‘The Mummy’ Review: Gonzo and Grotesque but Never Painful
Lee Cronin, the madman behind Evil Dead Rise, is a filmmaker who has proven he knows how to deliver brutal, crowd-pleasing horror that lands much like punch to the face. With his latest effort, The Mummy, he seems to be reaching for heavier, further heightened stakes. The film attempts to build an emotional spine strong enough to make its brutality really string, and not just shock, by centering the ghoulish story on a young girl and her grieving, all-American nuclear family. But that never lands. While the same gonzo nastiness that worked so well in Evil Dead bleeds through, that violence registers as simply gross rather than actually painful without any characters to actually care about.
The director recently went on the record saying that while he was offered the chance to direct the upcoming Evil Dead Burn, he turned it down in favour of tackling The Mummy, which he described as the riskier of the two projects. There’s some truth to that. Blumhouse’s take on the Universal Monsters catalogue is not exactly burning hot in the horror zeitgeist the way Evil Dead is, espeiclly after the lukewarm response to last year’s Wolf Man.
Cronin, of course, is the reason Evil Dead feels newly vital once again. His Evil Dead Rise, released in 2023, arrived ten years after the previous entry, and was never even intended for a theatrical release. It got one anyway, and the franchise hasn’t been this alive since the late 80s, with two new chapters on the immediate horizon. Thank you, Lee.
That context hangs heavily over The Mummy. Cronin’s latest struggles to exist outside the shadow of the modern Evil Dead trilogy, and its toolbox feels inseparable from the tonal insanity of that franchise. As a fan of those films, and of Cronin’s reinvention in particular, it’s surprising to see that same brutality land so awkwardly here. The core issue is tonal. Watching a young girl mutilated for the majority of the film runs in direct opposition to the gonzo insanity this style of horror usually thrives on. There’s nothing inherently off-limits about putting children in the line of fire. If anything, it’s anti-Hollywood, anti-patriarchal, even a little punk rock. But here, it simply isn’t fun. Nor is it a bummer. It’s just not all that engaging.
That lack of fun becomes more pronounced when you look at character. In Evil Dead Rise, the ensemble is decimated, but there’s still someone to root for. Here, there isn’t. Katie is compelling, but mostly in a campy, unintentional way, while the rest of the cast are stuck making baffling decisions with little charisma to justify the time spent with them. By the end, even the suffering feels muted, denied the catharsis the setup promises.
The premise itself is strong. Katie, the young daughter of an American journalist (Jack Reynor of Midsommar fame) working in Cairo, vanishes from her backyard in broad daylight. Eight years later, her grieving family, now back in the United States with a new child, learns she has been found inside a sarcophagus that fell from a plane. What should be a miraculous reunion quickly curdles into something far more horrific as Katie begins to transform.
To be clear: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is never boring. In plain terms, it’s a good time. Cronin keeps things moving with confidence, even across a bloated 135-minute runtime. The film is consistently engaging, eliciting laughs, gasps, and the kind of visceral reactions horror fans show up for.
Yet the tone remains strange. What unfolds in the New Mexico desert often plays as pure camp, just not the kind Cronin seemed to be aiming for. This isn’t the weaponized, self-aware chaos of Evil Dead. It’s closer to classical camp, the kind that isn’t in on the joke at all, the kind that would shush you for laughing during its most serious moments. There’s still big value in that camp: the kind of filmmaking has its own magic. It can bring audiences together in a uniquely communal way. But it feels out of step with the calculated talent behind the film.
Where Cronin does deliver, unquestionably, is in the film’s nastiness. Once the brutality kicks in, it never lets up. The escalation is relentless, pushing into territory that makes it easy to forget this is a Blumhouse production. Teeth fall out. Skin peels away. Children are buried alive. Coyotes devour a screaming grandmother in the front yard. It’s audacious stuff.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is gnarly, excessive, and often impressive. Few directors are willing to push this far. But the violence lands as gross rather than painful. But there’s no emotional anchor to give it weight. The film makes a clear attempt to build one by centering the story on an “innocent” child and her grieving family, but it never clicks. The characters consistently make the worst possible choices, and whatever sympathy the film is reaching for slips away as a result.
By the end, the dynamic shifts entirely. Instead of fearing for this family, it becomes easy to root for their obliteration. And in a Lee Cronin film, that’s always on the table.
-
Lee Cronin's The Mummy
Summary
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy delivers campy and fun gonzo brutality, but its emotional core never lands, leaving the violence feeling gross but never painful.