When it was announced that Blumhouse and James Wan would be producing a movie called “The Mummy,” I had assumed it was part of Blumhouse's on-going wave of reboots of the classic Universal Monsters. After all, the mummy is one of those characters. Director Lee Cronin is a hot, up-and-coming name in the genre, much the way the other filmmakers involved with these projects have been. However, at some point, I noticed something very odd: Universal was not involved in the production, nor distribution, of this “Mummy.” Instead, this was a Warner Bros/New Line Pictures release. In fact, shortly after teaser trailers started to come out for this film, Universal announced a third sequel to the Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weiz “Mummy” series. The director – still far from a household name, even among genre fans – would have his name amended to the title to further distinguish it from past “Mummy” films. The official Blumhouse account on the website formally known as Twitter would, in the days leading up to the April release, repeatedly clarify that Fraser was not involved in this film. This was, apparently, a source of confusion for test audiences. I assume the film began development at Universal before, for whatever reason, Blumhouse and team were allowed to take the project else where. I can assume Universal signed off on all this to some degree as “The Mummy” is a title that originated with them, even if the general concept of mummies obviously did not. Ultimately, “Lee Cronin's The Mummy” does not acknowledge the 1933 Boris Karloff film nor any of its sequels or remakes in its credits at all.
It's certainly a particular case, leading some to wonder if cross studio sabotage or something wasn't in play here. It would seem to me that this was very much intended to be an edgy, modern revival of the classic film that, through various contractual shenanigans, had to sever all legal connection to that original... Though weirdly not quite changing its title, which you would expect to be the first thing to go. That I was thinking about this so much in the lead-up to the film's release seem to obscure what should be a more pressing issue: Namely, whether the film was any good. This was certainly a question after I saw the divisive reaction to this “Mummy.” The chief complaint, not dissimilar to what people said about Leigh Whannell's “Wolf Man,” was that this wasn't much of a mummy movie at all. Presumably, this was another factor in the film parting ways with Universal. Cronin's “Evil Dead Rise” impressed me enough to allow him the benefit of the doubt. Let me now consider this film, which is not a remake or reboot of past “Mummy” movies in any way despite the unavoidable feeling that it actually, most definitely is.
Charlie Cannon and his wife Larissa are expecting their third child. The family, including eldest daughter Katie and middle son Sebastian, currently live in Cairo, Egypt, where Charlie works as a television reporter. After Larissa leaves for her own job one morning, Charlie is approached in the family garden by a mysterious woman who hands her a fruit. This would be the last time Charlie and Larissa would see Katie, their daughter disappearing. Years later, the family – which now includes eight year old Maud – are living in New Mexico with Larissa's mother. This is when they receive some shocking news: A plane carrying a black sarcophagus crashed in Aswan, Egypt. Inside the casket was a mummy... Who was a very much still alive Katie. Charlie and Larissa are overjoyed but years of apparent isolation have left Katie catatonic, physically twisted, and prone to violent behavior. It soon becomes apparent that something is wrong with their daughter. A detective in Cairo attempts to find out what happened to Katie, uncovering an occult conspiracy around the girl. Charlie and Larissa, and everyone else in the household, soon discover how much Katie has been changed.
Whatever other issues I have with Lee Cronin's “Lee Cronin's The Mummy,” I do think the film has an interesting initial premise and a decent first act. This is, at the start, the story of parents having to grapple with the unpleasant fact that their daughter is now a mummy. That is to say, something petrified into a suspended state – Katie seems to have aged very little during her time in the casket – and something that is dead. The family tries to treat the girl like she's going to get better eventually. That normal life will resume at some point. This ignores that her body and mind have irrevocably been altered, her limbs twisted, her skin grey, her face locked in a dazed expression. Parallels to a loved one developing a mental illness, chronic condition, or terminal disease are obvious. Before Katie is returned home, we see that her mom has preserved her bedroom perfectly during the years she was gone. Human beings have a tendency to cling to the past, to be unwilling to move on from what they love and admit that what's gone is gone. In other words: Katie is dead, the way all of us are going to rot and decay someday. Her family just doesn't know it yet.
