A classic monster makes a rare return to the big screen this week with Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, highlighting just how scarce the creature is compared to his more popular counterparts. Even scarcer than mummy movies are mummy movies on streaming: Universal’s 1932 classic The Mummy and Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep, for example, are available on VOD only, currently. Luckily, there is a solid handful available that showcase the mummy’s versatility, from possession horror slowburns to a fan-favorite blockbuster.
If Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has you ready to excavate more mummy movies, here are five you can stream this weekend.
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The Awakening – Howdy
Much like Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, this 1980 mummy movie centers on an Egyptian possession of a young woman. Charlton Heston stars as a British archaeologist who violates an Egyptian queen’s tomb, prompting her angry spirit to possess his daughter, Margaret (Stephanie Zimbalist). This adaptation of Bram Stoker‘s 1903 novel, The Jewel of Seven Stars, plays more like an Egyptian riff on The Omen than the 1932 Boris Karloff classic, both in slow-burn atmosphere and supernatural deaths at the hands of an evil child. This big-budget adaptation is well shot with a great score, but it also serves as an early reminder that the mummy might be one of the trickiest monsters to translate to screen.
The Mummy (1999)– HBO Max
Stephen Sommers reinvigorated the mummy with this well-loved adventure-horror movie that launched a franchise. A swashbuckling American and a clumsy Egyptologist unwittingly awaken a powerful mummy who begins to wreak havoc as he searches for the reincarnation of his long-lost love. Sommers pays homage to Universal’s original while creating a brand-new type of mummy, a powerful spirit that regenerates and wields the Plagues of Egypt to his whim. It’s an epic tale of love and revenge, spanning multiple action-packed set pieces that hold up quite well. Even better is that a sequel is on the way.
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie – Pluto TV
Creepshow’s John Harrison directs a feature-length film based on the anthology TV series. Debbie Harry, a horror anthology queen, stars as a suburban witch being regaled with a triptych of horror stories by the paperboy she intends to eat for dinner. The first segment adapts Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Lot 249” and sees a college student wield a mummy as a weapon of revenge, starring Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and Christian Slater. It’s a strong showing for the mummy as a movie monster, getting this consistent and winsome anthology off to a great start.
Tale of the Mummy – Roku Channel
Director Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Resident Evil: Extinction) gave his own action-adventure spin on the classic monster one year before Stephen Sommers would revive the mummy on a much larger scale. Tale of the Mummy is also a precursor for the rough digital work that would later hamper Sommers’ sequel, The Mummy Returns, too, in this weird, late ’90s love letter to Hammer Horror best served with pizza and friends. Its meager budget shows in every way, from its rough FX to its dated ’90s DTV sensibilities. But it’s so nonsensical, with a confusing mashup of serial killer procedural and monster movie, that it’s never boring. The cast certainly helps, too: Jason Scott Lee, Sean Pertwee, Michael Lerner, Christopher Lee, and Shelley Duvall star.
Waxwork – Prime Video, Tubi
When a group of friends receives a private invitation to a new waxwork museum that’s just moved into the neighborhood, they discover that stepping beyond the exhibits’ ropes leads to worlds of horror. Director Anthony Hickox unveils the museum’s mysteries in an anthology-like format. One by one, the friends fall into deadly encounters with the foundational horror archetypes. That includes a trip to an Egyptian tomb, ending in a claustrophobic nightmare with a mummy. The mummy’s story here might be brief, especially compared to its more famous monster siblings, but it serves as a potent reminder of the monster’s inclusion among the classics.
