Movies
[Review] ‘The Mummy’ – Big Blockbusters Work When Studios Put Faith in Female Leads
If you’ve ever seen the “Inca Mummy Girl” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you might have an idea of what to expect from Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy. In the fourth episode of the second season, Sunnydale High School participates in a cultural exchange program, and students from all over the world fly into sunny California to stay as a guest at the homes of various SHS students, including, of course, Buffy Summers. Buffy is assigned a boy named Ampata, but little does she know, an ancient Inca mummy princess has other plans. The princess, who was recently freed from her five-hundred-year-old tomb, takes on the identity of Ampata and begins picking off the boys of Sunnydale High, one by one. In order to survive, she lures the boys in with a kiss, then literally sucks the life out of them, growing stronger and more human with each victim she sucks down. Eventually, the “Ampata” sets her sights on sweet little Xander, Buffy’s best friend, but when it comes time to drain Xander of his youth, she hesitates – she can’t overcome her romantic feelings for Xander long enough to take his life away. Luckily, in Alex Kurtzman’s movie, his fierce female mummy has no problem preying on vulnerable men.
It all starts – surprisingly – in England in 1125 A.D. A group of priests bury the body of one of their dead in an old sarcophagus, but not before laying a glowing red crystal on his chest to be sealed in with his remains. Flash forward to present day England, and a group of construction workers accidentally burrow into this old room, finding dozens of ancient remains, leaving them to decipher what step to take next. That’s where Dr. Henry Jekyll comes in.
Played by Russell Crowe, Dr. Jekyll begins a voiceover as he tours the tombs, handing out a lot of information very quickly as he does – this is mainly how the movie goes. A ton of information, which is relatively easy to understand if you’re paying attention, is handed out to the audience all at once, very early on.
Apparently, in ancient Egypt, there once lived a beautiful warrior princess named Ahmanet. She was heir to the throne, and, as was evident by her unfathomable beauty, her quick skills on the battlefield, her sharp decision-making skills, and her seductive nature, nothing could stand in her way to officially become the most powerful person in the world. However, when her mother and father brought a new baby boy into the world, Ahmanet was shoved aside, and it was the little child who would become the next to rule because although he was technically younger, he was the male and she was the female. Ahmanet wasn’t about to let that stand.
Ahmanet called on the forces of darkness and asked them to aid her in her fight for power. Taking the darkness within her, Ahmanet was gifted a special sharp blade with a bright red ruby at the hilt, and reborn as a monster, using her newfound power and madness to end the lives of her father, mother, and baby brother in the quiet of the night while they slept soundly in their beds. In order for her ritual to become the greatest ruler of all could become complete, she had to create a male companion to serve alongside her, in her honor. She was to take her new sword, stab it through the chest of her chosen male, and take her rightful place on the throne, for now, and for always. Unfortunately, before she could complete her task, she was attacked, mummified while she was still breathing, and thrown in the cold earth to rot for centuries to come. Soldiers carried her body far away from Egypt, burying her instead in Mesopotamia, where mercury was dumped on her body for hundreds of years to keep her weak, and where hopefully, no one would ever find her. Cue Tom Cruise wrecking all of the ancient’s plans.
In modern day Mesopotamia, a.k.a. Iraq, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his buddy Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) use their places in the military to travel around the world, steal ancient artifacts and sell them on the black market for profit. Their latest endeavor involves stealing a map from Nick’s recent romantic interest Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) in order to hunt down the treasure she seeks and pawn it off before she can ever get her hands on it. Much to their dismay, she catches up to them, but not before they accidentally uncover the burial ground for an Egyptian sarcophagus – a strange thing to find in the middle of Iraq. Out of curiosity by all parties involved, they bring the structure up the surface to see what’s inside, but what they don’t realize is that they’ve already played into the mummy’s hands – they have freed the primeval from her prison, the mummy has eyed Nick, and anointed him her “chosen one”. Can you feel the Buffy vibes?
Once all of the background is out of the way, the action can finally begin, and there are quite a few noteworthy moments – especially the plane crash. Before she can even be broken out of her tomb, Ahmanet begins controlling and tormenting those around her, getting into Nick’s head and bringing him under her thrall, and placing a spell on his best buddy Chris which turns him into an updated rendition of An American Werewolf in London’s Jack Goodman, as he appears throughout the film as an undead guide, poking fun at Nick’s misfortune and telling him which step to take next. Through her power, Ahmanet escapes the confines of her tomb, begins sucking down men’s lives left and right, and eventually gains human flesh again, so she can finally begin the hunt for her sword and stab Nick through the chest with the blade in order to welcome the undead spirit of Sepi into his body, making him undead as well, in order complete her ritual, and once and for all, become the most powerful being on the planet.
