LEE CRONIN'S THE MUMMY -- Unearthed Disappointment

Review by Chadd Clubine

If a last-minute review embargo wasn’t already cause for concern, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy more than justifies it. Defying expectations for all the wrong reasons, it lands as one of the year’s biggest disappointments. That’s especially frustrating given how strong this year’s horror slate has been shaping up—and how effective Evil Dead Rise proved Lee Cronin can be. Here, though, Cronin seems stuck repeating himself, stretching familiar ideas into a film that’s overlong, uneven, and often unintentionally funny.

Many viewers will walk away talking about how gross the film is—and to be fair, it delivers plenty of grotesque moments that echo what made Evil Dead Rise so effective. Unfortunately, that’s about where the horror begins and ends. Genuine scares are few and far between, and the film’s tone constantly lurches between competing storylines, making it difficult to build any real tension. Instead of deepening the fear, the back-and-forth structure only drags out the runtime. Of the two threads, the one set in Egypt is the only one that’s even remotely compelling. It raises the obvious question: why didn’t the film just stay there? Choosing not to feels like a major missed opportunity.
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Going from Evil Dead Rise to this feels less like a natural evolution and more like Lee Cronin rushing to his next assignment. It’s understandable—he’s a working director—but the result plays more like an attempt to replicate past success than to build something meaningful. Much of what worked before already drew heavily from earlier influences, and here Cronin leans even further into that familiarity without shaping it into a story that feels distinct or thematically purposeful. At over two hours, the film takes far too long to reach the kind of visceral impact he handled so well before. By the time it finally gets there, it barely matters—the momentum is gone, and the damage has already been done.

For a film marketed heavily as horror, it’s striking how little actual fear it delivers. Large portions are shot in broad daylight, and despite the promise of big scares in the marketing, they rarely materialize. Instead, the direction often drains tension from moments that should feel unsettling, landing in the territory of a forgettable, almost unintentionally funny genre entry that feels more like a January dump than a serious horror release. Character behavior only adds to the problem. Decisions frequently don’t track from one scene to the next, and with so little characterization or chemistry, it’s hard to invest in anyone on screen. The husband and wife barely register as a believable couple, and their choices often contradict themselves so quickly that you start wondering why the obvious option wasn’t taken in the first place. On top of that, the dialogue is clumsy and difficult to sit through. Altogether, the film seems to tick off nearly every common horror misstep without ever finding a convincing rhythm of its own.

What keeps the film from sinking even lower is the occasional glimpse of what Lee Cronin is capable of. There’s an ambition to the project—and in some ways, it feels like it could end up being a defining entry in his career—but there are still flashes that explain why he’s been trusted with large-scale horror in the first place. The decision to set part of the story in Egypt is, on paper, a strong one, but it’s ultimately underused, fading into the background of a narrative that never fully commits to it. Visually, there are moments where the camera work stands out, occasionally evoking the kinetic energy of Sam Raimi, which makes sense given Cronin’s previous work on Evil Dead Rise. But when the most memorable aspects feel so closely tied to established influences, it raises a larger question about authorship. Without a clearer, more distinctive voice, the film struggles to separate itself from the inspiration that shaped it.

Overall, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy stands as one of the year’s most disappointing releases. Rather than delivering something inventive or creatively bold, Lee Cronin leans on familiar horror clichés with surprisingly little effective horror to support them. The film also runs far too long, often slipping into unintended humor instead of building real tension or atmosphere. What should feel like a fresh reimagining ends up feeling strained and overly familiar, lacking the originality needed to justify its runtime or its ambitions. At this point, it might be best to leave anything “Mummy”-related alone until a more inspired take arrives.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy is in theaters April 17th!

RATING: 1/5