The Mummy director Lee Cronin says the new Universal pic doesn't need to take place in Egypt in order to be absolutely terrifying.
"What I liked about it was it's a mummy movie set in a domestic setting, which no one's seen before," Cronin says in the latest issue of SFX."What's more frightening? A spider in the forest, or a spider beside your face in your bed? It's the latter. So trying to bring the horror home is something I'm always really interested in doing."
The upcoming pic follows a journalist (Jack Reynor) and his wife (Lai Costa), whose daughter disappears without a trace in the desert. Eight years later, she mysteriously returns... but it's not the joyful reunion they'd hope for (because she's kind of like a tiny baby undead mummy). From the looks of the trailer, I'd say the movie has some Evil Dead Rise flair, directed by Cronin, as well as a bit of Pet Sematary - i.e. sometimes dead is better...
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"I'm always interested in telling stories about the dark side of family and then I started to find a lore and route into it all," Cronin explained. "Then I found this missing kid story, which seemed like a really interesting pathway. I wanted to create a new mythology as well. So it offered me a lot of things where I could get really, really creative. But the whole point being, why should the story about a mummy be limited to tourists in Cairo?"
Evil Dead Rise does indeed tell a dark family tale (justice for Ellie!), as well as Cronin's 2019 horror The Hole in the Ground. Given that the Mummy franchise, going all the way back to the '30s, is known for its themes of revenge, it'll be interesting to see a domestic angle, with a story taking place inside of a family home, for the first time. Can you imagine how cool the Universal Halloween Horror Nights house would be?
Continued Cronin: "We're not making it for a crazy amount of money but it is a mini epic, and it takes place in different countries. It's got a huge visual spectrum, both from putting a child to bed in a room, that basic thing we all do, down to being inside a pyramid, or finding something mysterious and dangerous in the desert. It covers all that spectrum. Those other mummy moves past are awesome. I can't do anything with that, but I can do something new…"
Lee Cronin's The Mummy releases on April 17. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way, or look to our picks of the most exciting upcoming movies of the year.
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