Lee Cronin's The Mummy

Ummm, I liked it? IDK. Kind of? No. Maybe. Was it a good Mummy movie? No. Was it a moderately competent possession movie? Yeah, sure.

I went into this completely cold, so I have no idea what the critical reception is right now. I imagine it is not reviewing well, but I am not entirely sure that is fair. The Universal Monster cinematic universe is in shambles. The only good entry I can remember is Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man. There was also Wolf Man movie that was okay, I think. Honestly, I cant remember. I'm tired boss.

So now we have Lee Cronin's The Mummy. This feels exactly like a scenario where a studio had a generic, unconnected demonic possession script sitting on a desk, and a panicked executive just crossed out the title with a Sharpie and wrote "THE MUMMY" over it.

This is a standard possession movie with bandages hastily added in. If you accept that, you can sit back and enjoy the ride.

The premise is decent enough for what it is. A little girl named Katie is abducted and sacrificed to keep an ancient being contained. She is gone for a long time, then suddenly pops back up, but she is essentially mute. Her family tries to reconcile and bring her back to a normal life to no avail. The family is a bit of a mess, but they act relatively realistic. They try to logically cope with the utter insanity of this little girl suddenly pulling off her own skin, her nails hardening, and violently attacking them.

Because this is Lee Cronin, the guy who directed Evil Dead Rise, the gore is the spotlight. It leans heavily into unpleasant, torture porn-esque body horror. It looks suitably gross in most parts, but the director just goes to the exact same well over and over again. Once you have seen one fingernail peel off, you have seen them all.

The cinematography is competent but heavily washed out. The sound design is entirely forgettable. Only really getting out of bed during the lazy jump scares.

Then we have the plot, which has been rehashed by so many other films before it. The movie builds up to a massive, mind blowing final twist. The only problem is that it is not a twist at all, because the audience already knows what happened. This leads to unnecessary exposition where characters explain a mystery we already know the answer to. You could have easily chopped fifteen minutes out of the edit and lost nothing. The plot advancement is also entirely too convenient. Nothing ever feels earned. Characters just move from goal post to goal post because the script demands the story advance.

Then we get to the grand finale. The parent sacrifices their own body, offering it up as a vessel to save the child. It is an over done horror trope. But wait! This is supposed to be a Universal Monster movie. So, the final reveal shows the possessed parent suddenly wrapped in terrible CGI bandages. It is a huge letdown.

Overall, The Mummy is a pretty terrible Mummy movie. It is a moderately competent possession movie, and just an overall rehash of significantly better films. Think The Omen, The Exorcist, Evil Dead, and Orphan, put them in a blender, pour it out, and you have seen this entire movie.

Honestly, I would not recommend Lee Cronin's The Mummy. It is barely scraping by as average, and I am not even sure it fully earned that score.