Across the classic Universal Monsters, there is an outlier when comparing the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man, and it is, unfortunately, The Mummy. Though Boris Karloff’s 1932 film remains in the pantheon of great cinematic monsters, the supernatural antagonist doesn’t possess the charm of Dracula, the existential questions of Frankenstein, or even the make-up effects of The Wolf Man. That didn’t stop Universal from making him into one of their icons, with a full series of films about a man in bandages stumbling around until he found a new victim, and others followed suit as well, with Mummy movies remaining a staple of the horror genre for decades.
Despite their perseverance, you can almost certainly count on one hand the number of actually good Mummy movies on one hand (like the Brendan Fraser-starring reboot from 1999). This spring, New Line Cinema, Blumhouse, and Atomic Monster will take another swing at bat and try to revive the concept of The Mummy for the big screen, and if the new trailer for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is any indicator, it might actually join the rare pantheon of “Good Mummy movies” by setting itself apart in a major way.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Trailer Finally Reveals the Story
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Released just a few weeks after the initial teaser trailer, the full official trailer for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy actually offers details about the story of the film, with a hint about what separates it from other Mummy movies. In the film, a couple’s (Jack Reynor and Laia Costa) missing daughter Katie is found alive after eight years, but her return comes with a mystery, that she was found inside a sarcophagus. To complicate matters further, it may not even really be Katie inside her body anymore.
Selling the new movie on the mystery of what even happened to Katie in the new trailer is what immediately makes it clear that this take on “The Mummy” as a concept is so different from any of the other versions that have been made. Though we can’t say for certain the film won’t focus on a revived ancient Egyptian corpse brought to life by a curse (as almost every other Mummy movie does), the fact that Cronin’s film is selling itself on terrifying body horror is already a step in a distinct direction.
The majority of Mummy movies not only have a problematic and simplistic view of Egyptian culture, but they’re largely just…dusty, focus on the bandaged body of a three-thousand-year-old, revenge-focused half-skeleton. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy on the otherhand seems to be building off the success he found with Evil Dead Rise, putting a spin not only on possession stories but unique gore that has never even been considered in other Mummy movies. We’ll find out for sure this spring, when Warner Bros. Pictures releases Lee Cronin’s The Mummy in IMAX on April 17.