Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Movie Review

“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is a movie about, well, a Mummy — but not in the ancient-thousands-of-years-old variety. This is a sickly twisted version that is closer to “The Exorcist” than “The Scorpion King”. The cursed tomb is replaced by a cursed family house. But the level of intense gore and visceral goo is more than some stomachs can endure…

The small family of Charlie Cannon (played by Jack Reynor) currently lives in Cairo. The TV journalist is on an assignment with his nurse wife Larissa (played by Laia Costa). These two have a young daughter, and a younger son.

They are planning to move back to the States when Charlie gets a job offer to work in New York. But under a mysterious circumstance, the young daughter is kidnapped from the backyard.

Charlie and Larissa are distraught and perplexed as to why someone would take the child. They meet a new police recruit named Dalia Zaki (played by May Calamawy). She is the only one who believes the couple.

But she is powerless to mount a full investigation. Heartbroken, the family moves back to the States. But the move back to Larissa’s old home in New Mexico. The family house outside Albuquerque is good place to use as a retreat.

Soon, it becomes eight years after the kidnapping. Another daughter, named Maud (played by Billie Roy), is now 8 years old. Their son Sebastián (played by Shylo Molina) is now a moody teen, never getting over the loss of his older sister.

Charlie and Larissa have her mother, Carmen Santiago (played by Verónica Falcón), also living with them. The house in New Mexico has the ghost of the missing daughter as an ever-present spirit.

Charlie receives a puzzling phone call from now Detective Zaki in Cairo. A small plan crash has yielded a strange treasure. There is a large sarcophagus found at the crash site. This large ancient Egyptian artifact was not found empty.

The barely-alive missing daughter, named Katie (played by Natalie Grace) was found inside. She was wrapped in all sorts of strips of cloth and leather — all with some odd writing on them. She is no longer missing, but she is still a mystery.

Of course, instead of getting the barely-functional, almost comatose Katie set up in a proper medical facility — Charlie and Larissa bring the child back with them to the New Mexico house.

The remote location and house with too many hidden passageways and secret doors is a perfect place to allow Katie to recuperate. Grandmother Carmen is very religious, and she brings plenty of prayers to Katie’s bedside.

The first signal that something might not be right with Katie is when she head-butts her Nana and breaks her nose. Too many prayers get on the nerves of an ancient entity that now resides in Katie.

Larissa is still convinced that just enough motherly hugs and warm chicken soup will be enough to heal her new-found daughter. More unusual activity happens when the sun sets. Pretty soon, Maud and Sebastián are under the spell of the creature that possessed the weak body of Katie.

It is not too long before things go off the rails on the crazy train. The powerless parents are fighting something that they don’t understand. Charlie gets some help from a local professor at the University.

There is an old ‘get-well’ card found by Charlie that might hint at who had kidnapped his daughter years ago. He contacts Detective Zaki, and she is able to get more information. She finds out about a secret family legacy of mummification that wards off a powerful evil.

Some ancient evil entity that was supposed to be contained is out and free. Katie was used to hold the wicked spirit, and now the whole family suffers because of it. There are endless incidents of projectile vomit and self-harm.

There is more gross blood, mucus, viscous body fluids than you can ever clean up with a crate of Bounty paper towels. Charlie and Larissa are mourning the passing of the kindly Grandmother Carmen. But the evil that lives in Katie, and in the house, is delighted.

Detective Zaki comes to the New Mexico house that holds the ancient evil. She has the background of what has happened and how Katie was turned into a living mummy.

But will the efforts of Charlie and Larissa, with the help from Detective Zaki be enough to loosen the grip of horror that has Katie in a tight grip? Will the binding of an ancient curse be removed — or just transferred to a new host?

Hey, don’t lose that Book of the Dead. It’s the only copy around…

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“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is long-winded way of saying the Writer and Director took the traditional concept of the “Mummy” movies and threw all out the window. He decided he was going to make a movie that closer to a remake of “The Exorcist”. His background is in horror, leaning deep into the gross-out, rather than the jump-scare type. He has made this movie effectively disturbing and efficiently disgusting…

Many people will find it hard to stomach. There are constant images of disturbing things and loud scary sounds on the soundtrack. The performances are fine overall, but the real star is the practical makeup and special effects. There are an overwhelming number of gross-out things going on almost all time. These are almost all difficult to watch, but there has been a lot of effort to pull these off in the best (worst) way possible.

This movie could find some fans in the sickly twisted people who enjoy gore and visceral gunk and goo that is up close and personal. That appears to be the main feature of this movie. It is definitely not a deep study into Egyptian archeology or mythology. Even if it does touch on the traditional idea of “The Mummy’ as a classic monster, this movie never is in the same vein. One that is a bloody, oozing vein, of course…

“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” goes out of its way to not deal with anything typical about a traditional “Mummy” movie. Just when you thought every ‘Mummy’ movie had it all ‘wrapped up’…