Bloody Horror September

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

Maelstrom of horror and dread, original setting, recoil-worthy effects, 4.0 stars, 2HR 14MIN New Line Cinema, 2026

According to a Dead Meat internet interview, after his terrific turn in the Evil Dead series with Evil Dead Rise, writer/director Lee Cronin was inspired by a challenge from producer James Wan, “What about making a really terrifying mummy movie?” Rather than ancient royalty, the notion of an innocent modern person undergoing mummification intrigued Cronin and propelled him to envision new horror vistas. Given what he’s done with the arcs of the child characters in his previous works, Evil Dead Rise and The Ghost Train, it isn’t surprising that the victim here is a family’s 9-year-old daughter. A cliché, yes, Cronin’s film is not for the squeamish, but it is a major work that incorporates all the anguish-inducing tropes of a truly horrific film. I’ll detail the setup and describe some of its qualities.

New Line Cinema’s production music suddenly drops in tone, giving way to the Atomic Monster and Blumhouse labels. It’s 2018, and we’re in Cairo. An Egyptian family is riding home in a car, the father and children singing along to a pop song on the radio. The mother is driving, and she abruptly shuts off the car radio, “You’re giving me a headache.” This woman controls … maybe more than just her family.

As Cronin’s camera slowly approaches and enters the family’s home, the children notice their pet bird is dead and bloody. Alarmed, the parents tell the children to stay upstairs; they then descend to the basement, where an ominous pyramidal structure looms. Hieroglyphics cover the walls. Lamps are lit, and the father asks, “How will we know if it is time?” The mother says, “We’ll check.” The father cranks a heavy chain; a casket is raised. The mother peers in. The father asks, “Is he awake?” Lights flicker. I won’t describe more of this scene than to say that the subsequent carnage sets the film’s tone. Then, letter by letter, to a rising, rushing organ, LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY is ratcheted onto the screen.

We move to an American family living in Cairo, the Cannons. The father, Charlie (Jack Reynor), and his young daughter, Katie, are practicing Morse code. It’s a long film, and there are several expository scenes that set up the family dynamic. Reynor is good in the role. Throughout the film, his portrayals of care, bewilderment, horror, and resolve are convincing. You’ll go right along with his emotions.

Soon enough, Katie is playing with her dolls in the woods behind the house. The Egyptian mother from the pre-title sequence lures Katie from behind a wire fence. This Egyptian mother is a magician, and, you guessed it, in a whirlwind of dust, young Katie is abducted. The family’s search for Katie is fruitless and frustrated by dismissive Egyptian authorities who seem to think the family may be lying and that they are murderously responsible for their child’s disappearance.

Several years pass. The Cannon family is now living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the mother, father, two children, and mother-in-law. There are more scenes of family interaction. Back in Egypt, we see that a plane has crashed. After dramatic depictions of the bloody aftermath, it’s determined that an undisturbed casket is part of the plane’s cargo. Mummified teenage Katie is alive in the casket.

Cairo detective Zaki (May Calamawy, in another standout performance) notifies the Cannons, and their daughter is retrieved, but much isn’t right. Katie is near catatonic; her skin is pale and unnatural. She doesn’t speak but communicates in a dark, kinetic way. I’m going to leave it there. I’ve recapped the first 30 minutes of a 2+ hour movie. Will obvious questions be answered? What evil will emerge? Can control be regained? You’re traveling the nightmare road to horror.

The effects are practical, not animated, and you will cringe. There were scenes when I felt I didn’t want to see them, but in those moments I was invested and compelled to watch. Cronin’s editing occasionally seems out of order, but the narrative still flows logically. His settings are well crafted. Viewers are drawn in and experience the characters’ comforts and discomforts.

When I first mentioned this movie to Gary as a candidate, he said, “Well, it’s not a mummy movie, no mummy.” But of course, there is a mummy, and Cronin’s script is more original, dynamic, and horror-laden than previous mummy movies I’ve seen. It isn’t one I would watch often, but Cronin’s film is truly masterful. Screened separately by members of our biweekly Bloody Horror Friday club, I give it a strong 4 out of 5 stars.

The Severed Sun

Strict religious village undergoes paranoia and demonic reckoning, dynamic story, excellent perfs, sparse but good effects, 3.5 stars. 1HR 20MIN Grasp the Nettle Films, 2024

In 2017, writer/director Dean Puckett made the folk horror short The Sermon, exploring ideas of sex and control by a religious father figure. The short was commended by the British Film Institute. Wanting to fully develop and expand these themes to feature length, and inspired by the treatments of oppression in films like Blood on Satan’s Claw and Witchfinder General, he created the horror film The Severed Sun, his film debut. This is a provocative little film that incorporates notions of the supernatural and, as a morality tale, symbolically hints at a state of political affairs. Its key strengths are storytelling and acting. I’ll summarize the setup and describe some of its qualities.

Soft murmuring wind sounds play over the production and cast credits … and Toby Stephens buttons up the list. The murmuring grows louder as images of a bright moon descend in a dark sky. We hear Magpie (Emma Appleton) narrate a folk story about the moon’s love for the Sun. A church-hall organ swells. The narration concludes that the bastard child of the moon and the Sun “wakes from its slumber.” What? Does something not easily understood, perhaps supernatural, pervade us? Red letters on a black background, THE SEVERED SUN fades in.

In a shot almost like an oil painting, Magpie, her young son, and her older stepson sit at a dinner table in their modest wooden house. Wood beams traverse the ceiling; green foliage drapes from them. Magpie continues her voice-over narrative. She is waiting for her husband to join his family and drink the poison she has prepared. The husband, Howard, arrives, sits, and drinks his tea. Only then do the sons begin eating. There is no talking among them. We see that the older boy has a black eye, and he stares hard at his father. After a moment, Magpie asks, “Should we get that last stack chopped before the service?” The husband nods in approval.

