The Mummy: Film Gang Review

0:00Lee Cronin's The Mummy, which has nothing to do with the franchise, opens with the parents worst nightmare. While living in Cairo, Charlie and Larissa, Jack Renoir and Lailla cost his eight-year-old daughter, Katie, Natalie Grace, is abducted from their backyard. Devastated, they eventually returned to Albuquerque and tried to rebuild their lives with their two remaining children. Eight years later, the U.S. Embassy calls, Katie has been found alive. Their joy evaporates when they learn she was discovered inside a sarcophagus, recovered after a plane crash. She severely malnourished, traumatized, and covered in strange inscriptions carved into her skin. A doctor insists she disnates love, patience, and time. Advice that feels wildly optimistic given the hints of supernatural possession. From here, the movie becomes the exorcist meets the Omen, with the dash of Chucky, Megan, and the Shining Thronin.

1:02The film briefly dips into ancient Egyptian lore, revealing that the markings relate to Nazmaranian, a demon said to destroy families, unless contained, through ritual mummification. Once those inscriptions begin to fade, Nazmaranian grows stronger, and the body count rises. This is the film's big inflection point, unleashing the wave of oversized insects, gruesome transformations, and blood and guts oozing from every orifice. Predictably, the movie leans on gooey over the top gore, and the family being terrorized in their creaky old house. Charlie, desperate for answers, teams up with former Ricky Detective, Dalia Zaki, May Kalamawi, whose involvement provides the story's only real threat of continuity. As Katie's presence intensifies, the family begins to unravel, and breaking the magician's spell becomes the only way out, though not without consequences.

2:04The performances are mostly as bland as watching newbies on CSI, with two exceptions, Veronica Falcon, as Katie's grandmother, and young Billy Roy, as Maud, Katie's youngest sister, who gives a surprisingly fierce, Linda Blair adjacent turn. Horror and fantasy fans may enjoy the jump scares, the campy chaos in the moments that make you laugh right after you flinch. For KSQD's film gang, this is Susan Lovegren.