As a reinvention of the hoary cliché of a shambling corpse wrapped in bandages, that's a decent take. However, the longer this “Mummy” goes on, the more apparent it becomes that Cronin's script is not that concerned with subverting cliches. Midway through the film, Charlie consults an Egyptologist about bandages covered in ancient writing he peeled off his daughter's body. This leads to exposition about an ancient demon that corrupts the family and must be warded off with ritual and spells. This immediately stuck in my folklore nerd teeth. The classical Egyptians did not believe in demons, not in the Judeo-Christian sense. They had household spirits, guardian deities, and detested gods but not invisible bogeymen that crawled into living bodies. The villain of Cronin's “Mummy” is identified as "the Nasmaranian," an invention of the filmmaker. A little later on, the film features another exposition dump in the form of a forbidden VHS tape depicting profane rites. This has fast become a cliché in horror, last seen in “Bring Her Back” and “Together.” The footage has the ritual performed by people in wooden, undefined masks, which has become the standard uniform for weird cults in modern folk horror movies. Damn, Lee, you couldn't have put some Anubis masks or something in there? Some connection to the rich world of ancient Egyptian mythology? Which is unexplored in film and was absolutely obsessed with the separation of the soul and the body, the state of the flesh after death, and the associated rites? Seems like a massive missed oppretunity to me.
In its second half, it becomes clearer that Cronin idea of reinventing the mummy seems to amount to ripping off “The Exorcist” and “The Evil Dead.” Katie's voice is soon distorted into a demonic baritone. She says inappropriate things, a habit soon picked up by her siblings. There's levitation and vomit and a profaning of Christian symbols and a body tossed through an upstairs bedroom mirror. Not only is it all stuff we've seen before, it is reenacted in a listless fashion. Simply put, I don't find little kids swearing nor dodgy CGI telekinesis to be scary. Once the film turns more towards the idea of its villain spreading a malicious virus of corruption around the whole household, extending to the recently deceased, it feels like Cronin is reheating his “Evil Dead Rise” leftovers. That's when I noticed that this is Cronin's third film in a row about a loved one coming back “wrong.” Seriously suggesting that the guy doesn't have nearly enough ideas to earn having his name above the title.
That Cronin is mostly regurgitating ideas from better movies is all the more disappointing. The guy is good at some things. Namely, the deployment of sickening gore and bodily mutilation. When Katie is first returned home, I actively wondered for a bit if actress Natalie Grace was under heavy make-up or had been completely replaced with a life-like puppet. Post-mummified Katie looks freaky as hell. The film packs in several teeth clenching moments. The showstopper involves a simple toe nail clipping going horribly wrong but a later bit, in which a scorpion takes a very direct escape route, also got a good reaction out of me. The film is full of blood and vomit, often projected into people's faces. A gut ripped open by a pack of coyotes is quite nasty. These moments are delivered with the kind of propulsive shock that the rest of the movie's attempts at scares lack.
While the grisly violence is where Cronin's film excels, he's not able to establish the same ambiance of isolation that he did in “Evil Dead Rise.” You'd think the New Mexican desert location would achieve that but nobody seems to have much trouble getting back and forth from the home. Cinematographer Dave Garbett applies a piss yellow tinted color filter to far too much of the film, creating an increasingly dour mood with little energy behind it. Stephen McKeon's score hammers on the loud musical stings, which seems to foretell an increasingly reliance on tacky CGI before the end. The film's primary visual gimmick is a high number of split diopter shots. Their frequency begins to feel like a running joke quite quickly. The cast isn't bad, with May Calamawy as the detective giving a decent performance, but the familial drama in the story never feels natural.
