Sarah’s field notes
I am usually known for my gracious and forgiving movie reviews. This is not one of them.
When it comes to Lee Cronin’s “The Mummy,” the filmmaking is all around good — if not great — but what he fails at is storytelling.
The atmosphere created by the cinematography and sound design effectively shape an uneasy and frightening world. Visually, a lot worked well with this film, coupled with good performances. I would warn that if you are not a fan of body horror, you may want to sit this one out.
For a horror film, “The Mummy” holds up in a lot of ways, but it’s just like any other middling horror movie to come out of the last 10 years. The problems I find stem majorly from ineffective storytelling and communication of ideas that shouldn’t hold up in the year 2026.
What this film communicates about Arab culture, and the inaccuracies of what little representation there is of archaeology, truly got under my skin. Fun fact about me: I am an archaeologist. I study anthropology and different cultures, so when a film mentions my field, I get incredibly excited.
Any archaeologist currently working in academia will notice the weird and random inaccuracies. There is one scene where the male lead goes to an archaeologist’s class to ask for help, and this man’s “intro to archaeology” class starts out with him showing the dead bodies of people from the past.
Today, this would never happen. Caring for the people and history of the past is what is important to us. That scene reminded me of not only the dark older history of archaeology, but the horrid history of colonists in Egypt.
Not so fun fact: When the tombs of royalty were originally exhumed and looted by the British starting back in the 19th century, they did not just steal and damage historical material — they would use human remains as props. The obsession with Egypt and mummified bodies went so far in Europe that the French and British used to grind up the bodies and use human remains as makeup.
So, when a young archaeologist walks into an AMC Dolby theater excited for a new adaptation closely related to her job, the foreseeable tragedy comes when she realizes the Western world hasn’t changed much in the past century. This film does what many previous mummy movies have — prioritize the perspective of white tourists and demonize Arab culture.
The story is about an American family whose daughter is kidnapped in Egypt to fulfill an ancient prophecy to contain an evil spirit. Egypt is used once more as a plot device and the background for a white story.
What makes this more upsetting is that at the beginning of the film, we are introduced to an Egyptian family only for them to be relegated to the back for the rest of the story. It felt as if the film was warning about the “other,” which in this case are those in the East.
Horror emulates the things an audience is most fearful of, and if we haven’t heard it a thousand times, Western countries are terrified of other cultures destroying their children. The theme is so plainly on the nose and in poor taste for the time we’re in.
The other thing I can’t get on board with when it comes to most horror films is the distinct tinge of ableism. When Katie, the missing daughter, is returned to the family, she is visually different, somewhat immoble and delayed in speech.
On one hand, I think the part of the film where the family awkwardly tries to take care of their daughter is interesting, especially as a look at parents’ fear and care of disabled children. Still, to play on and heighten stigma around disabled children is not something I vibe with.
One could enjoy the film in spite of the ideological issues if it weren’t for the poor storytelling and writing. Not only was the film needlessly long, but much of the dialogue is just so unbearable.
Near the end of the film, there are some tragically terrible lines. One takes place as the evil spirit continues to ravage Katie’s body, saying, “I’m your daddy now.” The end of the film couldn’t come fast enough with its borderline campy yet horrifying moments. I couldn’t help but long for the AMC lobby.
Sarah’s score: 3/10
Paul’s unraveling
Reinventions of movie monster classics are a dime a dozen over the course of the 2020s, and they have been very hit or miss. For every Guillermo Del Toro “Frankenstein” you get a Luc Besson “Dracula.”
I was quite excited to see Lee Cronin’s name attached to a new take on the classic mummy movie. Cronin’s “Evil Dead Rise” is a movie I hold near and dear to my heart. Cronin showed in that film he has a great eye for vile displays of body horror with energetic pacing and unique camera work.
This movie is a lot like “Evil Dead Rise,” but it lacks a lot that made that movie work. For one, the pacing is about as slow as a classic movie mummy would move. While the last act picks up some steam in wicked insanity, the rest of the film stumbles around, repeating scenes and losing intrigue by the minute.
Many of the scares and gross moments genuinely had me clutching my pearls. Like I mentioned earlier, Cronin is at his best when he is crafting a scene that is truly disgusting.
My only issue is that every moment of terror and chaos plays out the same way: everyone is in separate rooms, demon girl does creepy stuff, someone notices, loud scary sounds and the most disgusting thing you have ever seen happens, someone restrains demon girl and we move on like nothing ever happened.
Not even in an insanely mean-spirited scene involving a grandma, a cross and some coyotes does it feel like anyone is taking this seriously. All the family members do not act like real people, including Jack Reynor who is only ever making one ridiculous face.
I like to think that a lot of the stilted nature of the family is by design. “The Mummy” is a story about grief both real and fictional. Cronin’s mother had passed away before production started, and he said that working on this film helped him process that death.
Whenever the aforementioned demon girl, Katie, acts out, a new restraint is added to keep her at bay. No matter what doors or locks the family fastens, they cannot keep back the sheer power of this force of grief. Trying to ignore these feelings only makes things worse, and it is not until the father embraces Katie that things get better.
It is a touching sentiment that does not make up for the rest of the film.
Mummy stories have always been a product of Orientalist ideas. Treating a common ancient practice of a real culture as some dangerous and mystical trap to hurt you perpetuates stereotypes.
Cronin does a somewhat admirable attempt to sidestep this by creating his own monster and showing a range of cultural differences amongst the Egyptian characters. Yet he still gets points off for setting a majority of the film in America and having one of the main antagonists be an underdeveloped evil magician that kidnaps children.
Honestly, the detective thriller Cairo subplot was the most interesting part. Every time the film cut back to those scenes, it felt like a breath of fresh air. May Calamawy is a sight for sore eyes, seemingly MIA since 2022’s “Moon Knight.”
It would have been a nice change of pace to have a mummy film that focuses on actual Egyptians and explores that culture and landscape, but we got boring American horror family number 363 to worry about.
If it were not for the distinctive gore and film-craft, the reliance on horror tropes would make you forget Cronin made this. We get scenes that show research done about the monster, randomly showing up in the back of a college class, and the answers being found on a VHS to name a few.
Then, Cronin reels you back in with someone vomiting scorpions into another person’s mouth and laughable lines like “Don’t worry, Grandma. It’s fun being dead.”
Despite my praise of his work behind the camera, someone absolutely needs to put sanctions on how many split diopter shots Cronin can do. These shots are so exciting to see in a film when it is done with intention and sparingly. However, after the 20th one in your movie it feels a lot less impactful and impressive.
Lee Cronin’s “The Mummy” may be the biggest disappointment of the year for me. If an underbaked mashup of “The Exorcist” and “Evil Dead Rise” sounds like a good time to you, by all means, go see it. I cannot say I will want to watch this again, though.
