In the 19th Century, British archaeologists (and, frankly, looters) introduced the esoteric Egyptian burial practices into the western cultural imagination. Wrapping and dehydrating bodies; separating organs and storing them in jars; burying servants, wives, and pets alongside a fallen royal— Egyptian burial was some pretty horrific stuff even without the mummies coming back to life. Along with their historical significance, the archaeological discoveries of the 19th and early 20th Centuries brought with them legends of ancient curses and supernatural resurrections, and with these discoveries came novels and films and serials about an exciting new monster beyond our understanding: mummies. Mummy stories capture a period in time the modern world has forgotten, but I don’t mean ancient Egypt; I’m talking about the age of European Imperialism.

Mummy stories all carry an essential subtext: modern (typically European) men meddling in things from the past that should have stayed buried. Mummies always come back to life because some explorer or archaeologist disturbs a tomb he had no business entering, and this theme is present from Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) through the 1932 Boris Karloff film and onward throughout the various mummy franchises. With mummies, the past should always stay buried, but after the 2017 Mummy film bombed, perhaps the terror of mummies has run its course.

Going back and watching older mummy movies is a little jarring, particularly with the actors they chose: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., Christopher Lee, Dickie Owen, Valerie Leon— all white Brits or Americans using makeup and accents to pose as undead Egyptians. Even as recent as 1999, The Mummy cast white Afrikaner actor Arnold Vosloo. It’s a little surreal that movies about the dangers of messing with a lost and alien culture would also choose to whitewash said culture, but perhaps this is a part of how these filmmakers grappled with the deeper theme of mummies. So much of the subtext in these early mummy movies revolves around subconscious European/American guilt for all the looting. These films play on a latent fear: What if these tombs’ occupants could rise up and take revenge? By the late 90s, this just wasn’t as scary to the modern American audience, and our mummy movies took on more of an action-adventure feeling, drawing more on pulp adventure comics and serials from the 20s and 30s. The mummy was on its way out as a horror monster, but it could still make for a fun action movie.

The failure of 2017’s The Mummy (an undisputed box office bomb which caused Universal Studios to quietly scrap their planned cinematic universe) raises a lot of questions about this monster’s role in modern pop culture. Better archaeological techniques and the spread of information via the internet have made ancient Egypt feel less otherworldly to modern audiences, and as we reevaluate old archaeological practices, we’re beginning to reckon with our imperialistic past. We’ve still got a long way to go in that department, but the subconscious fear that made the old mummy movies scary has been named, and as such, it’s gotten a little less scary. Now, don’t get me wrong. The 2017 Mummy probably bombed for a lot of other reasons —too much sequel-baiting, questionable casting choices, an unlikeable protagonist, having to compete with Wonder Woman—, but the diminished fear of mummies is good enough reason not to attempt another remake.

And that’s why mummies don’t really seem that scary anymore.