Universal recently announced it would be revamping the Monster franchise with a brand new mummy movie. Day of the Mummy is not the Universal remake but it reminded me of the question I asked myself when I heard the news from Universal: Why the mummy? If time has taught us anything it’s that this is a monster that is hard to work with because it’s easy to fuck up.
Look, it’s just hard to make mummies scary and it’s especially difficult to do it today when the most recent memory are the awful Brenden Frasier films*. Strangely, Day of the Mummy is the first in the string of revitalized mummy centric movies. It will soon be followed by Alexander Aja’s Pyramid and then by the aforementioned Universal revamp.
In true Mummy movie fashion we are introduced to an archeologist and his cameraman, because this is found footage, who are in search of an elusive artifact (per usual). They discover a hidden tomb where the artifact is rumored to reside. Of course they venture in and are soon attacked by the mummy of an ancient Pharaoh. Flash forward and Danny Glover is now enlisting a knock off version of Indiana Jones to go in and investigate the disappearance with several other specialists. Glover sends our anti-hero a set of glasses that record everything around him and allow Glover to communicate at all times.
Now I saw this is found footage but not in a traditional sense, it’s actually more of a POV video game. The whole movie is set up exactly the way a video game would be from the hacky dialogue to Danny Glover popping up on the screen to give the main character tips and congratulations on completing mission-like situations. As a personal preference I don’t care for the Videogame-esque style, so if it’s your thing you might get some enjoyment from Day of the Mummy.
Unfortunately though, even if the video game style appeals to you, it still doesn’t change how utterly dull Day of the Mummy is. The premise is dull, the characters are paper cut outs and there is a frightening lack of mummy (which actually looks pretty cool). It does have the texture of a cheesy action/adventure movie over horror, that’s for sure, but there could have been a lot more action. Or at least interesting and likeable characters to push us through. I still hold hope for Aja’s Pyramid because I was a big fan of his version of Maniac.
*I guiltily like the first awful Brenden Frasier Mummy movie…