Curiosity Inc.

For the past couple decades, Universal has been desperately trying to revitalize their Universal Monsters stable. It hasn’t gone well. Sure, the Leigh Whannell remake of The Invisible Man was awesome, and their “Monsters Unchained” theme park ride remains a groundbreaking smash, but their failures have been far more notable than their successes (just ask Julia Garner, Tom Cruise, Luke Evans, Benicio Del Toro, Hugh Jackman…).

At this point, Universal is going all the way back to their last, best, most beloved Universal Monsters film that reached the lucrative level of world-conquering franchise success that Universal has been chasing for the past 16 years: Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy. On paper, it makes sense. Brendan Fraser is having a massive career resurgence, there’s a huge nostalgic boom for the time when the first two films came out, and Universal got Radio Silence — arguably the biggest names in action/horror/comedy right now — to get it made.

Just one problem: Somebody finally remembered that Universal doesn’t own mummies. It’s kinda hard to hold a copyright on a method of corpse disposal that’s been around since pretty much the dawn of civilization.

So here we are with New Line beating them to the punch, releasing Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, legally distinct (the best kind of distinct) from the far more iconic titles out of Universal. Even better, they brought along James Wan and Blumhouse to produce the film. But who is Lee Cronin? Well, he’s a filmmaker who hasn’t made much except for one wildly acclaimed franchise horror picture from 2023. In fact, that picture was so successful, he’s exec-producing both of the upcoming sequels.

Problem: That 2023 movie was Evil Dead Rise. Why is that a problem? We’ll come back to that.

We lay our scene in modern-day Cairo, where Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) is working as an overseas journalist while his wife Larissa (Laura Costa) works as a nurse. Things are going well enough until their young daughter (Katie, played by Emily Mitchell) gets kidnapped. And the local Egyptian police bungle the case. Oh, and the resulting legal complications mean that Charlie has to miss out on a prime job in NYC, for that extra kick in the teeth.

Cut to eight years later. The Cannon family has relocated to Albuquerque, where Charlie is now a local news producer. Their son (Sebastian, played by Shylo Molina) has grown into a moody teenager, and there’s now a young daughter (Maud, played by Billie Roy), who was in utero back in Cairo. Speaking of which, there was a plane crash back in Egypt (never explained), which leads to the discovery of Katie (now played by Natalie Grace), wrapped up in a huge eons-old sarcophagus.

Good news is, Katie’s alive and her vitals are strong. Bad news is, she looks like a major burn victim and she acts like she’s catatonic. Except when she’s acting demonic. Because Katie is, in fact, undead. Hilarity ensues.

So, let’s address the elephant in the room. 1) A main character has turned into an undead terror, that 2) verbally, physically, spiritually, and psychologically abuses the other characters, and 3) infects the other characters with similar demonic possession, leading to 4) grotesque body horror and gore effects, and so 5) the main characters have to get over their own desperately naive insistence that their loved ones can still be saved. Oh, and 6) pretty much all the action is limited to one house.

No getting around it, folks: This is an Evil Dead picture. The filmmakers promised to reinvent cinematic mummies, and they delivered by turning the mummies into goddamn Deadites. But there is one significant difference.

For the most part, the characters in each Evil Dead movie quite pointedly brought about their own downfall when they stupidly read from the big evil book made from human flesh. By contrast, the Cannon family did nothing wrong. They didn’t ask for their daughter to be kidnapped, they didn’t do anything overtly or unreasonably stupid, they didn’t do anything to deserve this shit.

Then again, that doesn’t stop Katie’s family from blaming each other and themselves. Yes, Charlie let Katie out of his sight for that one awful moment, but how was he supposed to know she wasn’t safe in their own backyard? And what about all the times when Katie’s mom was around, without knowing Katie was talking to some stranger? Sure, Seb and Katie knew that Katie was taking candy from a stranger and they both probably should’ve said something, but they were too young to know better.

And Maude… well, okay, Maude wasn’t even born yet, so she gets a pass.

The point is, the filmmakers leverage the mummification concept into a metaphor about family trauma. It’s a possession story specifically built for character drama by way of relatives directly confronting their grief and loss over this terrible awful thing that happened. On paper, it’s not a bad idea. And sure, this is a familiar theme for the Evil Dead films, but we don’t have the aforementioned self-inflicted stupidity to get in the way this time. But in practice, there are three big problems.

