6/12 ForReel Score | 2.5/5 Stars

Not to sound curmudgeonly, but it feels like every new horror movie is lauded as “the scariest movie of the year.” We already fell into the same pit with Undertone earlier this year, and we’re sure to fall in again with (albeit solid) releases like Hokum and Obsession coming around the bend. Unfortunately, high praise for a genre as subjective as horror is a double-edged sword. If patient zero was Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, then its latest victim is the overlong (in both title and runtime) Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. A straight-up horror departure from the Brendan Fraser franchise of the same name, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is less scary than it is mildly grotesque, resulting in what is—ironically—a haplessly gutless affair.

Whereas most of the previous Mummy films (the Hammer productions starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are borderline slashers) followed archaeologists facing off against the resurrected mummy Imhotep, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opts for a different approach. Cribbing from The Evil Dead and The Exorcist, The Mummy follows the Cannon family after Katie, the eldest daughter, unexpectedly resurfaces after an eight-year disappearance. You’ve seen the “character disappears and comes back weird” archetype play out a billion times, and The Mummy doesn’t do much to show you anything new aside from the deconstruction of human bodies. The grossness has its function, yes, but the initial sense of intrigue wears off fast once you realize Cronin’s just playing the hits.

The usual proceedings for the setup follow as expected, though my expectations were set high, not by first reactions but from Cronin himself. Evil Dead Rise was a lean, mean, carnage machine, where The Mummy is kind of a drag. For the number of times Blumhouse insisted that Brendan Fraser wouldn’t be in the film, it retrospectively could’ve used some of that bombastic gusto. Rather than reveling in the existing playground as he did with Evil Dead Rise, Cronin only proves that he’s much more interesting behind the camera than the typewriter, though gore can only get you so far. I’ll never say no to some tasty split-diopter shots and the Raimi-isms, but at what point does that stop being exciting and start feeling cliched?

Where The Mummy ultimately falters is that it’s another rehash of similar “elevated horror” films about grief and familial trauma. Once Scream starts making fun of the trope, one would think a writer would try harder to avoid such pitfalls. Not only are the family dynamics less lived-in than those of Evil Dead Rise, but the resulting chaos is also far less mean-spirited. The combination of narrative and theme is starkly reminiscent of last year’s Bring Her Back, though The Mummy pulls its punches in ways Cronin previously didn’t. There’s a strong sense of dread that pervades the first two acts, with the third completely falling apart at the seams (bandages?). Rather than committing to the violence, Cronin wastes valuable screen time explaining lore instead.

Maybe I’m unnecessarily punching up, though it takes a presumptuous amount of self-confidence to put your name on top of your third feature as if you’re an established filmmaker. Guillermo del Toro waited until his twelfth film to do so with Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and John Carpenter had enough directorial juice to justify doing it from the start. Though Evil Dead Rise is one of my favorite franchise horror movies in recent memory, neither The Mummy nor Cronin’s debut, The Hole in the Ground, signify greatness. His Raimi-indebted schtick worked well for Evil Dead Rise, of course, but The Mummy feels more like Evil Dead leftovers. In short, there isn’t enough singularity to Cronin to rationalize slapping his name on the label.

At the very least, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy can serve up a solid scare and some good gross-out moments. The entire first act is a slowly simmering build of dread and suspense, although I’m not sure how much of that comes from what I expect from Cronin. Laia Costa and Jack Reynor do their best as Katie’s bereaved parents, even if the material they’re given is largely lackluster. Though the gory moments come few and far between, the execution is wince-inducingly nasty thanks to some great practical effects before everything gets CGI-heavy in a blisteringly contrived third act. It’ll serve its function as a fun and nasty night out at the movies, though that’s all Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has to offer.

In what’s sure to be a confusing experience for those who didn’t get the repeated memos on Brendan Fraser’s absence (it’ll get even more confusing when Fraser returns to the role in 2028), Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is your standard horror fare, both propped up and bogged down by horror familiarities. You’ll get your Raimi-esque visual flair at the cost of a solid narrative, ultimately paling in comparison to Lee Cronin’s most recent outing. It’s too serious to be fun, and it’s not well-written enough to be taken seriously. Violence and gore are fun and all, but it doesn’t work if you’re checked out of the narrative. You’ve seen it before, you’ll see it again, and they’ll all be called “the scariest movie of the year.”

Movie Review: "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" Might Have Been Better Off Leaving This Evil Dead