As a horror icon, the Mummy has been strangely underutilised in the genre. Whether due to a lack of ideas or cultural sensitivities, it’s been decades since the last straight-faced attempt to make a Mummy scary. It was for this reason that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy intrigued me, despite the bad press.

Unfortunately, I must report that the film’s bad press is well deserved. It’s difficult to consider Lee Cronin’s The Mummy a ‘Mummy’ film, as it’s just another Blumhouse jump-scare fest with some Ancient Egyptian flourishes.    

An American journalist (Jack Reynor) and his wife are relieved when they learn that their young daughter, Katie, has been found alive after being missing for 8 years. However, the circumstances surrounding her discovery are unbelievable. She was found inside an Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and is unable to speak or move. While her father investigates her disappearance, Katie’s behaviour escalates to such extraordinary levels that her family begins to wonder whether she is still human.

The Horror

I think most people can agree that having a child go missing for years on end with no explanation is worse than having a child die. The latter situation at least brings closure while the former tortures you with hope.

The Mummy captures this feeling perfectly in its first act. The parents and their children are pretty generic but their chemistry feels genuine and when you see them 8 years after Katie’s disappearance, you can tell that her absence still causes them great pain.

Then Katie is found and is allowed to go home no questions asked, despite being a living breathing medical discovery.

Most of the film’s horror comes in the form of gore as Katie’s family struggle to accommodate her physical needs. There’s one truly excruciating sequence involving her mother trying to trim Katie’s toenails. I think it’s fair to say that Lee Cronin can be counted on to deliver good, disgusting gore. In 2023 he did with it with a cheese grater. In 2026, it was nail clippers.    

I’m not sure what a good Mummy film should look at this point in the 21^st century, or if one should be even made, but it definitely doesn’t look like this.

Yes there are scenes in Cairo and some of the characters do speak Arabic. However, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy clearly has many influences but other Mummy films are not among them.

This is basically an Exorcist film with a Mexican filter. Katie is not a Mummy, she is a possessed girl and like all the other Exorcist rip-offs before her, she vomits, contorts her body and swears at her family.

The writing tries everything to link Katie’s possession to Ancient Egyptian mythology and the practice of Mummification, but The Exorcist influence is impossible to ignore.

Towards the climax, the revolting gore escalates (or devolves rather) to Evil Dead 2-levels of splatstick. This comes totally out of the blue. The gore up to this point is played for disgust, not laughs.

It’s hard not to think that Lee Cronin wanted to direct anything but a Mummy film. It feels like he was forced to make a Mummy film so he shoehorned in things he liked so he would find it interesting.

With Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weiz returning to their Mummy series, it looks like we won’t see another serious Mummy horror for at least another 10 years. Pity considering we’re going to have to make-do with this in the meantime.

I give Lee Cronin’s The Mummy a mediocre 5 out of 10.