Who the fuck is Lee Cronin? That was my first thought when I saw the ads for this movie. I am a pretty big horror fan, but his name did not ring any bells. At the time, I didn’t really care. The film was getting mixed reviews and mummies are not particularly my thing. I figured I’d check it out when it came to streaming. When it showed up on HBO, I put it in my queue and forgot about it. Now that I’m watching and reviewing a plethora (word of the day calendar ftw!) of new-to-me horror films in October, I’m doing a lot of clearing out of my various queues. When I landed on this one, I decided to finally look up who the fuck Lee Cronin is. He’s the guy who directed Evil Dead Rise, the sort-of-good sort-of-sequel to 2013’s Evil Dead. Oh. Um… That and his other feature, The Hole in the Ground, don’t seem to warrant putting his name in the title of a film like he’s John Fucking Carpenter. But maybe this one is a powerhouse of a film that proves he has earned that right. Let’s get into it, shall we?
The Cannon family temporarily lives in Egypt while the dad, Charlie, is working there as a reporter. Right before they are meant to move back to the States where Charlie has a sweet New York job lined up, their daughter Katie gets kidnapped from their backyard. Cut to 8 years later in Egypt and we see a small airplane fall from the sky and crash. The plane was carrying a sarcophagus with Katie in it. She is still alive, still looks the same size as when she went missing, and she’s very messed up. Her skin is leathery and grey and she seems mostly unresponsive to stimuli. The Cannons – now living with the wife’s mother in Albuquerque – collect their daughter and return home. It soon becomes clear that there is a malevolent spirit around or within Katie. Can the family survive this demonic force possessing their kid and spreading evil throughout the family?
Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: this is a possession story. Mummification is just a secondary (or tertiary) plot element. I (and many other viewers apparently) have no idea why it’s called “The Mummy”. The audience expects certain things with mummy movies and some of those things are present in this film – namely, wrapping and unwrapping and a sarcophagus. But no ancient curse, no pyramids, no punished crypt robbers. Instead the mummy is used as a framing device for the possession story. Baffling. But if we move beyond that head scratcher, how is the actual movie? Well, it’s LONG. Over 2 hours. That’s not bad by default. Many great movies are over 90 minutes, but a lot more long movies are just too long. This is one of them. There are boring stretches, unnecessary characters attempting levity, a woman with her tongue cut out who can’t talk but then just does with no real issues, and a mini police procedural that could have been cut. Cronin putting his name in the title isn’t where the cringe stops either. There is an overt visual nod to Evil Dead that will have your eyes rolling. The whole thing smacks of a filmmaker trying too hard to be clever and/or shocking. Patton Oswalt (he’s not in it, but stick with me here) used to have a bit about ridiculous hair metal videos with explosions and babes and wind tunnel spandex solos. The gag was that the videos are essentially what a pubescent boy would think is awesome. This movie (see, bringing it back around) feels like Cronin was cramming some shocks and tropes in for awesomeness’ sake but forgot that that works for music videos because they’re 3 minutes long. At 2 hours and 14 minutes, too much time is spent on family drama and police investigation (or old lady cattiness) that doesn’t push the story forward significantly. If you’re going for “totally radical” shocks, stick to that and keep it pithy.
The Final Cut: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a perfect title for a movie that seems to take itself way too seriously. There are some good shocks to be had, but this movie is too long, often illogical, and unevenly paced.
