in style flick!

Maciste_Brother A real B-movie, with its intentions being that much bigger than its miniscule budget, DEATH CURSE OF TARTU is a fun flick to watch. It's not inept enough to be considered a PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE kind of movie but there are so many moments when it almost reaches the point of PLAN 9 that those who love really bad movies will like watching this one. For instance, the crocodile (or is it an alligator?) running after the screaming bimbo, who runs for several miles, only to have the croc right behind her. I didn't know crocs could run that fast. The living Tartu walking around with skin colored tights has to be seen to be believed. And the acting is uniformly bad. Hearing the drums every time Tartu started his killings reminded me of Gilligan's Island, which, in an odd way, sorta befits this unintentional comedy.DEATH CURSE OF TARTU is available on Something Weird DVD and makes a great double feature with STING OF DEATH.