Lastly, what of those complaints that “Lee Cronin's The Mummy” is not much of a mummy movie either? I believe the premise of a mummified Egyptian corpse is wide enough to encompass a lot of ideas. After all, the 1933 film mostly features Imhotep minus his bandages. Cronin's film does indeed feature a mummified body, one wrapped in bandages too. However, this feels incidental to the demonic possession story the film is actually telling. Ultimately, this is more of generic folk horror movie, too cowardly to pull from actual folklore, wrapped around an incredibly underwhelming “Exorcist” wannabe. I'm forced to conclude that there's simply not much mummy in “Lee Cronin's The Mummy.”I don't know what secret sauce the guy had on “Rise” but it's been lacking in his other features. Considering the most successful and well received of the recent classic monster remakes – Egger's “Nosferatu” and del Toro's “Frankenstein – were highly personalized but nevertheless straight-forward adaptations of the material, maybe these archetypes do not need radical reinventions after all. [5/10]
It's certainly a particular case, leading some to wonder if cross studio sabotage or something wasn't in play here. It would seem to me that this was very much intended to be an edgy, modern revival of the classic film that, through various contractual shenanigans, had to sever all legal connection to that original... Though weirdly not quite changing its title, which you would expect to be the first thing to go. That I was thinking about this so much in the lead-up to the film's release seem to obscure what should be a more pressing issue: Namely, whether the film was any good. This was certainly a question after I saw the divisive reaction to this “Mummy.” The chief complaint, not dissimilar to what people said about Leigh Whannell's “Wolf Man,” was that this wasn't much of a mummy movie at all. Presumably, this was another factor in the film parting ways with Universal. Cronin's “Evil Dead Rise” impressed me enough to allow him the benefit of the doubt. Let me now consider this film, which is not a remake or reboot of past “Mummy” movies in any way despite the unavoidable feeling that it actually, most definitely is.
Whatever other issues I have with Lee Cronin's “Lee Cronin's The Mummy,” I do think the film has an interesting initial premise and a decent first act. This is, at the start, the story of parents having to grapple with the unpleasant fact that their daughter is now a mummy. That is to say, something petrified into a suspended state – Katie seems to have aged very little during her time in the casket – and something that is dead. The family tries to treat the girl like she's going to get better eventually. That normal life will resume at some point. This ignores that her body and mind have irrevocably been altered, her limbs twisted, her skin grey, her face locked in a dazed expression. Parallels to a loved one developing a mental illness, chronic condition, or terminal disease are obvious. Before Katie is returned home, we see that her mom has preserved her bedroom perfectly during the years she was gone. Human beings have a tendency to cling to the past, to be unwilling to move on from what they love and admit that what's gone is gone. In other words: Katie is dead, the way all of us are going to rot and decay someday. Her family just doesn't know it yet.
In its second half, it becomes clearer that Cronin idea of reinventing the mummy seems to amount to ripping off “The Exorcist” and “The Evil Dead.” Katie's voice is soon distorted into a demonic baritone. She says inappropriate things, a habit soon picked up by her siblings. There's levitation and vomit and a profaning of Christian symbols and a body tossed through an upstairs bedroom mirror. Not only is it all stuff we've seen before, it is reenacted in a listless fashion. Simply put, I don't find little kids swearing nor dodgy CGI telekinesis to be scary. Once the film turns more towards the idea of its villain spreading a malicious virus of corruption around the whole household, extending to the recently deceased, it feels like Cronin is reheating his “Evil Dead Rise” leftovers. That's when I noticed that this is Cronin's third film in a row about a loved one coming back “wrong.” Seriously suggesting that the guy doesn't have nearly enough ideas to earn having his name above the title.
While the grisly violence is where Cronin's film excels, he's not able to establish the same ambiance of isolation that he did in “Evil Dead Rise.” You'd think the New Mexican desert location would achieve that but nobody seems to have much trouble getting back and forth from the home. Cinematographer Dave Garbett applies a piss yellow tinted color filter to far too much of the film, creating an increasingly dour mood with little energy behind it. Stephen McKeon's score hammers on the loud musical stings, which seems to foretell an increasingly reliance on tacky CGI before the end. The film's primary visual gimmick is a high number of split diopter shots. Their frequency begins to feel like a running joke quite quickly. The cast isn't bad, with May Calamawy as the detective giving a decent performance, but the familial drama in the story never feels natural.