For the most part, The Mummy is admittedly a pretty goofy movie. If you’re looking for a film that honors the past black and white Universal Monster Movies with vigor, intelligence, and respect, you probably won’t find it here, but what it does have to offer is still very enjoyable. Tom Cruise plays such an absent-minded chauvinistic pig that it’s actually pretty hilarious and honestly, even empowering to watch Ahmanet use him and control him in order to get what she wants. She has the power. She is the destructor. She is warrior princess coming to claim her crown, he is just the means to end, and there’s nothing he can do about it. If that’s not a wickedly cool modern day fierce female character, then I don’t know what is. This is the kind of film where you wind up rooting for the villain, partially because Sofia Boutella is a strong sexy unstoppable priestess, and partially because it’s just nice to see the men run and hide for once, while the women are the ones hunting down their prey in order to attain and keep their powerful positions.
Sure, there are questionable moments within The Mummy. Why didn’t Dr. Jekyll morph into a terrifying monster instead of simply turning a shade of blue when his evil side took over? Why are we left with such a cliffhanger ending, other than to set up the eventual sequel and continue the universe? Why the second half of the movie seemingly slow down so much, trading in much of the action for more dialogue? However, despite these issues, it’s still a movie that has turned out to be much better than expected, and set up quite an exciting start to the Dark Universe, which, according to the lab they walk through at Dr. Jekyll’s will definitely include the Creature from the Black Lagoon and perhaps at some point, Dracula as well. 2017 is the year of the woman, and from Wonder Woman to The Mummy, it’s clear that females are becoming the character to revolve the story around; the actresses are the ones that we should be putting our trust in to lead our big blockbuster movies. What a time to be alive. What a time for a new and exciting Universal monster movie.
(L to R) Chris Vail (JAKE JOHNSON), Jenny Halsey (ANNABELLE WALLIS) and Nick Morton (TOM CRUISE) in The Mummy.
What’s that? Another EIGHT new horror movies are releasing this week?! The fresh horrors on tap include a prequel to a box office hit, a violent thriller produced by Sam Raimi, the feature debut of a horror master’s daughter, and a skin-crawling nightmare filled with spiders.
Here’s all the new horror releasing April 22, 2024 – April 28, 2024!
For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.
First up we have a TV series rather than a movie, but we wanted to remind you that Prime Video’s “Them: The Scare,” the second season of the anthology series, premieres on April 25.
The first season of “Them” (now retroactively dubbed “Covenant”) debuted back in 2021, and this second installment of the anthology series will consist of eight episodes.
“Them: The Scare” will once again be set in Los Angeles…
The story centers on LAPD Homicide Detective Dawn Reeve, who is assigned to a new case: the gruesome murder of a foster home mother that has left even the most hardened detectives shaken. Navigating a tumultuous time in Los Angeles, with a city on the razor’s edge of chaos, Dawn is determined to stop the killer.
But as she draws closer to the truth, something malevolent grips her and her family.
The series cast includes Deborah Ayorinde as “Detective Dawn Reeve,” Pam Grier as “Athena,” and Grammy-nominated musician and actor Luke James as “Edmund Gaines.”
The daughter of horror master David Cronenberg, Caitlin Cronenberg is making her own mark in the genre filmmaking space with Humane, only in theaters on Friday, April 26.
The film is described as “a dystopian satire taking place over a single day, months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population.”
“In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman has invited his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.”
Jay Baruchel (This Is The End), Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek), Peter Gallagher (Grace and Frankie), Sebastian Chacon (Emergency), Alanna Bale (Sort Of, Cardinal) and Sirena Gulamgaus (Transplant) star in Caitlin Cronenberg’s Humane.
Sébastien Vaniček has been hired to direct the next installment in the Evil Dead film franchise, but first we need to experience the film that landed him the hot directing gig in the first place. It’s a spider horror movie titled Infested (Vermines), and it hits Shudder on April 26.
Watch the creepy, crawly trailer for Infested below, which looks a bit like Evil Dead Rise… with spiders. It’s already easy to see why Vaniček was chosen to direct an Evil Dead movie!
In the horror film, “Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”
Théo Christine (“Suprêmes”), Finnegan Oldfield (“Final Cut”), Jérôme Niel (“Smoking Causes Coughing”), Sofia Lesaffre (“Les Misérables”) and Lisa Nyarko star.
Described as a heart pounding thriller set in the future, Jennifer Hudson and Milla Jovovich lead the cast of Breathe, coming to theaters and Digital on Friday, April 26.
In the film, “After Earth is left uninhabitable due to lack of oxygen, a mother Maya (Hudson) and her daughter Zora (Wallis) are forced to live underground, with short trips to the surface only made possible by a coveted state of the art oxygen suit made by Maya’s husband, Darius, whom she presumes to be dead. When a mysterious couple arrives claiming to know Darius and his fate, Maya tentatively agrees to let them into their bunker but these visitors are not who they claim to be ensuing in mother and daughter fighting for survival.”
Stefon Bristol directed Breathe, written by Doug Simon. The impressive cast also includes Quvenzhané Wallis and Raúl Castillo with Common and Sam Worthington.
Bill Skarsgård takes on the role of a deaf-mute action hero in Boy Kills World, a one-of-a-kind action spectacle set in a dystopian fever dream reality. The film comes from producers Sam Raimi and Roy Lee, and while not a horror movie, it’s a violent thriller all the same. Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions will release Boy Kills World into theaters this Friday.
