When a 42-foot giant mummy is found buried -- not in Egypt but in a U.S. desert -- archeologist Matt Fletcher revels in the discovery at first. Played by Casper Van Dien, Fletcher is the Indiana Jones-type hero of The Fallen Ones, a low-budget horror film also starring Kristen Miller as a skeptical engineer and Robert Wagner as a reckless industrialist who’s funding the digs. It’s a shock to everyone when the reanimated mummy starts on a rampage which could trigger a modern-day apocalypse by causing a flood like the Big One in the Bible.     

Make no mistake about it, The Fallen Ones bears no resemblance to The Mummy or The Mummy Returns. Those are slick, big-budget productions. Directed by Kevin VanHook (Frost: Portrait of a Vampire), this movie was made on a short shooting schedule and with minimal funds, so viewers should have considerably lower expectations for The Fallen Ones.

Checking out the DVD bonus items before watching this film  will also increase appreciation of what the cast and crew accomplished. For such a low-budget film, The Fallen Ones boasts a few eye-popping special effects -- including humans who look very small while being chased by a rock-throwing giant and the almost seamless transformation of a fallen angel into human form. I highly recommend taking a look at the two featurettes, “Giants in the Earth: The Making of The Fallen Ones” and “Creating Aramis, the Mummy” prior to playing the movie.

Other enlightening bonus materials include: audio commentary with writer/director VanHook, producer Karen Bailey, cinematographer Matt Steinauer, and visual effects supervisor Chadd B. Cole; a behind-the-scenes still gallery; a storyboard gallery; the film’s trailer; and a CD-Rom containing the entire screenplay.

Although performances are reminiscent of those in old movie serials like Flash Gordon, the actors seem to have fun with their roles, especially Tom Bosley (TV’s Happy Days) as a rabbi who’s called in to interpret the terrifying prophecy. Classically handsome Van Dien (Starship Troopers) may not be Harrison Ford, but he’s easy on the eye and projects an Adam West Batman-like aura to his character in some scenes. Navid Negahban (TV’s 24 ) displays a remarkable screen presence as a supernatural villain here, but I couldn’t understand his dialogue most of the time. The same holds true for Stewart (She Spies), who mumbles many of her lines. Both Negahban and Stewart speak clearly in the bonus features, so perhaps the sound technician is at fault, not these two actors.                        

Despite the cheesy nature of The Fallen Ones, it’s fun to watch in the privacy of your own home where you can give it a Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. Afterwards, you’ll wonder what great things filmmaker VanHook could do with more time and money.     

(Released by Anchor Bay Entertainment; not rated by MPAA.)