Panna a netvor
In "The Epic of Gilgamesh," the titular warrior king has an enemies-to-best-bros arc with Enkidu. Enkidu is born as a horned, hairy wild man, who lives among the animals and acts as they do. A "sacred prostitute" named Shamhat is sent to lure Enkidu out of the wilderness. She successfully does so and, after two weeks of nightly love making, the wild man is civilized. He starts wearing clothes and everything. Yes, the idea of a beautiful woman soothing the savage heart of a wild beast, teaching him to clean his act up if he's going to spend a night in her bed, dates back to the earliest work of narrative literature. This is, quite sincerely, a tale as old as time. Passing through earlier iterations like Psyche and Cupid and Thabaton and Keibu Keioina, the story arrived in its most famous form in 1740s France. That's when Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve wrote the fairy tale "La Belle et la Bête," later further distilled by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont into the iconic version. Countless direct adaptations and interpretations have followed since. While many tellings veer towards the whimsical side of the tale, the fact that the Beast must be a beast links the story to the gothic monster tradition. One such adaptation to especially emphasize this element was made in Czechoslovakia in 1978, by master of the uncanny Juraj Herz. In Czech, the title is "Panna a netvor," which literally translates as "The Virgin and the Monster," but most copies go with the better known name.
In this telling, the beauty is Julie, the youngest daughter of a merchant. After a shipment is destroyed by bandits while passing through the woods, her father travels abroad to sell the family's belongings. He asks his daughters if they would like him to bring any gifts back. His eldest two daughters, about to marry wealthy men, ask for jewels and pearls. Julie wants only her father to return safely and a single rose. Getting lost in the woods on his journey, , the merchant seeks shelter in a derelict castle. Inside, food and drink and treasures galore are offered to him by an unseen host... But when the man plucks a rose from the garden, he is accosted by the price of this manor, a victim of a curse that has turned him into a hideous amalgamation of man and hawk. When he explains that the rose is for his daughter, the beast asks for her instead. While the man refuses, a trade of hostages is still made. Julie arrives at the crumbling castle. The prince begins to court Julie from afar, unwilling to show her his monstrous face. Will Beauty fall in love with the Beast of her own accord or will he give into his blood lust for her?
In this telling, the beauty is Julie, the youngest daughter of a merchant. After a shipment is destroyed by bandits while passing through the woods, her father travels abroad to sell the family's belongings. He asks his daughters if they would like him to bring any gifts back. His eldest two daughters, about to marry wealthy men, ask for jewels and pearls. Julie wants only her father to return safely and a single rose. Getting lost in the woods on his journey, , the merchant seeks shelter in a derelict castle. Inside, food and drink and treasures galore are offered to him by an unseen host... But when the man plucks a rose from the garden, he is accosted by the price of this manor, a victim of a curse that has turned him into a hideous amalgamation of man and hawk. When he explains that the rose is for his daughter, the beast asks for her instead. While the man refuses, a trade of hostages is still made. Julie arrives at the crumbling castle. The prince begins to court Julie from afar, unwilling to show her his monstrous face. Will Beauty fall in love with the Beast of her own accord or will he give into his blood lust for her?
