What if your daughter were a mummy? This is the question that Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground, Evil Dead Rise) dares to ask in his take on The Mummy. This is mostly in jest, as the film has more going on under the hood than that, but it does point to the larger trend of classic horror movies as more intimate family affairs that this film continues.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is unsurprisingly written and directed by Lee Cronin. The film stars Jack Reynor (Midsommar), Laia Costa (Victoria), May El Calamawy (Ramy, Moon Knight), and Natalie Grace. Reynor and Costa portray Charlie and Larissa, a couple whose family is thrown into turmoil by the sudden reappearance of their daughter Katie (Grace), who disappeared years earlier when they lived in Egypt. Katie’s reappearance should be a joyful occasion, but there is something wrong with her, and Detective Dalia Zaki (Calamway) suspects there may be something more supernatural at play.
Pacing and Structure
One of the film’s largest issues is the narrative pacing and structure. The film has a very deliberate pace and is a slow build-up to a gnarly finale. However, it feels a little meandering between whatever spooky set piece with Katie comes next. It’s also quite small in scale, but oddly large since it involves jumping between the family scenes back in the United States and the investigative scenes in Egypt. It just feels unnecessary. There are easier ways to keep the story involved in Egypt and still keep this as an American family. Better yet, the family could have been Egyptian-American, or the story could be wholly set in Egypt. As it currently stands, it’s disjointed and feels like a poor attempt to address the othering that “Mummy” stories typically do to Egypt.
There is a bit less of that in Cronin’s film, but it is almost impossible to avoid. And were it not for the film’s ending, this would probably be the least racist of The Mummy films. Beyond cementing Egyptians as the other, the final moments of the film are so bizarre and at odds with the rest of the film that it brings down the whole experience.
Inspirations and Characters
This film is not shy about its inspirations, which is both good and bad. Obviously, Cronin is continuing to build on the work that he did in Evil Dead Rise. There are lots of similar visual cues, and just the overall designs are quite similar.
More surprisingly, this film pulls quite a bit from William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty’s film adaptation of Blatty’s The Exorcist. Regardless of any opinions of The Exorcist, if you’re going to evoke that film, then you need to do it well. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy does a fine approximation of it, but lacks the real faith-based core that makes that film work. No offense to Cronin, but he is no Friedkin, but who is? In terms of “The Mummy” from the Universal Monsters, there is little resemblance to it in this film, which is fine. It’s meant to be a total reimagining of the concept. Ultimately, it ends up being more derivative of other horror films instead of steering The Mummy into a new direction.
Perhaps Cronin needs a co-writer to filter out some of his worst tendencies and to strengthen the good. Undoubtedly, he is a great visualizer who understands how to frame and compose a shot. Obviously, he has good instincts. However, as the sole screenwriter, he lacks the skill to really make the film pop. With that said, his characters are fine. They are a little bland, but they are not actively annoying. In particular, the other children in the family feel like afterthoughts, which is a shame since Cronin successfully brings a similar family dynamic to life so well in Evil Dead Rise.
Trauma Again
As an examination of how trauma tears apart families and communities, The Mummy is apt. As noted above, the film is derivative in so many ways. Like so many other horror films, it’s just about trauma, which is tiring. Perhaps it would be different if the cast were more developed and their characters slightly more likable. Yet, as it stands, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy feels too much like any other recent studio horror project. While it does have a much nastier violence than a lot of them, that tide seems to be shifting, with more and more movies beginning to re-embrace the gore. Then again, Cronin particularly does seem more adept than most at using that element effectively.
The Verdict on Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Cronin’s take on The Mummy is far from perfect, especially in the writing department. Characters are ill-defined, and the plot meanders too much. However, Cronin has a great eye for horror visuals and can direct a nasty set piece. It fails to live up to the expectations that he set with Evil Dead Rise, but he continues to be someone who is worth following in the horror space.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is now playing in theaters!
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