First of all, this development of these characters and themes calls for a soft and thoughtful touch. And the Evil Dead movies are anything but. So what we’ve got here is a film trying to use the gross-out, over-the-top, transgressive methods of a Sam Raimi picture with the atmospheric and high-brow sensibilities of a prestige horror flick. It doesn’t fit.

Which leads me to the second problem: This conceit is played out. The very notion of a family coping with grief and trauma by way of a monster has been a staple of prestige horror, literally since the modern concept of the genre was founded with the goddamn Babadook. Hell, Insidious and The Conjuring both spent multiple films exploring this lane, and those franchises have been retired for years at this point! (For now, at least.) This lane isn’t just well-trod, it’s a freaking ditch. You could fill it with water and float a canoe down that lane by now.

In turn, this brings us to the third major problem: This is a possession story, not a mummy story. What’s the difference? What defines a mummy story? That’s a surprisingly difficult question, considering how few mummy films have actually been made. But based on the more noteworthy films that have come out about mummies, I think there’s a deceptively easy answer: The focus on Ancient Egypt.

The classic Universal Monsters mummy film was built from the ground up around bridging the world of Ancient Egypt with the then-modern world of the 1930s. The Stephen Sommers movies had ancient Egyptian mythology directly baked in. Even with the ill-fated and misguided 2017 attempt, we got a terror from Ancient Egypt unleashed onto the modern world because relics from the time are getting stolen and destroyed as a result of the ongoing Middle East wars.

With the Lee Cronin attempt, all we get is a throwaway line about how law enforcement don’t want to look too closely at Ancient Egyptian artifacts or risk damaging them, providing a convenient way for human traffickers to smuggle victims in sarcophagi. One potentially fascinating bit of trivia that goes nowhere and has no impact on the plot. Aside from that, our only connection with Ancient Egypt is some vaguely defined fugazi demon that might as well have sprung from any other mythology out there.

Seriously, there’s no reason why this story had to center around Egypt. This film could’ve just as easily sent our family to Mexico and it would’ve made as much sense. (Yes, the Aztecs and Mayans both mummified their dead, look it up.) Hell, considering how quick and easy it apparently is to travel between New Mexico and Egypt in this picture, swapping Cairo for Guanajuato might’ve actually made more sense!

The world-building in this movie is so lackluster, it’s on par with movies that don’t even bother explaining where their demons came from (Smile and Bring Her Back both immediately come to mind). Because as far as the plot’s concerned, it doesn’t even slightly matter. And for a film that’s supposed to be about mummies, that’s unacceptable.

Of course, the cast is another major problem. Jack Reynor goes through pretty much the entire movie with the same expression on his face, ditto for Laia Costa. Veronica Falcon plays the grandmother like nobody could quite make up their minds as to how “comic relief” she should be. At least May Calamawy leaves an impression, though she’s underutilized as an Egyptian police detective, and the film cuts between her and the Cannon family in a way that badly disrupts the flow. It’s sad that the adults in this picture are all getting acted off the screen by the younger performers, but good for the kids, I suppose.

A title like Lee Cronin’s The Mummy makes two declarative statements: It’s a mummy film made to beat Universal at their own game; and Lee Cronin is an important filmmaker worth paying attention to. And both of those statements take on exceptional heft when such established producers as James Wan and Jason Blum are putting their names and reputations on the line. I don’t know if those expectations are fair, but it’s where the bar was set. And this picture falls well short of those expectations.

This movie doesn’t have anywhere near the sauce that it needed to prove itself or its writer/director as anything special. It’s not even a bad movie, necessarily, it’s just a dull and played-out retread of so many other prestige horror films about a family haunted by a possession. I’m honestly concerned about the damage this film could do to Lee Cronin’s career. The guy broke out in a big way with Evil Dead Rise, and when he tries to strike out on his own with his name literally part of the title, all he can do is fall back on a pale rehash of tricks he picked up from the Evil Dead franchise.

The end result is like using a hammer to try and fasten a screw. Cronin has to prove that he’s got more tools in his kit, or he’s in big trouble.

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