Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Review

Lee Cronin isn’t a household name. Most people will likely need to Google him before remembering that he directed Evil Dead Rise. That said, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is clearly from the same twisted mind who made that film. Cronin justifies including his name in the title, and not just to distinguish it from the Brendan Fraser version. Cronin’s Mummy has his sick signature all over it. His take on the classic monster is more in the spirit of The Exorcist or Pet Sematary. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy might not be in the same league as those films. If you’re a fan of Cronin’s depraved gifts, though, it’s worth unwrapping.

Jack Reynor and Laia Costa play a couple with two children, as well as a third on the way. When daughter Katie goes missing, a sudden sandstorm suggests it’s not a run-of-the-mill kidnapping. Eight years later, Katie is found, although she’s undergone some noticeable changes. Katie only speaks when something sinister is on her mind, her grotesque flesh practically peels off, and she’s developed super strength, giving Grandma multiple savage beatings that are borderline hilarious. This is from the same director who made Evil Dead Rise, after all.

When Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wants to be freaky and funny, it excels. At more than two hours, though, the film struggles in the pacing department. The family’s eldest son (Shylo Molina) feels underutilized in a plot that juggles more characters than it knows what to do with. Much of the runtime is dedicated to unraveling what happened to Katie during her absence. These sequences are unapologetically slow and mostly unnecessary, however. We don’t really care about the mythology of how this mummy came to be. We just want to see Katie raising hell. Thankfully, once Cronin gets to the gore and mayhem, he doesn’t hold back.

Relative newcomer Natalie Grace is a standout as Katie in an arresting, physically commanding performance worthy of comparison to Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil. While the performances are generally solid, the weak link is Jack Reynor as the family patriarch. He isn’t phoning it in, but throughout the film, Reynor’s character is placed in situations that would leave any parent shaken to the core (no matter how brave). Even when a character falls out of a window onto his car, Reynor barely winces. There’s being calm during a crisis, and then there’s just underacting.

Had Cronin trimmed the film down by twenty minutes and given Reynor slightly better direction, his Mummy might’ve had the makings of a modern classic. The film nonetheless unearths a lot of what made Evil Dead Rise so fun. Its humor can be bizarrely mean-spirited, but the story still has heart. It’s a meticulously crafted work of horror, with makeup and sound design that’ll have your skin crawling. Time will only tell whether or not Natalie Grace has a future as a scream queen. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if this were her big break, however. She doesn’t just hit the ground running. She spider-walks across the ceiling as well.