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Compared to fellow classic monsters like vampires and werewolves, mummies don’t have a huge pop-culture presence. The undead creatures are closely associated with Egyptian history and the burial practices of ancient pharaohs, which can make them less flexible for storytelling purposes.
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been popular mummy movies over the years, from the early days of Hollywood through recent blockbusters. The latest attempt to make mummies happen comes this week with the theatrical release of “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” a missing-child horror movie with the director’s name in the title so that it can be differentiated from the well-known Universal franchise.
Whatever the title, it’s putting mummies back in the spotlight, so here are my picks for the best mummy movies to stream right now.
Article continues below‘The Mummy’ (1932)
This entry in the classic Universal Monsters franchise set the standard for all mummy movies to follow. Boris Karloff stars as the ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep, who is brought back to life when British archaeologists uncover his tomb. He sets his sights on a young Englishwoman of Egyptian descent, Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), whom he believes to be the reincarnation of his lost love.
Imhotep only appears as a stereotypical bandage-wrapped mummy for a brief moment, and Karloff plays him as a creepily debonair charmer. There’s always a hint of decay about him, even as he smoothly interacts with the living, setting his plans in place. Director Karl Freund gives the movie an eerie atmosphere, especially in the iconic close-ups of Karloff’s face, with his eyes nearly glowing. It’s a memorable start for an iconic movie monster.
‘The Mummy’ (1959)
Hammer’s first mummy movie features the legendary horror studio’s top stars, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, as the mummy and his primary target, respectively. Lee’s talents are submerged under mud and bandages for long stretches of the movie, but he gets to show off his commanding presence in a lengthy flashback to the mummy’s origin as a priest who was cursed with eternal torment. Cushing captures the arrogant condescension of the blue-blood British grave-robber whose lack of cultural consideration sets the mummy’s curse in motion.
Most of the movie takes place back in England, among the fog-shrouded moors that are a Hammer specialty, as the mummy systematically takes out everyone involved in desecrating his sacred resting place. It’s a potent mix of Hammer’s gothic horror and an old-fashioned monster movie.
‘The Mummy’ (1999)
Writer-director Stephen Sommers takes some of the basic plot elements from Universal’s 1932 film and its sequels and fashions them into a vintage-style action-adventure, with nods to pulp serials and the Indiana Jones movies. Set in 1926, the movie stars Rachel Weisz as devoted librarian and Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan, who enlists erstwhile mercenary Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) to help her and her brother Jonathan (John Hannah) discover the mythical Egyptian stronghold of Hamunaptra.
Once there, they incur the wrath of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), who’s much angrier and more violent than the Boris Karloff version. Sommers stages multiple exciting set pieces, mixing practical effects with CGI that holds up remarkably well nearly 30 years later. The stars are charming, the dialogue is snappy, and the action is fast-paced and fun.
Watch on HBO Max
‘Bubba Ho-Tep’
The premise of writer-director Don Coscarelli’s horror comedy sounds like something out of Mad Libs, but somehow it works perfectly. In a small-town Texas nursing home, two residents who may or may not actually be Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) team up to take down a mummy that is sucking the souls of fellow residents out through their various, um, orifices.
Despite the absurdity, Coscarelli creates a surprisingly affecting movie about the indignities and regrets of aging, as the main characters endure all sorts of humiliation and dismissal even before facing off against an undead Egyptian. Campbell is the perfect choice to play the aging, melancholy Elvis, and Davis supports him with authority as the unlikely JFK. The movie is a quirky delight that deserves its status as a cult classic.
‘The Eternal’
Not all mummies are Egyptian. Writer-director Michael Almereyda’s moody indie horror movie features an Irish “bog mummy,” an ancient Druid witch raised from the depths of a bog and brought back to life. Troubled married couple Nora (Alison Elliott) and Jim (Jared Harris) travel to rural Ireland to visit Nora’s grandmother (Lois Smith) and eccentric Uncle Bill (Christopher Walken), who has dug up the Druid witch from the nearby bog and is storing her slowly thawing corpse in the basement.
The witch awakens and, in typical mummy tradition, fixates on consuming Nora’s soul, even taking on her form. Almereyda favors dream logic over straightforward storytelling, which gives the movie a woozy, impressionistic feel. Like his “Dracula” riff, “Nadja,” “The Eternal” is an arty, alt-rock-infused take on a classic monster, updated for the 1990s underground scene.
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