On June 9th, Universal Pictures will attempt to revive its shared monsters brand, getting the ball rolling on this Dark Universe with Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy. Though this is clearly an attempt to jump on board the Marvel bandwagon, Universal perfected the art of the cinematic universe long before Tony Stark and Steve Rogers began dominating the cineplex, with numerous concurrent horror series running in the 1930s and 1940s that connected in special crossover events like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. It seems appropriate, then, for the pioneers themselves to get back in the game. And it makes sense to start things off this way, as among all the classic Universal franchises, The Mummy, which consists of five films released from 1932 through 1944, is the one that feels the most modern. So how well do these movies hold up today, and in what ways might Kurtzman’s The Mummy draw upon them?

Universal in February 1931 released Dracula, an adaptation of the well-known novel by Bram Stoker that had recently been realized on stage in a popular play. The movie was a smash hit at the box office, and so Universal promptly began working on additional monster movies, the next being Frankenstein, another adaptation of a novel that again performed well. But Universal’s third monster picture, The Mummy, was more of a risk considering it had no source material and was a bit of an unknown quantity, although the story was loosely based on the real-life opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb a decade prior. (In fact, The Mummy was written by John L. Balderston, who was present when Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened.) The result is a horror masterpiece that truly stands the test of time and that in some ways surpass both Dracula and Frankenstein. 

The first sequence of The Mummy deserves to be studied and dissected by aspiring horror filmmakers. Three archeologists discuss the fact that they have uncovered a mummy on a recent dig, all the while the titular antagonist lies motionless behind them, almost always remaining in frame but staying lifeless for an excruciatingly long period of time. Alfred Hitchcock described suspense as two characters talking while the audience knows a bomb is ticking at their feet, and he might as well have had the pulse-pounding anxiety of The Mummy’s cold open in mind when he said that. Throughout this stretch of film, our eyes keep darting towards the back of the room as we wait for the creature to make any sort of movement, and it gets to the point where we convince ourselves we see him budge before he legitimately does. As is often the case, that anticipation is the star of the show. That’s not to say the payoff is unsatisfying, though. Ralph, the first one to notice the newly-animated monster, has exactly the reaction that we expect characters in these types of movies to have: he is so ridiculously overwhelmed with fear that he laughs himself silly, as if he instantaneously lost any sort of grip on reality the moment he saw this unwieldy brute.

Famously, it took eight hours to transform Boris Karloff into Imhotep. Viewers unfamiliar with the original The Mummy might be surprised to learn, then, that Karloff is only wrapped in bandages during this opening sequence. For the rest of the movie, he’s dressed like a normal man, albeit with some less-involved makeup that gives his skin a withered appearance. Ten years after the movie’s first scene, a mysterious Egyptian man who we know to be Imhotep in disguise appears before Frank, the son of the archaeologist from the beginning, and leads him to the tomb of Ankh-es-en-amon. The audience finds out that Ankh-es-en-amon is Imhotep’s lover, whom he is attempting to resurrect. Meanwhile, a woman named Helen begins to feel drawn to Imhotep for reasons beyond her comprehension.

It becomes clear that Helen is the reincarnation of Ankh-es-en-amon, and now, Imhotep must join Ankh-es-en-amon’s body, which has been given to a museum, with Ankh-es-en-amon’s soul, which lies dormant inside of Helen, in order to bring his lover back from the dead. From there, the conflict of the movie lies in whether Helen will be able to resist Imhotep’s influence and exert control over her own body. Ultimately, it’s by embracing the past, rather than completely ignoring or rejecting it, that she is saved: Helen prays to the statue of Isis, which causes the Scroll of Thoth to light aflame and results in Imhotep losing his powers.

Karloff plays Imhotep as a stately figure with a storied past who stands far above everyone else in the room in a way that is both compelling and eerie. Imhotep is no killing machine, but we get the sense that the wellbeing of absolutely anyone else in the picture is simply not a concern of his. Particularly nightmare-inducing are the closeups of Imhotep’s face in which his eyes pierce directly into our soul, a feeling that no one can instill in us quite like Karloff. As in Karloff and Universal’s previous collaboration, Frankenstein, we sympathize with the villain here, as he’s driven not by a thirst for blood but by the pangs of love, and his desire is not to wipe out humanity but to be with his beloved.

