The Mummy Movie to Revive Mummy Costumes in 2017?

By Shrey Sankalp

As far as ghouls go, I've always felt the Mummy was the most popular  - at least that's what the hordes of people kitted out in some variation of the Mummy costume would seem to imply.
I remember a time when Halloween was all about the chills. October 31 would be the one day which would be the ultimate courage test for everyone, with having to navigate around in the dark with everyone having put on the scariest costume they could find.
Of course, the most popular scary costume just happened be the grisly bandage-overloaded Mummy costume, and for every Dracula or Frankenstein costume, you could spot about five Mummies.
In recent years, Halloween seems to have mitigated its scare factor as more and more people are opting for superheroes and quirky costumes over monster costumes.
Understandably, then, the popularity of scary costumes and by extension, the Mummy costume have declined.
However, I have a  strong feeling we could be enjoying a resurgence in the popularity of the good old Mummy costume come Halloween 2017, and because we're such good friends, I'm going to tell you all about it.

Before we discuss why Mummy costumes will enjoy a resurgence in popularity in 2017, let's take a short detour and understand why the costume came to be so popular in the first place.
If I had to classify broadly, I would give you two chief causes - the Cultural Effect, and the Hollywood Effect.

Photo, CC-BY SA 3.0

...the Cultural Effect? What does that mean?
I'll tell you.
It's no secret how different cultures are prevalent all across the world, and as social beings with a sense of curiosity, we are all too eager to learn about them. Anthropology and all, you know?
We learn about said cultures and incorporate elements from them in our lives, our art and our literature, and all of that because we develop a strong interest in them.
Our affair with Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures has stemmed as a result of precisely that.
We are only too eager to stock up on Greek, Roman and Egyptian costumes for Halloweens and other events because we are enchanted by them.
Egyptian costumes happen to be a particular area of interest, as Egyptian culture happens to be an especially enamoring one.
With its rich heritage, exotic architecture, and thrilling lore, Egypt happens to attract particular interest, and with their unique aesthetic focus and artistic representation, the Egyptians have drawn the world in.
When a lore such as that of the Mummy is combined with said factors, it can never not be interesting, and it's only a matter of time before it weaves its way into the mainstream.
And once it finds its way into the mainstream, you can be assured it will find its way into pop culture via cinematic and textual representations accompanied by costumes and accessories for people eager to experience the lore.

...okay, but what's the Hollywood Effect?
The Hollywood Effect is nothing but how cinematic representations of characters and lore are used to present the same to a wider audience and make it palatable, mainstream.
Universal Pictures have been doing the aforementioned since the early '20s, with the Mummy being given its own film, as far back as in 1932.
Universal can boast of having the world's first shared universe, as all their scary movies were interconnected.
The costume culture may not have been half as present then as it is now, but that didn't stop the studio from heavily investing in the aesthetic, and as a result most of the costumes and designs seen in those films hold up even today.
With the efflux of time, those films have only gotten better, and their costumes are finally getting the love they deserve as people are happy to pick up said scary costumes and add it to their collection.

But of course, the 1932 movie isn't the only thing responsible for the popularity of the Mummy, or its costumes.
No, that would be an example of the Hollywood Effect.
At the turn of the century, it was felt that a new version of the Mummy should be put out for a new audience to enjoy. The 1999 film The Mummy directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser was the outcome of said idea, and the entity responsible for the surge in the popularity of Mummy costumes, and Egyptian costumes in general.
The film itself was quite good,mixing horror and camp in a very entertaining way, making a whole generation of audiences fall in love with the creature. The film were nothing short of a superhero adventure, with their sense of peril and intense action sequences, the only thing missing was a costume from turning the whole event into a superhero film!
And though the film didn't have any designated costume, the period setting and high production values made for some memorable prop and costume designs (especially for the Mummy, the film's Mummy costume was both immensely cool and immensely terrifying), that were all too prevalent on Halloweens to come. It was this film that kicked off our full-blown fascination with the Egyptian culture, and every Egyptian costume sold since then sure got a little boost from the film.
But surprisingly, while the film's sequels were a mix of the same camp and horror formula, from the costumes to the plot, they failed to have the same sense of balance as the first, and no amount of cool character designs and cool costumes were enough to elevate the films beyond their competing superhero fare. As a result, the franchise was shelved, and with no further films on the horizon, the creature faded from public consciousness, with more and more Mummy costumes being replaced by superhero costumes based on the increasingly popular superhero movies.
Which brings us to 2017. Just because The Mummy franchise faded out the first time it was presented to a wider audience, didn't mean the lore had lost its charm, or the fact that audiences weren't willing to see it onscreen anymore - they just needed a different take on it.
Universal Studios understood the same all too well, and they were happy to greenlight a reboot, titled The Mummy. But that wasn't the biggest selling point. The biggest selling point was how The Mummy would serve to kick off a shared universe of all classic monsters of yore in a modern template! That's right, we're getting classic ghouls in the vein of costumed superheroes! And it shows, at least in the footage seen from The Mummy.
The new film eschews the period setting of the older one (bye-bye period costumes!), and is set in the war torn Middle East. The new Mummy is discovered in the Middle East in an underwater tomb, and I can only imagine she's woken up to wreak some havoc.
Also in the mix, is a SHIELD type organization called The Prodigium, headed by a proto-Nick Fury called Dr. Jekyll (yes, him!).
This update to the classic might raise eyebrows, but with the involvement of some of the biggest names in Hollywood like Tom Cruise and Russel Crowe, you know the film is going to bring its A-game.
I would expect nothing less, either.
The film's aesthetic seems a very militarized one, but that's okay, because what matters is the Mummy, and she looks terrifying.
The new Mummy costume doesn't have the abundance of bandages the last one did, but the costume has its own visual touches such as markings on the Mummy and quadruple irises. That may not be in line with the classic Mummy costume, but with how cool it looks, we might just have a new standard for the Mummy costume.
It would probably be too much of a long shot for Tom Cruise and Russel Crowe to get their own "superhero" costumes (team-up and what not), but if they did, I'm fairly certain they'll prove to be popular costumes - if all you needed was a costume to look like Tom Cruise or Russel Crowe, you'd happily pick it up.

As you can see, The Mummy is poised to be a big thing in 2017. With its horror elements, updated take on classic lore, A-list actors and interesting designs, the film will be a success, especially with it being packaged per the current flavor.
With a combination of those elements, I only see interest in Mummy costumes (and Egyptian costumes, via trickle down methods) rising, and its quite possible The Mummy makes Mummy costumes popular again.
This popularity should prove heartening to Universal, whose other films such as Frankenstein (rumored to be courting Javier Bardem) and The Invisible Man (with Johnny Depp! [side note: How do you even pull off an Invisible Man costume, bruh?]) will enjoy the effects of The Mummy's goodwill and hopefully go on to become blockbusters in their own right.
We might actually have all these ghouls onscreen again, in a Monsters Avengers or something (presence of a costume uncertain) that retakes Halloween from superheroes and brings the chills back.