Everyone, except for the girl. Julie is played by Zdena Studenková, whose wide eyes suggest a doe-like innocence. Her golden hair and glowing skin provides a light in the foggy darkness of this world. She is satisfied with simple pleasures and cares most of all about people. Her dreams are of a beautiful, kindly prince and the pure, euphoric love they share. Herz' "Beauty and the Beast" has that Eastern European, Soviet-era dourness to it but that is essential for the message being sent. This Beast is troubled, far more than most takes, but he strives to be better. When his Belle returns to her father and siblings out of loneliness, he decides that he truly is as unworthy of love, of grace, of forgiveness as he believes and surrenders to misery. But Julie does return to him, does accept him, because she can see the kindness within. There's a powerful line near the end of the film, that "Every woman has the power to make the man she loves beautiful." It's easy to dunk on any version of the "Beauty and the Beast" as a defense of rape culture. Sending the moral that girls should tolerate abusive men because they are really a nice, sensitive guy deep down. That the onus is on the Belles of the world to be beautiful and forgiving, to nurture brutish men into suitable husbands. Herz' telling gets at a deeper truth, that this is a story of the restorative power of love. That empathy, understanding, and kindness can change anyone, no matter how damaged or outwardly fearsome, into a better person. That these values are especially worth striving for in a world that often only cares about what it can get out of someone.
It's a beautiful message, that love can change anyone. I'm not going to lie, I found myself relating to this Beast quite a lot. Herz' telling does include the castle servants being turned into the decor. However, instead of singing jaunty tunes, they watch ominously. They whisper to the prince, reinforcing every negative and self-hating thought he has. They urge him to kill and drink blood. That this is his nature and that being alone is his fate. When Julie's affection changes his claws back to hands, the voices mock him, saying he can't kill now and is accepted neither in the world of man or beast. Speaking as someone who has struggled with intrusive thoughts of self-loathing his entire life, this strikes me as a worthy metaphor. Of any peace of mind or chance for self-acceptance being spoiled by the nagging fear that you aren't good enough, that you deserve to be alone. His beastly appearance is a manifestation of his self hatred and his crumbling castle represents him sinking deeper into suffocating despair. The kindness of a stranger, someone beautiful loving him and seeing his worth under the years of self-inflicted scars and isolation, saves him. Not to bring up my impending nuptials yet again, but that spoke to me. I saw a lot of myself in this moldering bird-beast, given a light in the dark by the love of a fair maiden.
While ultimately optimistic, this telling resides soundly on the horror side of the genre. The sets for the castle are detailed and beautifully realized but also heavy on the debris and ruins. The fog in the first scene reoccurs throughout, often blanketing the ground. The score is heavy on the deep rumble of a pipe organ. It creates an atmosphere that is often deeply foreboding but also suitably dream-like. Julie explores these wrecked remains like the protagonist of a dream, wandering through always with curiosity and never fear. The often striking images – the Beast's raven eyes starring through the portrait of the girl's mother – further that twin feeling. Of being transported to a surreal realm but also one of danger and uncertainty. Of going into the deep, dark woods but emerging into the light on the other side.
I often see this "Beauty and the Beast" referred to as a "gothic" telling of the story. That's most true in the literary sense, in the way the real world and the dreamy world of the subconscious blend together, in its archetypal characters, and in its distinctively old world setting and ambiance. In the modern sense, this might also be among the most spiritually goth movies I've ever seen. There's no eye-shadow or Siouxsie Sioux lookalikes but the co-lead is a literal black bird, lingering in the darkness and tormented by despair but longing for salvation via the love of a beautiful girl. What lonely teenager, too fond of old movies and old books and Dracula capes, couldn't relate to that? Grand stuff, in other words. I loved it. May all your beasts be tamed by their beauties. [9/10]
While ultimately optimistic, this telling resides soundly on the horror side of the genre. The sets for the castle are detailed and beautifully realized but also heavy on the debris and ruins. The fog in the first scene reoccurs throughout, often blanketing the ground. The score is heavy on the deep rumble of a pipe organ. It creates an atmosphere that is often deeply foreboding but also suitably dream-like. Julie explores these wrecked remains like the protagonist of a dream, wandering through always with curiosity and never fear. The often striking images – the Beast's raven eyes starring through the portrait of the girl's mother – further that twin feeling. Of being transported to a surreal realm but also one of danger and uncertainty. Of going into the deep, dark woods but emerging into the light on the other side.
