If I didn’t know I was a bit of a queaseball before, I definitely do now.
This film can’t simply be called “scary,” as it sits somewhere between nauseating and deeply unsettling—enough to make me lose whatever appetite I had left.
It hits a point that feels jarring, although expertly stops short of burning into memory.
I might avoid deviled eggs for a while, but nothing passably malignant overstays its welcome past the car ride home.
It’s just that the film bends toward the most grating, repulsive fizzers rather than low-effort jumpscares, which I appreciate.
The close-up shots look extremely gnarly—especially the teeth exposure of just about every character—but not aggressive enough to trigger a visceral knee-jerk response cookie-cutter scares push for from cheap tactics.
I do get it though why most initial reactions of the film range from vomiting to crying, or both at the same time.
Valid. I had a few recoils myself. I rarely react in the cinema, but this one pulled out a couple of eye rolls and bye gestures from me.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy works itself up to something grotesque in the most skin-crawling degree. It has the gumption to go there.
It just never quite crosses into something that burrows any further than the surface, and maybe that’s its charm.
Any goosebumps you get might come from squick rather than spook.
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IS IT ANYTHING LIKE THE OTHER MUMMY MOVIES?
The only mistake a viewer can do when watching this is expecting it to be congruent with the Brendan Fraser-starrers in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Produced by Jason Blum and James Wan, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy makes it clear from the outset that it’s willing to abandon the tone of its predecessors.
Sure, there is an ode to the original franchise—a resident archaeologist, the Egyptian writings (hieroglyphics in the old one, hieratics in the new), the amount of scorpions present, raging sandstorms—but it is not exactly far removed from the context that the film was set in Cairo, Egypt either. The said tributes are low-hanging fruits.
Moreover, a few quadrobics from the villain protagonist past a certain point makes you forget about it being a mummy in the first place.
This reboot, or what Cronin likes to describe a “reimagining of The Mummy,” exhibits the creature as more demonic than mythological.
The impetus shifts fully toward themes of possession and contagion.
Picture yourself walking into an R-18 club and seeing strangers pass each other saliva-borne diseases.
This movie is exactly that but infernal. Wanna know what’s worse than demons? Ancient Egyptian demons.
They will get you to spread ritually-transmitted diseases.
Throughout its running time, what replays in my head over and over again is the viral Lee Min Ho meme: “disgarsteng shet!”
It’s not for the faint of heart.
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