Marshall (Malachi Barton) and Gilbert (Christian J. Simon) are best friends who couldn’t be more unalike: Marshall’s a devoted horror fan, and Gilbert’s a big fat chicken! It gives him asthma! That’s why Marshall still hasn’t seen the end of Warthead IV. On a class trip to the museum’s new Egyptian exhibit, Marshall and Gilbert make friends with the new girl Amy (Sophia Hammons), improbably also a big fan of horror movies, and pretty enthusiastic about Warthead’s surprisingly gory ending – but no worries, she doesn’t spoil it for Marshall because that’s what true friendship is all about. And also they get sorta busy because an incident at the museum that the title dutifully references with a terrible pun.

The Egypt exhibit’s only half full: the princess mummy rests in peace is her sarcophagus but the lover with whom she was buried has been stolen. In a shocking twist of fate, the antiquities thief lives right in their neighbourhood, and in fact Marshall and Gilbert have already openly speculated that he might be evil due to his cobwebby house and his last night, which sounds suspiciously like Kill-bot to kids who still make up mean nicknames. As children do, these three friends take it upon themselves to investigate the black market to solve this crime themselves, starting with a warrant-less search of their #1 suspect’s (well, only suspect’s) basement, based purely on very circumstantial evidence, by first breaking, then entering. And they’re right in the way that only a movie can be right, finding the exact thing they’re looking for in the very first place they check. Letting the mummy out of his coffin, a beam of moonlight activates the mummy’s amulet and animates our 4000 year old friend. Now our little gang is not only babysitting a living mummy, they’re also concealing him from the criminals who stole him, and trying to return him to the museum, all by midnight on Halloween, a totally not-arbitrary date.

How will these children outrun and unsmart actual murdery criminals, especially with a slow, stumbly mummy in tow? How will they also thwart their mothers and their bedtimes and the fact that they don’t have driver’s licenses? How will they continually rescue their new bandaged friend from constant blunders with technology and other classic capers? This family-friendly mummy movie has such a goofy, dancey, good-hearted monster protagonist that you can classify this as more silly than scary. Under Wraps isn’t exactly good but it is benign, providing Halloween content without fueling any late night visits to mommy and daddy’s bed. Find it on Disney Plus.