BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Watching “Lee Cronin’s the Mummy” is like putting your face in a bucket of vomit. On some weird level you must admit that experience has a degree of originality to it because it would be something that doesn’t happen every day. At the same time, it is something you don’t want to happen any day unless you have an incredibly strong stomach.
It is important to have intestinal fortitude when Cronin directs a film because he has missed the entire concept of a horror movie. He has no idea how tight the pacing must be to build the proper amount of tension. Cronin has never faced a scene that couldn’t be drawn out to the point of tedium.
His big mistake is that instead of creating scares, he fills the screen with endless gore. The formula for a good horror movie is simple – the audience should be scared and not merely disgusted.
There was hope Cronin had found that formula in the early moments of “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.” The film starts with one of the most terrifying situations a parent can face – the abduction of a child.
Journalist Charlie (Jack Reynor) and his wife, Larissa (Laia Costa), are raising their young son and daughter in Cairo until the young daughter disappears into the desert without a trace. Fast forward eight years and the family is trying to move on while living in New Mexico. Getting from that initial terror of the kidnapping to the new location drains what little energy had been created early in the production.
That’s when they get the news their daughter has been found and she is alive. Here’s the good news, bad news. They have their daughter, Katie (Natalie Grace), back but she has been tortured using some type of mummifying methods.
This is the point where Cronin must stretch to keep the movie going. Katie is a mess, but mom is convinced she can be nursed back to health. No sane doctor would suggest that a patient in such dire condition will get better by merely going home with her family. But the gore must go on.
Cronin continues to lose focus as the film bounces between the family trying to deal with their demonic daughter and the Egyptian police officer (May Calamawy) trying to solve the case. Both play at such a tepid pace that all tension is gone.
There are a few efforts to get the film back on the horror track, but Cronin spends more time presenting scenes of savage attacks, flesh being stripped off a body like wrapping paper, impalement, cannibalism and an assortment of scenes that are so over the top they come very close to being comical.
What kills any humor is the lazy way Cronin tries to find sympathy with the audience. Filmmakers who resort to the torture of children have let themselves be drawn into the cheapest form of manipulation possible.
Fourth season last for Hallmark Channel’s ‘Way Home’
It is not scary to watch an eight-year-old girl spot the vilest of profanity or rip out her own teeth. It is disgusting to watch a young teen continuously bash his head on the furniture. It is stunning that anyone would see such moments as entertainment.
Even trying to hide the brutality of the film behind the façade of a family being torn apart by tragedy is a cinematic sham. It is all superfluous to the director’s purpose of taking that stand that gorging on gore will satisfy viewing appetites.
It doesn’t.
Cronin has a couple of films that were classified as horror to his credit. Those films were not the kind of massive hits that earned the director the right to have his name in the film title. If his style doesn’t change, at least Cronin’s name will be a warning sign that the film will always go for gore over any scary elements.
Given the option of seeing “Lee Cronin’s the Mummy” or that the bucket of vomit challenge, the choice should be very easy to make.
Movie review
Lee Cronin’s the Mummy
Grade: D-
Cast: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace and Shylo Molina.
Director: Lee Cronin
Rated: R for gore, drug use, language and violence.
Running time: 133 minutes.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
