Cronin\u2019s first feature was the independent horror film The Hole in the Ground<\/a> (2019), which was a confident and capable outing. Like several other first-time filmmakers of independent horror film in the 2010s (Mike Flanagan, Corin Hardy, Rose Glass) Cronin was rapidly courted by Hollywood. He was then handed the reins of the most recent instalment of Sam Raimi\u2019s well-loved Evil Dead series. Cronin wrote and directed the savvy, elementally terrifying Evil Dead Rise (2023)<\/a>, which transported that franchise from its familiar cabin-in-the-woods setting to an urban high rise with brilliant results. His third feature isn\u2019t up to par with these, sadly.<\/p>\n In The Mummy\u2019s harrowing opening, every parent\u2019s worst nightmare is realised as nine-year-old Katie is snatched by a stranger who entices her with sweets at the bottom of the family\u2019s garden in Cairo. The action cuts to eight years later and Katie is found alive having been mummified \u2013 buried in an Egyptian sarcophagus wrapped in bandages. The returned Katie is erratic, non-verbal and animalistic, needing attentive care.<\/p>\n In the build-up to revelations about what Katie has endured and how she has remained alive, her parents face the challenges of caring for a child with significant physical and behavioural needs. Played differently, this theme could be explored with sensitivity and insight. However, in an early scene that foreshadows the kind of excessive body horror that Cronin is heading towards in the film\u2019s climactic scenes, the parents try to clip Katie\u2019s overgrown toenail, resulting in the gruesome peeling off of her leg\u2019s atrophied skin. <\/p>\n This harrowing scene sets the film\u2019s tone. Cronin is far more interested in pummelling his audience with relentless gore and shallow shock tactics that seriously exploring the story\u2019s themes. <\/p>\n The Mummy revisits familiar tropes from horror classics rather than searching for its own identity. Eventually, and far too conventionally, the film\u2019s focus on the creepy possessed child owes far more to the well-worn tactics of The Exorcist<\/a>(1973). Like The Exorcist\u2019s Regan, Katie\u2019s body contorts and she becomes vicious and foul-mouthed. Modern special effects bring to life her abject bodily fluids vividly. While Cronin drew from The Exorcist enjoyably in Evil Dead Rise, threats to the American family are rehashed less successfully here.<\/p>\n Horror can be a powerful way to explore themes of parental sacrifice and struggle sensitively and meaningfully. Jennifer Kent\u2019s sublime and influential The Babadook<\/a> (2014) reworked the conventions of uncanny horror to produce an empathetic and moving depiction of a grieving mother caring for a child with psychological needs. Cronin\u2019s breakout The Hole in the Ground was reminiscent of Kent\u2019s film for its depiction of a mother faced with her son\u2019s increasingly erratic and disturbing behaviour. It is difficult to imagine, however, how a horror film in The Mummy\u2019s mode of intense gore and aggressive violence could bear the weight of the topic.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/280957\/count.gif\")
<\/p>\n