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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 Watching \u201cLee Cronin\u2019s the Mummy\u201d 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\u2019t happen every day. At the same time, it is something you don\u2019t want to happen any day unless you have an incredibly strong stomach.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t be drawn out to the point of tedium.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 the audience should be scared and not merely disgusted.<\/p>\n
There was hope Cronin had found that formula in the early moments of \u201cLee Cronin\u2019s The Mummy.\u201d The film starts with one of the most terrifying situations a parent can face \u2013 the abduction of a child.<\/p>\n
Watch 17 News, After Sunrise and more local news free on your smart TV. Click to learn more about KGET+ <\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when they get the news their daughter has been found and she is alive. Here\u2019s the good news, bad news. They have their daughter, Katie (Natalie Grace), back but she has been tortured using some type of mummifying methods.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n