Lee Cronin's The Mummy - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Lee Cronin's The Mummy



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Whooooo boy, where do I begin with this one? Right off the bat, I’m going to have to admit that I totally missed on who the director was when I went into the film. I read “Lee Cronin” and my caffeine-deprived brain read that as “isn’t that David Cronenberg’s son?” (yeah, I know, Cronin and Cronenberg aren’t that similar, but that’s what my brain told me), “I liked his last works! I should check this out!” Only to get 30 minutes into the film and start wondering, “Why does this feel like a failed script for Evil Dead: Rise?”….then go to IMDB and realize my mistake, and the reason why it really felt like Evil Dead: Rise.

Much like my misconceptions about who the director was, I had a rather large misconception about the plot of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy in so much that I actually thought we were going to watch a movie about a mummy. Or, at least we would get more than “this girl woke up in a sarcophagus, so I guess we could call her a mummy”. Basically, the film is 95% The Exorcist, 3% Evil Dead: Rise, and about 2% a mummy movie. The film opens up with a family in Egypt nervously keeping an eye on a sarcophagus before the male person in the scene gets gutted by what seems like the powers of a VERY angry mummy. Fast forward years later, and we’re now focusing on the Cannon family, who are living in Egypt on a work visa. Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) is a news reporter working as a foreign correspondent in Egypt, but he and his wife Larissa (Laia Costa) just got the news that Charlie got a lucrative job in New York. Going out to tell their daughter Katie (Emily Mitchell at this point) the good news, Charlie gets there JUST in time to watch their next-door neighbor run off with her and vanish into the Egyptian bazaars.

8 years later, the Cannon family is still dealing with the aftereffects of Katie’s disappearance. The pair are living in their home state of New Mexico, with both Larissa and Charlie dealing with the PTSD of not knowing where their daughter is, or even why she was kidnapped. But the wait is over, as a downed plane crash outside Cairo reveals a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus that just so happens to house a very ALIVE Katie inside (now played by Natalie Grace). But while Katie is definitely alive, she is living in a state of malnutrition, damaged skin pigment from lack of life, and general mental detachment from reality. Desperate to get Katie back, the Cannons eagerly accept the young girl back into their home in hopes of rehabilitating her into the family, and hopefully giving the (now) 17-year-old girl a chance at life again. But the problem is, Katie is not exactly Katie anymore. Whatever the witch who stole (Hayat Kamille) her away did to her was more than just physical, as the young girl exhibits strange behavior, as well as the cropping up of mysterious and creepy happenings around the house.

As I said above, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is barely a mummy movie at all. Outside of the “curse” (which I’m not going to give away in the synopsis) and the fact that Katie was found in a sarcophagus, there is next to nothing “Mummy” related in the film. It’s much more of a demonic entity film, ala The Conjuring or The Exorcist, with a Middle Eastern twist to it more than anything. The opening scene sets some sort of loose rules for how this mummy movie plays out, and then abandons them for a gore fest and tonal shift that rivals Evil Dead: Rise to the point where I wondered if Lee Cronin was actually using elements from his Evil Dead attempts and repurposing them into this movie.

The first act of the film is slow and methodical, building up the reveal that Katie was actually mummified inside of a sarcophagus, and then having to figure out what exactly is wrong with her. Sure, the audience knows that she’s been possessed pretty early on, but watching Larissa and Charlie (and the rest of their family) figure it out was part of the fun. But the second and 3rd act of the movie just gets crazier and crazier as “Katie” starts to reveal her true powers. By the third act, we’re just going into straight-up shock horror, ala Evil Dead: Rise, with dialogue that feels ripped out of the same movie (the line near the end of “I’m her daddy now” really feels like it would be spoken from a deadite right to Bruce Campbell’s face). The silliness doesn’t stop there, as we get a finale to the movie that is more hilarious than it is scary, and leaves you wondering why this movie even had the name “The Mummy” attached to it.




Rating:

Rated R for strong disturbing violent content, gore, language, and brief drug use




4K Video: Video:

While the movie isn’t that hot, the 2160p image is certainly a gorgeous one. Shot digitally and transferred to a native 4K DI for the home video release, the 4K UHD disc looks generally stunning. Featuring a heavily muted color palette with lots of browns and sandy textures, there ARE some bright moments in the film. Mostly outside in the Egyptian desert, with the greenery of the oasis and the Nectarine farm. Inside the houses it’s more grungy, with browns and muted primary colors with light pastels. That being said, clarity is still razor sharp and fine details abound everywhere. Black levels are deep and inky, and the Dolby Vision application does a great job with the colors, adding subtle punch here and there, as well as keeping the grungy interiors from artifacting.






Audio:

And topping everything off is a near-perfect Dolby Atmos track that really brings down the house. This is on the hotter and more aggressive side, with lots of thumps and bumps in the night to keep the LFE and surrounds working overtime. Whether it’s the roaring sandstorm or the thumping of Katie’s wheelchair as it goes up the stairs, LFE is given in spades. Thumps and bumps are more like crashes and deep thuds, and the overall ambiance in the score really makes good use of the low end. The surrounds and overheads get used like crazy in the sand storm, and during the hijinks with Katie in the house we get some really good discrete usage that makes great use of channel separation. Dynamic range remains high, and except for a few moments where I thought the LFE could be a BIT better, this was a near-perfect track.

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Extras:

• Audio Commentary by Writer/Director/Executive Producer Lee Cronin
• The Making of Lee Cronin's The Mummy - Director Lee Cronin reveals his striking vision for a terrifying new mummy tale of heart and horror. Explore the film's claustrophobic atmosphere and meticulous filmmaking as it delivers emotion and relentless terror
• A Bloody and Grotesque Spectacle - Blood, bugs and toenails fuel this inside look at the film's wild SFX and practical filmmaking magic! Cast and crew also reveal how Natalie Grace transforms into a demon-possessed vessel through intense prosthetics and chilling physicality.
• Possession and Ancient Demons - Explore the story's Egyptian roots and demonic rituals. Detective Zaki and the family investigate Katie's disappearance as the cast reveals the visceral reality of filming possession and terror while building the film's many unforgettable scenes.
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

Was Lee Cronin’s The Mummy a horrible movie? Oh yeah, it’s pretty garbage right off the bat. But was it schlocky and FUN though? Nah, this was just a wasted attempt all the way around. I wanted to like it, and liked some of the shock body horror that happens in the third movie, but the film has a hard time nailing down an identity, instead bouncing around tonally until it finally just settles on being a modern Evil Dead clone. The 4K UHD looks and sounds great, with some reasonable extras, so fans of the film will certainly be pleased with the presentation. The rest of us will just skip it.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamway, Natalie Grace
Directed by: Lee Cronin
Written by: Lee Cronin
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Warner Bro's
Rated: R
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 14th, 2026

Recommendation: Rental