Review: LEE CRONIN'S THE MUMMY Is a Weak and Disappointing EVIL DEAD Knockoff

I went into Lee Cronin’s The Mummy fired up! A horror movie from Lee Cronin playing in the sandbox of ancient mythology and monsters? Yeah, that’s absolutely my kind of thing!

The trailers teased something eerie and different, something that might twist the classic Mummy concept into a fresh nightmare. But what I got wasn’t really a Mummy movie at all. It felt like something else entirely wearing a blood-drenched disguise.

In the film, a journalist’s daughter vanishes in the desert, only to return years later in a way that should be emotional but quickly spirals into something disturbing. That hook had me locked in early.

The cast, including Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, and May Calamawy, does what they can to sell the situation. There’s an attempt to ground the horror in family trauma, but it never fully clicks. It just kind of drifts from scene to scene without pulling you in.

Here’s the thing, this movie plays way more like a possession flick than anything tied to Egyptian horror. Honestly, it feels like it’s trying to live in the same chaotic, blood-soaked world as Evil Dead Rise.

This time around though, it just doesn’t hit the same. Instead of feeling intense and unhinged, it comes off like a watered-down echo of something we’ve already seen done better.

That doesn’t mean it’s a total mess visually. Cronin still knows how to shoot a horror movie. There are some genuinely cool shots and moments of disturbing imagery that show he’s got a strong eye for this kind of storytelling.

The atmosphere works in bursts. You can see the vision he’s chasing. The problem is the story underneath all of that style just isn’t doing the heavy lifting it needs to.

The narrative is painfully familiar. We’ve seen this possession setup so many times that it starts to feel like you’re just waiting for each predictable beat to check itself off a list.

There’s nothing here that really redefines the genre or even gives it a fun twist. It just kind of exists, going through the motions while tossing in some mummy flavor that never really sticks.

The film definitely goes hard in the body horror and over-the-top gore department. If you like your horror messy, aggressive, and a little unhinged, there’s stuff here that’ll work for you.

But none of that matters if the story doesn’t hold up, and this one just doesn’t. The script feels thin, the characters make stupid decisions, and there’s a huge lack of basic logic that pulls you right out of it.

The biggest example is the core premise itself. There’s no believable reason this child would be sent straight back home with her after being locked away in a sarcophagus for several years!

Forget the supernatural element, they found a young girl alive in this thing, who they would assume has gone through physical and mental trauma. She would have been sent to a rehabilitation center where Katie would undergo psychiatric care and physical therapy.

The movie ignores reality just to force the horror into place instead of letting it grow naturally. That kind of situation should’ve been explored in a much more grounded and disturbing way, maybe in a controlled environment where the horror could really build. Instead, the movie leans into convenience over logic, and it hurts the whole experience.

Now yeah, if you’re in it purely for gore and body horror, there’s stuff here for you. The movie goes hard with the violence, especially in ways that might make some viewers squirm. But shock value only goes so far.

If the story and characters don’t connect, all that chaos starts to feel empty, and that’s exactly where this lands for me. I wasn’t invested, so the madness didn’t mean much.

Another thing that didn’t land is the tone. There are moments where it feels like it wants that dark humor edge, something Cronin handled really well before, but here it just feels off.

The humor doesn’t blend with the rest of the film, and the result is something that feels uneven. It’s like the movie isn’t sure what kind of experience it wants to be, and that confusion carries all the way through.

Then there’s the third act, which should be where everything goes wild and pulls you to the edge of your seat. Instead, I found myself checking out. It tries to escalate into something intense and chaotic, but it never grabbed me.

It felt like the same ending we’ve seen in countless possession movies, just louder and messier. More noise doesn’t always mean more excitement.

Walking out of this, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I really wanted this to be something unique, something that reimagined the Mummy in a cool and terrifying way.

Instead, it felt like a mashup of horror tropes that never fully commits to its own identity. It’s not scary, not memorable, and definitely not the reinvention it wants to be.

Honestly, I’d have rather seen Cronin go all-in on another Evil Dead movie. At least there, this kind of energy actually works.