Review: 'Lee Cronin's The Mummy' offers new twist on classic franchise

Leaving a showing of "Lee Cronin’s The Mummy," you’ll surely be talking about the funeral scene.

Not much can be said about it without spoiling the shock value, but here’s a nondetailed summary: It’s transgressive, anarchic and nicely staged, with each sick joke piled atop an even sicker one. It comes as quite a stomach turner, too, contributing mightily to the film’s well-earned R rating.

At the same time, it sticks out like a bandaged thumb in "The Mummy," a horror film that otherwise comes on with a serious intensity. Written and directed by Irish filmmaker Cronin, "The Mummy" presents an American family in Cairo whose little girl, Katie (Emily Mitchell), is abducted. Years later, her dad Charlie (Jack Reynor) and mom Larissa (Laia Costa) learn that she’s been kept in ancient sarcophagus — horribly mummified but somehow alive. Brought back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Katie (now played by Natalie Grace) is clearly no longer herself. What’s more, she seems intent on destroying her family.

That’s such an inventive twist on the "Mummy" franchise, launched by Universal Pictures with Boris Karloff in 1932, that Cronin’s film seems only nominally part of it. Over the past dozen-plus movies, the central mummies were ancient priests, princesses, emperors and such, just as they were throughout history; Cronin’s version both modernizes and democratizes the mummy. His film also works as a metaphor for any family raising a challenged or difficult child: Katie, filthy and sullen, withdrawn yet destructive, requires so much love and care that Charlie and Larissa have little left for each other or their two other children (Shylo Molina and Billie Roy). The realism within the horror may be one reason that funeral scene feels lifted from another movie.

Katie’s bedtime seizures, foul-mouthed curses and prodigious vomitus, all stolen from 1973’s "The Exorcist," are not exactly the freshest ideas. Cronin also indulges in a fair amount of insect-munching which, though never explained within the story, is an easy reaction getter. Then again, Cronin makes great use of Verónica Falcón, a Mexican actress who plays Carmen, Katie’s patient and prayerful grandmother. Balancing earthy humor with deadpan horror-slapstick, Falcón just about steals every scene. May Calamawy balances her out as Zaki, a steely Cairo detective who brings a bit of "The Silence of the Lambs" to the proceedings.

Though "The Mummy" may not be as artful as recent "elevated horror" titles like "Sinners," "Weapons" and "The Substance," it’s still a sight more creative than the usual studio fare. In an increasingly crowded genre, "The Mummy" manages to make an impression.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com