Someone Wants Their Mummy

Unable to focus myself to the point of writing full, high-quality reviews, but in the interest of doing more journaling about the media I consume, I’m starting to post “miniviews.” “Miniviews” is a word I’m adopting to signal somewhere between a good effort reviewing and a drive-by microblog. In other words, managing expectations. Enjoy.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

Disclosure: I like schlocky horror. I was introduced to it in my teen years after becoming predisposed to it by years of Universal and Hammer films, whatever else was on Creature Double Feature (it’s a southern New England thing, I think), and my Mom’s fiction-reading interests which populated the bookshelves in our house.

So, that’s a bit about who I am. Now onto the movie.

This film, which is not at all a take on the mummy genre of horror films, owes at least part of its success to marketing which focused on the “evil small child” horror trope. I’ve seen many people review this film saying they weren’t prepared for how gross it was, and it is true that the marketing leaned more heavily into creepy vibes. The whole creepy child thing pits you against The Omen and Japanese stand-outs Ringu and Ju-On.

You could look at a lot of films that actually leaned into innovating in this area. I’d count The Good Son, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and even Brightburn among those. But this film chose to go a somewhat different direction that places it in the Evil Dead universe. With a couple of very small changes, and a little more style, this could be Evil Dead: Mummy. Except, as others have noted, there’s no real mummy here as we know it.

This film doesn’t deserve a long review, and I probably wouldn’t be talking about it at all except for the fact that I got drawn in by the marketing, even after reading warnings. My synopsis and recommendations follow. Mild (IMHO) spoilers.

An American family living in Egypt loses track of their daughter. She’s returned to them years later in an altered state, apparently ill, or just evil. The child goes on a rampage. That’s what the trailer tells you. The film tells you she was abducted by a local “magician” for some ritual, and you will figure out immediately that the purpose is to bind some sort of demon into a specifically mummified body – the younger, the better.

As some have entertainingly pointed out, the audience is pretty much aware of the details from early on into the film, and all that’s left to surprise you is how gory the film will get. And watching the family and a helpful Egyptian policewoman put the pieces together. But not in an especially entertaining way like Columbo would.

So, it should be clear here that what’s left for you is the atmosphere and gore, since the plot, characters, and concept aren’t novel¹. The atmosphere is uncomfortable and a bit frustrating, as you stop being able to identify with these tragic characters after you see them fail to seek any sort of help that anyone remotely normal (and with their obviously substantial resources) would seek.

Ah, so I guess it’s the gore. It’s gory. And while it’s not crazily inventive, there’s definite attention to grossness with a few moments of anticipatory gore (you know – when you can tell something gross is about to happen). Somehow it still feels like it doesn’t cross over into consistent body horror. Instead, it’s a bunch of chaotic, believable gore thrown at you.

I doubt anyone will remember this film in a couple of years, so you probably have better things you could be doing.

AI Disclosure

No AI was used in writing this post.

1. You can’t say “what if the mummy were a child that gets possessed, just like in The Exorcist, and goes on a rampage like you see in Evil Dead but we’ll keep pretending it’s a Mummy film” and call that innovation. Saying something is something else isn’t innovation. ↩