Two years ago, I was impressed with an episode of "Leap in the Dark." That's another partially lost British horror anthology show from the seventies, heavy on the haunted ambiance and influenced by local folklore. There's a surprising number of them! "To Kill a King" concerns Harry, a man living alone in an old seeming, largely wooden house. He seems to be an award-winning writer or poet. His career has been derailed by intense headaches and erratic moods, which he takes medication for. The spectre of a medieval maiden sings to him and he attempts to transcribe her words. When he shows what he's written to his visiting agent, it's all gibberish. When Harry's obnoxious sister visits, his voices and visions intensify.
Both "To Kill a King" and "The Living Grave" were from the final, 1980 season of "Leap in the Dark." It shows how experimental the BBC was willing to get by this point. "The Living Grave" was a quasi-mockumentary that felt like a proto-found footage film at times. "To Kill a King," meanwhile, resides further on the art house side of the spectrum. It never explains itself totally. Harry is clearly some sort of writer and obviously quite troubled but the nature of what he's experiencing is vague. The ghostly woman is never acknowledged by anyone. The people around him often speak in looping, almost nonsensical sentences. At one point, the agent and his sister have a conversation without moving their lips. The climax sees the protagonist surrounded by persecuting presences, people and spirits and voices and words. They insult his abilities as a writer and his worth as a person, calling him an "it" that something must be done about. Is Harry a schizophrenic, haunted by ghosts, or simply dreaming?
Garner's writing is highly influenced by the forests, folklore, and Cheshire dialect of the Manchester neighborhood he grew up in. This is evident in "To Kill a King" too. Not only in the finely observed and almost musical dialogue. The opening scene establishes this ancient cottage as positioned between a railway and a massive satellite dish. (Another indicator that our protagonist is receiving broadcast from another world.) The camera focuses on the arcane symbols carved into the wood the home is made of. All of this suggests that Harry lives in-between the past and the present, at a nexus point of the modern world and the deep well of spirits and stories this land stores. It's really fascinating stuff, if a bit oblique but well acted and with enough creepy atmosphere to satisfy this horror fan. It's a potent observation of the sometimes nerve-wracking process of of telling the tales that rattle around in a chaotic head. [9/10]
The eighth episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” seems to suggest that this show's heroes are instantly aware of any weird murder or strange event that happens nearby. The opening scene depicts a masked man slashing a street vendors throat with a scalpel before effortlessly cutting through a metal fence with the same tool. The next morning, the Curious Goods gang is immediately going through the store records to find a cursed artifact that matches this description. Sounds like this silver-bladed scalpel – that supposedly belonged to Jack the Ripper though I'm not sure how they would know that – that can cut through anything is the culprit. They quickly track the instrument to Dr. Vincent Howlett, a superstar surgeon who makes crowd-attracting spectacles of his operations. Howlett has recently been hired as a failing hospital. When Jack and the gang find him, a woman is attempting to murder the man. That's cause Howlett killed her daughter. Yes, the surgeon with the magical blade is also a serial killer, whose device will only heal patients on the operating table if it's also fed a regular supply of blood from murdered victims.
I'm starting to notice that the quality of any given episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” is tied to whether it has a decent villain or not. If the Baddie of the Week is a scheming padre or the ghost of Uncle Lawrence, you're probably in for a good time. If it's a pop star with a cursed tea cup, not so much. Luckily, “Doctor Jack” has probably the best adversary the series has provided so far. Cliff Gorman plays Dr. Howlett as hopelessly conceited and sure of his own abilities, much to the annoyance of the hospital official he's working for. At the same time, his blood lust seems uncontrollable. The guy almost comes across like a murder junkie, killing not because he wants to but because he has to. It's still a wild rush for the slasher though. This means Gorman gets to play multiple juicy angles. He's an asshole doctor and a crazed knife nut. He's also a Dr. Jekyll who wants to help people tangoing with a Hyde that wants to destroy life, making him kind of sympathetic too. He's a source of tension during scenes when he's stalking a random street walker but also the uncertainty you see in his eyes is compelling.
