Lee Cronin's The Mummy Review

“She's been missing for eight years. What was our daughter doing in a three-thousand-year-old sarcophagus?” – Charlie Cannon

I love a good Mummy movie. The whole concept has been a staple of my horror/monster movie watching since I built the Aurora Mummy model kit back in the early seventies. I love the imagery of a cloth wrapped zombie rising from its sarcophagus seeking vengeance in those who defiled its tomb – or forever seeking the reincarnation of his beloved Princess. As you can tell, I’m a huge fan of the Universal Pictures output of the thirties and forties.

More recent attempts at Mummy movies have fallen short on the horror front. The films headlined by Brendan Fraser and Tom Cruise have to me anyway, come across more as adventure films than horror. But to be fair, the original Mummy (1932) was mainly a gothic romance – a basic retooling of the previous year’s Dracula. (Watch them back-to-back and try to tell me I’m wrong.)

So, with all this in mind, I guess the question on my mind going in to the screening was; can the Mummy be scary or even un-nerving in this day and age – or has its time passed, leaving it a dusty relic of monster movies’ heyday?

I’m happy to report that director Lee Cronin has successfully delivered a Mummy movie for the ages. One that is kind of hard to watch at times, and builds up a layered atmosphere of tension and unease. Frankly, as soon as the scene is set, the film doesn’t let up. No, there’s no tana leaves needed for a resurrection, no ancient curse on a team of intrepid archaeologists. None of that, but there IS a mummified body and there is horror and there certainly is chaos.

The Cannon family live in Cairo. Charlie, the father, (Jack Reynor) is a TV reporter. His wife Larissa (Laia Costa) is a nurse and they have two small children Katie and Sebastian.

Their descent into horror starts with every parent’s nightmare – Katie is abducted, and the police don’t seem to be of any effective use, other than to speculate that the parents themselves are somehow responsible.

Eight years later, following a plane crash, and amid the wreckage is an ancient sarcophagus. Apparently, there’s a roaring trade in the selling and smuggling of Egyptian antiquities. BUT – inside the sarcophagus, wrapped in what seems to be strips of leather-like bandaging is Katie (Natalie Grace), still alive but in bad shape. She has spent the last eight years in the total darkness of the sarcophagus, muscles atrophied, body distorted, nails twisted and uncut, her wrappings have grown into her skin, so trying to unwrap reveals bare, moist raw flesh.

She is returned home to her family, now living in Albuquerque, New Mexico and an Egyptian police office who was a junior officer at the time of the abduction, now promoted to detective, Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) who agrees to look further into the case, with this fresh evidence.

Meanwhile, Katie’s behaviour at home becomes increasingly erratic and disturbing. She seems to have an influence on Maud, the child born since the abduction. And that influence seems to be getting stronger and more sinister, spreading to her brother Sebastian. But the news from Egypt doesn’t seem to be getting any better either, as Detective Zaki starts to uncover what happened to Katie based to the ancient inscriptions on her bandages.

And that’s as far into the plot as I’m going. The rest, you’ll have to see for yourself.

If I had to pitch this movie, I’d say it was a Mummy film, crossed with The Exorcist and The Evil Dead. And that’s a totally accurate summing. The Evil Dead connection isn’t surprising, as director Lee Cronin was also at the helm of The Evil Dead Rise (2023) and brings that same sense of claustrophobic chaos and carnage to this film.

I understand that there is a relaunch of the earlier Mummy series in pre-production with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz returning to their roles – but really, why bother? Blumhouse Productions have already worked their usual magic in giving a new lease of life to a classic movie monster in a movie that in my opinion is one of the best reimaginings I’ve seen.

Rob Rating = 9