‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Is Horrifically Unpleasant In The Best Way

A far cry from the swashbuckling bisexual bait incarnation of the franchise or the hyper-serious Tom Cruise 2017 reboot, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is horrifically unpleasant in all the best ways. It shares very little with previous cinematic incarnations of this story, but its singularity is precisely what makes the film unique – even as it lovingly constructs itself from the bones of other horror franchises. 

Yet never do those inspirations feel tired across this surprisingly complex horror tale, following the mysterious reappearance of a young girl in Egypt after vanishing eight years earlier. It’s a little bit The Exorcist, a little bit Evil Dead but ultimately a whole lot of fun as it cleaves skin from flesh in a gory thrill ride. 

The film does not begin with the reappearance of Katie (a frighteningly committed Natalie Grace), the disappeared daughter of foreign correspondent Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) and nurse Larissa (Laia Costa), but with an occult ritual gone wrong. In a predictably creepy opening suite, Lee Cronin indicates that his version of The Mummy is going to be a bit darker than the certifiably iconic Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz caper. 

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is starkly different from other versions

Within the first 20 minutes, we’ve witnessed horrible bodily injury and child abduction – but Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has barely gotten started. It’s once Katie is rediscovered entombed in a sarcophagus inside the ruins of a crashed plane that the film truly begins to reveal its interests in showering its characters with unpleasantries and viscera. 

Per advice from possibly the worst doctor ever, Charlie and Larissa bring Katie back home to the States to care for her as she recovers and reintegrate into family life with her siblings. Unfortunately, this is Lee Cronin’s The Mummy and not Lee Cronin’s Katie’s Healthy Recovery – freaky stuff starts happening immediately. 

Charlie, played with surprising charm by Jack Kenyon, talks with an esoteric professor who just so happens to know everything about the subject at hand. Laia Costa chews it up as the tormented Larissa, trying to care for something that’s not quite her daughter. Meanwhile, a rugged detective attempts to solve the other side of the mystery in Egypt – in this case, a thoroughly stern and enjoyable May Calamawy whose iciness is matched only by her ability to get stuff done. 

If you’ve seen classics like The Exorcist or Evil Dead, the specific trajectory of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy will not surprise you greatly. But what may intrigue is its specific willingness to take things to the extreme in practically every regard – in this film, Cronin and his team are able to make this version of The Mummy utterly disgusting, strangely intriguing and oddly emotional all at once. 

Horrifically gory, wholly entertaining

There is some truly nauseating horror filmmaking in this film, with the Sam Raimi influences on full display in an expert understanding of tension and when to deploy scares and gore as a release of it. This is an extremely wet, entrail-laden movie that had me regularly watching through my fingers.

I didn’t feel this way just because of what was happening – which is plenty horrible – but because of the film’s enthusiasm for close-ups and split diopters that accentuate, surprisingly, this makes the film feel like a better Evil Dead movie than Cronin’s own Evil Dead Rise from 2023. 

Where Cronin’s Sam Raimi-isms in that film felt like slavish devotion, here they feel like loving homage when mixed in with other horror and thriller influences. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy doesn’t even try to be unique, but a cocktail of horror influences that’s much more than the sum of its parts. 

Besides some other minor flaws – this thing probably didn’t need to be 2 hours plus – this is a surprisingly fun take on The Mummy as a cinematic institution. It’s willing to be truly gross in a manner equally stomach-churning and entertaining; a fact which has earned Cronin newfound respect in my book.

★★★½ 

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is in cinemas now.