Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin struck gold with his breakout studio hit Evil Dead Rise back in 2023. That film, the fifth entry in the Evil Dead franchise, was a spooky, mean and fun entry in the franchise that showed off the filmmaker’s talents with resounding success. His latest film, produced by James Wan and Jason Blum, is a new take on the classic movie monster. Since Tom Cruise’s 2017 The Mummy notoriously failed to launch a Dark Universe, we’ve seen some new stabs at attempting to launch these classic movie monsters, courtesy of writer/director Leigh Whannell. Whannell brought The Invisible Man back to life as a blistering stalker thriller, while his Wolf Man reboot was sorely lacking in, well, just about everything. While Cronin’s new take is not directly involved with those films — this film is set up at New Line as opposed to Universal — the inspiration to take the monster in a more grounded direction is similar. Yet, for as unique and confident as Cronin’s previous film was, his latest is an enormous step backwards. At least the Tom Cruise film was entertaining.
Courtesy Warner Bros
Charlie (Jack Reynor) is a television reporter living in Cairo with his pregnant wife Larissa (Laia Costa) and two children, Katie (Emily Mitchell) and Sebastian (Dean Allen Williams). As they prepare to move to New York for Charlie’s new job opportunity, Katie is kidnapped and disappears without a trace. Flash forward eight years later and Charlie’s family now lives in New Mexico with Larissa’s mother Carmen (Veronica Falcon). Sebastian (Shylo Molina) is now an angsty teenager and little sister Maude (Billie Roy) is still curious about the missing older sister she’s never met. One day, Charlie and Larissa receive a phone call that Katie has been found near Cairo. Katie (now played by Natalie Grace) was found in a large sarcophagus recovered from a plane crash and is far different from the girl she once was. As her parents take her home to get accustomed to the family, things immediately go awry as Katie becomes increasingly violent and begins to show signs of demonic possession. This leaves Charlie to try and figure out the mystery of what happened to his daughter as seeking answers might be the only way to save her and the rest of his family.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is directed by — you guessed it — Lee Cronin, who managed to deliver memorable scares and gore aplenty with his Evil Dead Rise. That film had a strong sense of stylization and energy to back up the gruesome carnage whereas Cronin’s latest is a tedious, overlong slog of a film that’s never scary. One can see the many points of inspiration for Cronin, including the likes of Poltergeist and most notably The Exorcist, but these inspirations feel trite and eventually become repetitive. Cronin has proven in his previous two films that he can excel at establishing mood and character stakes. Yet, he falters with both here. The script is confused as to whether this take on the classic monster is a family drama, a police procedural or a mystery thriller and ends up failing at all of them.
Most of these characters are never fully developed, making it hard to get invested in the stale human drama. Jack Reynor, an actor who has given excellent turns in a number of films including John Carney’s wonderful Sing Street and Kathryn Bigelow’s underappreciated Detroit, is miscast here. We never feel the sense of emotional turmoil for a character whose child has been missing for nearly a decade only to be reunited with something demonic that only vaguely resembles his daughter. The film’s most compelling character is May Calamawy’s Detective Dalia Zaki, a detective who was assigned to Katie’s case eight years ago, but is still determined to solve the mystery of what exactly happened to her.
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This film also has some serious implausibilities with its plotting, most notably with its characters. Charlie reaches out to a local archeologist to decrypt some old hieroglyphics found on the skin of Katie, leading to the realization that an ancient demon is somehow behind everything, while Larissa is at home with Katie as her condition worsens, seemingly possessing their youngest child, Maude. Yet, the two parents never have a moment where they exchange the crucial information they’ve both found. Making matters worse is the decision to never take Katie back to a hospital or care center, leaving the drama at the heart of the story inert.
For a horror film running at 134 minutes, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy never justifies its bloated runtime, with many scenes of supposed suspense feeling redundant. Credit where credit is due, Cronin does implement a few horrific gross-out gags. The use of a toenail clipper is effectively squirm-inducing and a moment of skin ripping is perhaps the biggest “holy shit” moment of the entire film. However, these sequences are gross and yucky, but never scary or the least bit frightening. The Mummy design is indeed creepy, but hardly memorable. Cronin is a filmmaker who knows where to put the camera, but his occasionally clever shot design never gives the film a meaningful sense of energy. The languid pacing doesn’t help matters either as any built-up tension dissipates before the final reel. Cronin’s filmmaking, for as competent as it is, begs the question I never thought I’d have to ask; how many split diopter shots is too many? Cronin has found the line and obliterates it with about a dozen shots too many.
Courtesy Warner Bros
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is an enormous disappointment. A laborious and tedious slog of a horror film, this attempt at taking a classic movie monster and bringing it to the modern day fails to provide any scares, compelling drama or entertainment factor. One can appreciate the attempt to make “one for the sickos”, but there simply isn’t a strong enough script or tactile energy to build a film around these gags. It’s rare to find a film this gross that’s also a crushing bore.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is now playing in theaters.
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