From beginning to end, The Mummy is an absolute masterpiece, with strong horror set pieces, great characters, striking visuals, and an unforgettable moody atmosphere that lingers long after the final scene. Naturally, it was another success for Universal, yet unlike Dracula and Frankenstein, both of which had sequels produced within a few years, The Mummy would not be followed by another installment until 1940 with The Mummy’s Hand. This is more of a reboot than a sequel, though, as it features none of the same characters and instead follows a new mummy, Kharis.

It must have been confusing for audiences at the time trying to figure out how the films are connected, as Kharis’ backstory is very similar to Imhotep’s. He too tried to resurrect his lover but was buried alive in the process, and the movie even recycles the exact same footage of Imhotep’s backstory from The Mummy for a flashback sequence. Universal sure did love to repurpose the same footage whenever possible, and this flashback will end up playing a part in every subsequent sequel. The main plot of The Mummy’s Hand revolves around a group of archeologists who set out to find the tomb of Princess Ananka, Kharis’ lover, unintentionally stumbling upon and waking Kharis in the process.

It can’t be overstated how far removed The Mummy’s Hand is from The Mummy in every conceivable way. Imhotep was a major character all throughout The Mummy, but in The Mummy’s Hand, Kharis doesn’t even arrive on screen until over halfway through the film; his first appearance comes 38 minutes into the movie’s 66 minutes running time, which makes the first half hour somewhat tedious. The real villain is a human character, Andoheb, who awakens Kharis so that Kharis can guard the tomb of Princess Ananka, and so the mummy does little more than carrying out the orders of Andoheb here. Part of what was intimidating about The Mummy’s Imhotep was that he seemed to be calmly executing this intricate plan that was all his doing, but for the rest of the series, the mummy is always controlled by a human, and so the movies are never again as enigmatic and mystical as the 1932 film.

The Mummy’s Hand is also far removed from The Mummy in terms of tone, and it’s this entry that the Brendan Fraser series owes the most to. While the original Mummy is a slow-paced romantic horror tale, this one is more of a swashbuckling adventure in the spirit of a film serial. The movie is packed to the brim with cheap humor, with the film’s two heroes, Steve Banning and Babe Jenson, clearly being an attempt to recreate the magic of Abbott and Costello on a shoestring budget. Still, The Mummy’s Hand has a handful of spooky scenes amid all the laughs, such as when Dr. Petrie nervously feels Kharis’ pulse, only for the creature to suddenly clutch his hand and sit upright. This comes at the conclusion of a sequence with echoes of the opening of The Mummy, where two characters converse while the monster lies inert. Though he’s not played by Boris Karloff anymore, the mummy this time is still chilling, but in a different kind of way. Imhotep was more in line with Dracula, a sinister yet dignified being who blends in with society and has secretly malevolent intentions, but Kharis is more like Jason Voorhees, a supernatural beast that lumbers about massacring anyone who gets in his way without ever uttering a word. And it adds a lot to Kharis’ frightening appearance that for closeups, his eyes were blacked out frame by frame. Steven Spielberg has talked about the importance of relatable eyes in ensuring audiences connect with one of his lovable movie creations, but in horror, stripping this away can have the same effect in the opposite direction.

The Mummy’s Hand is disappointing as a follow-up to The Mummy, but as its own creation, it’s an entertaining and brisk little adventure, elevated by some memorable characters like the goofy Babe Jenson and the magnificent and sassy Marta Solvani. Eight years passed between the release of The Mummy and The Mummy’s Hand, but a sequel to The Mummy’s Hand did not take nearly that long. Universal was now ready for this to become its next big franchise, and The Mummy’s Tomb released two years later, is a proper sequel, taking place 30 years after the events of the last film. There’s some shaky retconning going on here in a time when continuity was not as important as it is today, with Andoheb, who was clearly shot to death at the end of The Mummy’s Hand, appearing alive again in order to pass on a mission to a new follower. In what has to be one of the laziest setups for a sequel in horror history, Kharis, accompanied by a man named Mehemet Bey, must track down and kill the survivors of the expedition from The Mummy’s Hand.