Moritz Mohr directed Boy Kills World, which was written by Arend Remmers (Sløborn) and Tyler Burton Smith (Kung Fury: The Movie).
In Boy Kills World, “Boy (Bill Skarsgård) is a deaf-mute with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, Boy escapes to the jungle and is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.”
The cast also includes Happy Death Day star Jessica Rothe, Yayan Ruhian (John Wick 3, The Raid: Redemption), Andrew Koji (Warrior, Snake Eyes), Isaiah Mustafa (It: Chapter Two), Famke Janssen (The Postcard Killings), Sharlto Copley (District 9), Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”), Brett Gelman (Stranger Things), Quinn Copeland (Peacock’s Punky Brewster), and twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti (Big Little Lies).
Indonesian filmmaker Kimo Stamboel (Macabre, Headshot, The Queen of Black Magic) is back with MD Pictures’ Badarawuhi Di Desa Penari (aka Dancing Village: The Curse Begins), a prequel to the Indonesian hit movie KKN Curse Of The Dancing Village.
Lionsgate releases Dancing Village: The Curse Begins in select theaters on April 26.
In the horror prequel, “a shaman instructs Mila to return a mystical bracelet, the Kawaturih, to the ‘Dancing Village,’ a remote site on the easternmost tip of Java Island. Joined by her cousin, Yuda, and his friends Jito and Arya, Mila arrives on the island only to discover that the village elder has passed away, and that the new guardian, Mbah Buyut, isn’t present. Various strange and eerie events occur while awaiting Mbah Buyut’s return, including Mila being visited by Badarawuhi, a mysterious, mythical being who rules the village.
“When she decides to return the Kawaturih without the help of Mgah Buyut, Mila threatens the village’s safety, and she must join a ritual to select the new ‘Dawuh,’ a cursed soul forced to dance for the rest of her life.”
Aulia Sarah, Maudy Effrosina, Jourdy Pranata, Moh. Iqbal Sulaiman, Ardit Erwandha, Claresta Taufan, Diding Boneng, Aming Sugandhi, Dinda Kanyadewi, Pipien Putri, Maryam Supraba, Bimasena, Putri Permata, Baiq Vania Estiningtyas Sagita, and Baiq Nathania Elvaretta star.
KKN Curse Of The Dancing Village was the highest grossing film in Indonesian box office history when initially released in 2022. Its prequel is the first film made for IMAX movie ever produced in Southeast Asia and in 2024, it will be one of only five films made for IMAX productions worldwide.
While you wait for Cinderella’s Curse, another Cinderella-based horror movie is beating that movie to the punch. It’s titled Cinderella’s Revenge, coming to theaters April 26.
The Wrap recently reported, “The film stars Lauren Staerck as the famed young lady who finds freedom from her wicked stepmother with the help of her fairy godmother. Only this time, instead of sending her to a ball to find her prince, the godmother (Natasha Henstridge) helps Cinderella unleash a plan of bloody vengeance.”
Stephanie Lodge, Beatrice Fletcher, Megan Purvis and Darrell Griggs also star.
“I’m so excited for audiences to see this newly imagined horror version of Cinderella in theaters. The picture is scary and fun at the same time,” said producer Mark L. Lester.
In the wake of her return in last year’s box office hit Saw X, horror icon Shawnee Smith is back in Vertical’s horror movie Bloodline Killer, hitting select theaters & VOD on April 26.
Directed by Ante Novakovic, Bloodline Killer is being described by Vertical as “a terrifying horror-thriller that follows Moira Cole who endeavors to rebuild her shattered life after the murder of her family at the hands of her deranged and obsessed cousin.”
The cast also includes Taryn Manning, Drew Moerlein, James Gaudioso, Montanna Gillis, Kresh Novakovic, Adam Shippey, Anthony Gaudioso with Bruce Dern and Tyrese Gibson.
Tubi has been ramping up their Tubi Original horror movies in the last several months, and the latest one is headed to the streaming service on Friday. It’s titled This Never Happened.
In the film from director Ted Campbell, “While staying at her boyfriend’s childhood home with him and his friends, a young woman experiences terrifying visions of a violent spirit.”
María José De La Cruz, Javier Dulzaides, Conny Cambambia, Juana Serrano, and Gonzalo Zulueta star in the Tubi Original movie. You can watch the trailer down below.
Looking for New Episodes of “Chucky” on Peacock? Here’s What Changed
‘Mountain Man’ – Joe Manganiello Will Battle Zombies in Upcoming Horror Movie
‘The Blair Witch Project’ – Original Stars Release a Statement Asking Lionsgate for Residuals & Recognition
‘Trap’ – Official Trailer Previews a Wild New Horror Experience from M. Night Shyamalan
‘Longlegs’ – New Teaser Video for NEON Horror Movie Is Soaked in Cryptic Eeriness
You must be logged in to post a comment.