Critic Reviews

The picture, shot in Ireland and Spain, will prove a blast for those who like their horror propulsive, transgressive and (in a good way) nauseating. Cronin and his team haven’t quite solved the age-old problem of what to do with the Mummy, but they have confirmed that it remains a dilemma worth tackling. The film deserves the pharaoh’s ransom it will undoubtedly make.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy may not fully cohere, but it certainly doesn’t play it safe. The extent to which you enjoy the film will depend on your tolerance for excess.

That title wrongly suggests the work of an artistic visionary scaling new heights of elevated horror; instead, this is a fun, dumb thrill ride that breathes powerfully fetid air into the ongoing string of mummy movies.

The result is spooky, upsetting and revolting. Although it ends up crossing the line from unsettling to punishing, you still have to take your hat off to it, if only because a makeshift sick bag may be required.

Cronin doesn’t just show you something disturbing—he insists you sit with it until it becomes personal.

The movie’s thread about parental neglect and/or sacrifice is wispy. As a carnival geek show, though, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy delivers the goods, and at greater volume than its unofficial predecessors. It isn’t as personal a movie as the possessive title implies, but the marketing is largely correct: For the first time in ages, a mummy presides over a real horror show.

Cronin has an uncanny knack for human mutilation, which would probably be a bad thing in any other context, but if you’re making gross-out horror movies, it’s practically a requirement.

Writer-director Lee Cronin holds onto the essential mythology while bringing in elements from a host of other influences, including the Evil Dead series, The Exorcist, and Hereditary, to try and shake up what mummies can be on screen. Discovering the true nature of this film's mummy, and what it's capable of, is part of the fun. The result isn't quite a 28 Days Later moment – one way to understand the film's full title is that this feels like one filmmaker's interpretation of a classic monster, rather than a new template for others to follow – but it's definitely the scariest a mummy movie has been in years.

As ugly as it is amusing, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy takes the kind of tonal swings you rarely see from a Hollywood studio.

Does Cronin’s film have the sharp narrative lines or control of those predecessors? Not even close, but it has enough style and scares, breathless energy and even fiendish humor almost to justify the grandiose inclusion of the director’s name in the title.