The Unwrapping is a award winning short script!
LOGLINE
Two Egyptian brothers stage the ultimate heist under the guise of an elite family’s ancient mummy unwrapping ceremony, but their perfect plan unravels into a nightmare when the mummy awakens, turning the night into a blood-soaked fight for survival.
SUMMARY
From its origins as an infamous Universal monster embodied by Boris Karloff to today’s blockbuster reimaginings, the mummy has long been a cinematic symbol of horror, mystery, and ancient terror. The Unwrapping pays tribute to this legacy while reinventing the creature for modern audiences, delivering a wholly original, nightmare-inducing tale.
What began as an award-winning short script, and was even considered for an episode of Creepshow, has since evolved into a feature length script blending heist thrills, gothic horror, and late-night creature feature energy. Our story digs deeper, exploring themes of class conflict, colonialism, and familial dysfunction.
Set in mid-1800s London, we contrast the opulence of Baker Street’s elite with the desperate slums of “the Stacks,” colliding these worlds in a bloody fight for survival when a reawakened mummy unleashes chaos. With a lean cast, contained locations, and characters defined by betrayal and shifting loyalties, The Unwrapping delivers a tense, twist-filled story where audiences question who to root for—and sometimes even cheer for the mummy to prevail.
As creature features make a resurgence with projects like Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and Blumhouse’s The Mummy, our film aims to reclaim what makes this monster terrifying, giving it a fresh voice and showing its horrors in a whole new light.
Now sit back and unravel the world of The Unwrapping.
HISTORICAL BASIS
Mummy “unrolling” ceremonies were a major symptom of the “Egyptomania” that swept England in the 19th century. Europeans had been buying mummies since Shakespeare’s times to use them as medicine, pigment or even charms; but the Napoleonic wars and England’s colonial expansion had created a renewed interest in Egypt’s past.
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Demand was so high that the fledgling tourist industry in Egypt transported mummies from the least visited places of the country to place in their more popular ruins in order to satisfy foreign visitors.
What started as strict “for science” demonstrations blossomed into spectacle when a man by the name of Thomas Pettigrew turned science into theatrics, holding parties for his wealthy elite friends where he would unwrap a centuries old mummy for them in intimate parlor room settings.
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It is rumored that the very idea of a mummy as a vengeful monster was brought to life at one of these gatherings, as the sight of a sacred ritual reversed for the sake of science and entertainment, struck a buried chord in those present. It has also become the inspiration for our story.