If that sounds like a slasher film, it should, because The Mummy’s Tomb comes across like a late Friday the 13th entry that was transported back in time 40 years. As in a standard slasher sequel, the lead characters of the last movie return simply to be killed off; John Banning, the dashing adventurer from The Mummy’s Hand, is taken out by Kharis early on, as is Babe Jenson (weirdly, he’s referred to as Babe Hanson this time, as if nobody bothered to verify what his last name was and just assumed nobody would ever check). Also, like in a slasher film, the antagonist theoretically has a specific set of people he intends to kill, but he basically kills anyone he encounters, even if they have nothing to do with the group that originally disturbed him. And just like a Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street entry, the villain is killed at the end in some sort of a spectacular fashion, only to return next time with no explanation. The transition from Dracula into Jason Voorhees is nearly complete.

The Mummy’s Tomb is uninspired, clearly having been rushed into production to capitalize on the success of The Mummy’s Hand, and it never really finds a plot of its own, spending the majority of the first half jumping around between random characters who are immediately dispatched with. We can imagine audiences of the 1940s complaining on their way out of the cinema the same way audiences of the 2000s would bemoan the latest Saw entry; movie studios rushing poorly-realized horror sequels into production, it turns out, is a timeless phenomenon. Still, there’s certainly a trashy appeal to watching a lumbering Kharis lay waste to the clueless residents of Mapleton, Massachusetts, and one key highlight comes when a woman is killed by Kharis, who efficiently creeps up behind her in a dark room in a fashion that Michael Myers must have seen and attempted to emulate.

Two years later, in 1944, there was another direct sequel: The Mummy’s Ghost. This one takes place shortly after Tomb, with residents of Mapleton all hearing legend about that time a mummy got loose, but everyone thinks it’s a myth, even though barely any time has passed since much of the town witnessed Kharis’ rampage with their own eyes. Meanwhile, Andoheb once again explains the legend of Kharis and once again passes on duties to a young follower, Yousef Bey. Like Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Andoheb never learns any lessons from delegating major tasks to incompetent lackeys. With The Mummy’s Ghost, the goal now is to bring Kharis and Ananka back to their proper resting place in Egypt. The movie again relies heavily on recycling plot points from the previous films; the princess is again reincarnated as a young woman whom the mummy again must abduct. This time it’s Amina, a woman of Egyptian descent who feels a call to Kharis, all the while she is courted by a young man, Tom.

Ghost might be derivative, but it delivers the goods and wastes no time in doing so. Only about 10 minutes pass before Kharis appears for the first time, walking straight through a wooden fence ready to add some corpses to his body count. Right away there’s a creepy shot in which Amina is sleeping and Kharis’ shadow is cast on her wall; she wakes up and aimlessly saunters out of her room under a spell like she’s in the final act of Paranormal Activity. Kharis seems fired up this time, and the first thing he does is strangle a professor to death just because the poor guy brewed some tana leaves. Like Freddy Krueger progressing from the initial set of kids in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Kharis at this point is just killing for fun, and he accomplishes more in the first 25 minutes than in the entire length of The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb. Though Kharis is still largely the pawn of a human villain, he is much more threatening and unstoppable than in Hand or Tomb, as is evident when he completely flips his lid after Ananka’s body decomposes in front of him. A man who works at the museum approaches Kharis and fires five shots directly into his body, but is that enough? Nope. Kharis barely flinches, throwing his enemy through a glass door and suffocating him without a sweat. The film’s tagline is fairly accurate: “No chains can hold it! No tomb can seal it!” The mummy is not messing around, and neither is the movie.

You’ve got to respect The Mummy’s Ghost if only for the ending, which is unexpected and audacious as hell. All throughout the film, Amina has felt drawn to Kharis, but she ultimately decides to elope with her boyfriend, Tom. Before they can leave, though, Amina is kidnapped by Kharis. Just as we are ready for a cliche finale, the picture takes a sudden sharp turn: Amina turns into a mummified corpse, and she and Kharis sink into the swamp. Yes, Tom watches as his true love dies for real, Drag Me to Hell style. In 1944, it must have been absolutely mind-blowing.

