Legion of the Dead starts as a young & attractive Egyptology student named Molly (Courtney Clonch) pulls up to an extraordinary find somewhere in California, apparently there's an Egyptian tomb that's been unearthed out in the sticks somewhere. Dr. Ari Ben-David (Rhett Giles) & Dr. Swatek (Zach Galligan) are in charge & they are both very excited, however a great evil has been awakened in the shape of the re-animated Egyptian priestess Aneh-Tet (Claudia Lynx) who needs 6 souls to bring her 6 zombie mummies back to life & take over the world with the aid of a big slimy monster thing which can only be brought into this world by a virgin sacrifice. Molly discovers whats going on & it's up to her to save the day!<br /><br />Apparently shot under the cheeky title of Unravelled, written & directed by Paul Bales I thought Leigon of the Dead was an OK time waster although many may feel I'm being too generous with that description. The script obviously uses mummies & ancient Egyptian mythology presumably to try & cash-in on the huge success & popularity of Universal's two recent Mummy films with Brendan Fraser, unfortunately the budget didn't stretch to any location filming so in flash of inspiration the filmmakers thought to themselves if we can't go to Egypt Egypt will have to come to us in California! Hence the absurd notion of an ancient Egyptian tomb in the middle of rural California which isn't where the silliness stops but since Legion of the Dead is just a low budget horror film I doubt anyone involved was aiming for authenticity, if you know what I mean. I wasn't convinced about the unlikely notion that if you make a groundbreaking discovery like the one in the film the only people you bring in are young, hunky teenage students to assist you. The character's & dialogue aren't great but they suffice although what saves Legion of the Dead is some reasonable gore, the fact it's a little bit different, it has some good looking birds in it & it moves along at a fair pace. As I said it's an OK way to pass the time, just don't expect a masterpiece because this ain't it.<br /><br />Director Bales does OK & keeps the annoying MTV style nonsense down to a minimum, it actually looks like a professional film which I guess I should be grateful for on it's own considering some of the low budget horror crap that's floating around out there. I wouldn't call Legion of the Dead particularly scary & the action scenes lack a certain spark although the zombie mummies are quite cool. There's some decent gore here, there's various melting faces, a ripped out heart & a couple of really cool bits where people have their spines ripped out which is novel (if you haven't played Mortal Kombat) if nothing else. There's some nudity as well if that sort of thing interests you.<br /><br />I have to say I'm pretty impressed with Legion of the Dead considering the supposed $500,000 budget, it looks alright & while the special effects aren't going to win any awards they're not too bad. For what it is it's reasonably well made & the acting is OK as well although it saddens to see decent actors like Zach Galligan & Bruce Boxleitner reduced to bit-part roles in films such as this.<br /><br />Legion of the Dead isn't a great film that's for sure but I found it a mildly entertaining way to pass 90 odd minutes although I wouldn't be able to argue with anyone who called it crap, not as bad as I was expecting but still far from what one might call a good film.