Apparently the poison has yet to kick in; Howard, an axe slung over his shoulder, walks a path through the green woods toward the wood chopping to be done. Magpie follows two steps behind. But now Howard begins to falter. His body buckles; he drops the axe and clutches his stomach. He lies on the ground … motionless. Magpie watches him.

We cut to villagers, children and parents in plain dress, their heads covered with scarves and hats. They’re walking, then standing together in an open field for the service. Facing them, the Pastor (Stephens) conducts the service, “For all have sinned.” In a call-and-response, the gathering repeats the declaration. The Pastor is the town’s fire-and-brimstone father figure. In his sermon, he shouts that his congregation is invested with God’s morality. Viewers can intuit that these townspeople had best adhere to his doctrines, but under what penalty?

In parallel time, Magpie drags her husband’s body and angles his left arm onto a chopping block. Anguished, she raises the axe, “You had this coming, Howard.” The axe comes down, Howard’s hand comes off, but Magpie, now with blood on her face, is very strangely distracted. A fleeting demon appears: glowing eyes, a horned head, a dark body. Spellbound, Magpie reaches toward the demon. In the next scene, we learn that Magpie is the Pastor’s daughter. She told the collective that her husband’s death was due to a drunken accident. The Pastor is already thinking of a candidate, and planning for a new husband for his daughter. I won’t detail more, but gruesome deaths do follow.

This is a story of repressive control and perversion. Townsfolk, so indoctrinated by religious fear, turn inward on themselves and each other, in the style of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Puckett’s script suggests, not so subtly, that the supernatural beast is a metaphor for justice. Supernatural beasts don’t really exist, do they?

The cinematography is “Hammer”-esque. The horror and supernatural effects are minimal and brief, but less is more here. These actors are fantastic, especially Stephens. As with the best actors, his aura of quiet intensity is palpable. He makes the characters he portrays round, lifelike, and central, simply a reason to watch any project he’s in.

This one is brimming with quality. We gave The Severed Sun 3.5 out of 5 stars during our biweekly Bloody Horror Friday screenings.

68 Kill

Fast-paced, noirish crime jaunt; graphic and comedic; entertaining script and dialog; 4.0 stars. 1HR 33MIN Snowfort Pictures, 2017

Writer/director Trent Haaga wrote the script for Cheap Thrills (2013), a violent affair that draws on ideas from The Magic Christian (1969) and the Hitchcock episode “Man from the South.” He loved Brian Smith’s pulpy novel 68 Kill and wrote a screenplay adapting it into a darkly humorous crime romp. His resulting directorial debut, 68 Kill (2017), takes the viewer on a twisty, compelling road trip loaded with coarse sex and crime. I’ll detail the film’s setup and describe some of its qualities.

A fly is trapped in spilled honey as low-frequency guitar notes play. Chip (Mathew Gray Gubler) stares at sleeping Liza (AnnaLynne McCord) as they lie in bed. Haaga’s camera slowly glides across Liza’s curves, then focuses on Chip’s adoring face. “What the fuck are you staring at?” “You. You’re so beautiful.”

They sleepily rise and discuss the coming day’s tasks. Liza says she has to see “the fat fuck” today. Chip says he hates thinking about her being with Ken. We can fill in the blanks. Liza has to, let’s say ‘perform’ for Ken, “the rent’s due.” Haaga’s dialogue here and throughout the movie is super sleazy, and that’s part of why the film is so much fun to watch. McCord’s performance is seductive and compelling. She’s a bad girl with a capital “B,” and Chip is milk-toast around her. She completely dominates him. She even says it, “I’m a bad fucking girl,” and 68 Kill flashes across the screen in bold red letters on a black background.

Chip works for a sewage vacuum truck service. His co-worker, Clint, can’t stop talking about Liza’s looks and her past. Clint spills, “Each and every one of the mistakes I’ve made in the past can be blamed on one thing—“sweet pussy.”

The guitars are more prominent now, wilder, as Chip comes home from work. He calls for Liza. For Chip’s perusal, she brandishes 2 guns she got from her “psycho” brother, Dwayne. They have sex; she is totally masochistic. Later, she excitedly tells him the plan.

A flashback to her day’s ‘activities’ shows that she saw the combination to the safe that the “fat fuck” Ken paid her for. Ken let slip that he’s got “68 big ones” ($68,000) in the safe to buy a used Lamborghini. Liza to Chip, “We’re just going to slip in and, you know, take the money.” Chip asks why they need guns if they’re just going to slip in. But Liza insists, “It’s not a lot to think about, Chip. You shovel shit for a living; I suck dick. I’m sick of living like this.” She’s got a plan: “We’ll be in and out like nothing; I promise.” Chip, “… and nobody’ll get hurt, right?”

Well, that’s the first 14 minutes of the film. I leave it to the viewers to see how well the plan goes and the road-tripping mayhem that follows. For fans of graphic language, criminal behavior, and sleaze, it’s entertainment in the extreme. In this kind of movie, the primary characters (and the characters to come, don’t forget Dwayne) are two-dimensional but way off-kilter. The performances here are fitting … and eye-catching, especially McCord’s. She’s always an actress to watch. Her previous work in Excision (2012) was a revelation, and her work here is reason alone to see this film.

Haaga’s fast-moving script is breezy and enjoyable, with no moment to lose interest. His camera doesn’t shy away from sex and blood. As yet, we haven’t screened it at our biweekly Bloody Horror Friday Club. I give it 4.0 out of 5 stars on the dement-o-meter.

THE SHUDDERED SUN

garysvehla509@gmail.com

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