After The Mummy’s Ghost, Universal didn’t even wait a full year before releasing another sequel, with The Mummy’s Curse hitting theaters just five months later. Curse is another direct follow-up, taking place 25 years after The Mummy’s Ghost with an engineering company draining the swamp that Kharis and Ananka sank into at the end of that film, therefore unearthing their bodies. Just like in Ghost, a priest is introduced who explains the whole backstory and whose goal is to bring Kharis and Ananka back to their resting place in Egypt. So, essentially, the thrust of the movie is exactly the same as The Mummy’s Ghost. But for whatever reason, when Ananka rises from the grave, she becomes an attractive young woman again and loses her memories, so Kharis must – you guessed it – track down a girl who is the reincarnation of his lover.

Kharis is just as savage in this one as ever. Within 60 seconds of being brought back to life, he strangles literally the first person he sees for no good reason, and in the film’s best shot, the camera pans over to depict that entire death sequence through the shadows on the wall. Later, Kharis strangles Berthe, a pub owner who made the mistake of happening to be in Kharis’ line of sight when he was looking for Ananka. Berthe screams in pain, and Kharis casually disposes of her, tossing her aside and leaving her lying dead as he moves on to more important things. Later, a physician who Ananka had been talking with attempts to put up a bit of a fight with Kharis, but it’s no use. Practically the instant Kharis’ arms wrap around the man’s neck, he’s out. Later, a guy fires two shotgun barrels at Kharis, but Kharis keeps on walking, and as is always the case with this mummy, being able to see him coming will hardly be enough to save you. The series has now gone full slasher to the point that most of the deaths are played for laughs.

As with most slasher franchises, there isn’t really a proper finale to the Mummy series. The Mummy’s Curse ends just like every other sequel, except with this just happening to be the last one. After being betrayed by Ragheb, the disciple character in this movie, Kharis brings the walls down on them both. He barely even cares about the girl in the end; he’s a complete machine of rage who has had just about enough of being betrayed at the end of literally every sequel. If Kharis easily survived being burnt alive at the end of The Mummy’s Tomb, he could have obviously made it out of this, but The Mummy’s Curse is where the series came to a close. Other than the 1955 comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Universal would not produce another mummy movie until 1999, when Stephen Sommers rebooted the series as an action adventure with Brendan Fraser.

As a whole, Universal’s original Mummy series is certainly inconsistent. It starts strong with the moody and oddly beautiful 1932 film, which is followed by an adventure comedy with little do with the original, The Mummy’s Hand. Then, The Mummy’s Tomb primarily ties up some loose ends from The Mummy’s Hand, but it also starts to establish a slasher formula that would be built upon in the much stronger two sequels, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse. The Mummy’s Ghost is easily the best of the sequels, a B-monster movie through and through that delivers in exactly the ways you would want.

Based on the marketing of Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy, it does not look like this new movie is inspired by the original series in a way that fans of classic horror might hope. It appears that Kurtzman’s reboot has more in common with your typical Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster than any of the original Mummy movies, complete with world-ending stakes and massive, Mission Impossible style set pieces meant to bring non-horror-loving Tom Cruise fans to the theater. However, a recent ad for The Mummy shown in theaters before Alien: Covenant did feature clips of the original Universal series, with Kurtzman talking about the fact that he was inspired by these films, and Universal recently released a Dark Universe trailer consisting entirely of footage of their classic movies. Hopefully, this new Mummy will be able to turn Princess Ahmanet into as imposing and dominant a figure as Kharis in The Mummy’s Curse and The Mummy’s Ghost, a villain whose wrath seems inescapable and ever-present, and Kurtzman could even do what very few directors have ever managed to accomplish: find a legitimately equal balance between action and horror, utilizing jump scares and other pieces of genre trickery rather than just being an adventure with some spooky imagery here and there. Like Helen in the closing moments of the 1932 original, it’s by drawing upon the past, while understanding the downsides of mindlessly embracing it, that Alex Kurtzman can achieve success.