Doctor Strange writer insists his Mummy movie’s scarier than the original

By Esther Zuckerman | November 7, 2016 | 4:24pm

Aux Features Film

Even though nothing seems scary anymore as we stare down the impending Election Day, Doctor Strange writer Jon Spaihts is making the case that the new Universal Mummy movie will strike fear into our hardened hearts. Spaihts is jumping from one cinematic universe to another, taking on the Tom Cruise vehicle for Marvel’s rival studio. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he claims his version of the undead tale will be “the first Mummy film in the entire Universal canon with the true power to terrify.” So if you doubt you can be fazed by a stiff actor covered in bandages, Spaihts is going to try to prove you wrong.

Spaihts continued: “The earliest [Boris] Karloff and Bela Lugosi Mummy movies were scary in a small way, perhaps a dated way. They were almost parlor movies. Subsequent movies have been more swashbuckling. This one is going to have all of that action and adventure, but a legitimate power to terrify.” Perhaps the fact that goofball Brendan Fraser won’t be involved will help. Spaihts’ Mummy movie is set to be directed by Alex Kurtzman. In addition to Cruise, it stars Sofia Boutella as the presumably horrifying villain.