Good Mummy, Bad Title
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy confirms what I’ve suspected since COVID: something in me has developed a need for horror. What was in that vaccine anyway? Pfizer with a splash of Fangoria and one cursed VHS tape? Whatever it was it rewired me into someone who willingly seeks out cinematic trauma. (Although walking downtown these days provides the same feeling, with fewer concessions.) Does it reinvent the sarcophagus? Absolutely not. This is The Exorcist with a little The Fury and a dusting of Burnt Offerings tossed out a window and wrapped in gauze. Nothing here is new but it is assembled with enough confidence that you stop caring. In horror, you don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes you just need an old one rolling slowly toward you down a dark hallway.
The cast is one of the movie’s best assets. Everyone has that perfect “I know you from something but I’m not emotionally stable enough to Google it right now” quality. They feel familiar enough to trust but not so famous that you stop believing in the curse and start thinking about their IMDb page. The acting is natural and frankly better than a movie with this much toenail trauma has any right to be. Make no mistake, this thing is gory. The gore is not just splattered around; it has texture, deformities, brittle nails, chattering teeth. I don’t know who weaponized dental anxiety, but credit where it’s due.
My personal test for a horror movie is simple. Does it follow me out of the theater? This one did. The automatic Febreze sprayer in the restroom hissed and I nearly met my ancestors. Two people ahead of me on the escalator seemed to be speaking in an ancient tongue, though it may have just been condo owners discussing high maintenance fees. Either way, I was rattled. A movie that makes an air freshener feel like a supernatural threat has earned my respect. The ending works too. Stylish, eerie and smart enough not to explain itself into a coma.
My biggest issue with this film is the title: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. Who is Lee Cronin to be putting his name in front of The Mummy like he dug it up personally? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein makes sense. Bram Stoker’s Dracula makes sense. Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas makes sense. Lee Cronin? You are not Alfred Hitchcock or John Carpenter. You are not even at the “guy whose name I mispronounce at a horror convention” level yet. Get a few more classics under your belt before embossing your name on the tomb. Still, I had a good time. This probably won’t be dug up in 20 years as a lost horror masterpiece but it is an entertaining cursed movie that will almost certainly ruin at least one REM cycle tonight. It belongs exactly where it will someday end up: on AMC FearFest, wedged between The Omen and Halloween 4, terrifying someone folding laundry at 1:13 a.m.
Honestly? That’s not a bad afterlife.