{"id":137044,"date":"2026-05-23T02:04:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T05:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/stream-it-or-skip-it-3\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T02:04:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T05:04:50","slug":"stream-it-or-skip-it-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/stream-it-or-skip-it-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Stream It or Skip It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pinging the Qualitative Gore Index deep into the red this week is <\/em>Lee Cronin\u2019s The Mummy (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video<\/a>), a grosser-than-gross goop \u2018n\u2019 spew \u2018n\u2019 splatfest in which Lee Cronin is NOT the mummy, because that apostrophe functions as possessive, not as a contraction. The lite grammar lesson is a marked bonus for a movie that not only frequently tests our gag reflex, but also has us wondering: Who is Lee Cronin<\/a>, and why does he get the Tyler Perry-style pre-title treatment? Well, he got our stomachs churning with 2023\u2019s gloopstravaganza <\/em>Evil Dead Rise<\/a>. And his name is there so the film can differentiate itself from other undead-Egyptian-mythological-whatnot properties \u2013 the classic Boris Karloff horror film, the early-CGI blockbuster franchise starring Brendan Fraser<\/a>, the 2017 Tom Cruise dud<\/a> \u2013 and still market something familiar to audiences. And the result is an overcomplicated, overlong, logic-deprived mess that had me cackling at how disgusting it is.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Gist:<\/strong> This cold open scene \u2013 well, it\u2019s mostly pointless. Just notch the reveal of a small pyramid structure and a sarcophagus in a dungeon-like cellar for later reference, and move on to the real story here, about the Cannon family. They live in Cairo. Charlie (Jack Raynor) is a TV news reporter, Larissa (Laia Costa) is a nurse, and they have two kids, Seb (Dean Allen Williams) and Katie (Emily Mitchell), with a third pending. One fateful day, little Katie is lured to a secluded corner of the yard by a strange woman (Hayat Kamille), baiting her with candy. The woman hands Katie a tangerine and a large beetle emerges from it and forces itself into Katie\u2019s mouth. The woman snatches the girl and scampers off, Charlie on her tail. But a sandstorm whips up and Charlie loses her and Detective Dalia (May Calamawy) is on the case but she gets nowhere and bang<\/em>: EIGHT YEARS LATER, reads a subtitle. No happy ending for this one.<\/p>\n

At this point, the Cannons have resettled in America, specifically at the big isolated desert home near Albuquerque, where Larissa grew up. The family lives with her mother, Carmen (Veronica Falcon), Seb is now played by Shylo Molina, and their new daughter is Maud (Billie Roy). Life goes on. Back in Egypt, a dude fixes is bike as a plane plummets from the sky behind him and when he checks the wreck the most disturbing thing he finds is not a man impaled through the face on a tree limb with an eyeball on the ground, but that same sarcophagus from the cold open. Curious. Officials retrieve it and crack it open to find teenage Katie (Natalie Grace) in there, against-all-odds alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now of course Larissa and Charlie want their daughter back and love her unconditionally, but the state Katie\u2019s in should have them pondering some conditions. She ain\u2019t all there mentally, her skin is leathery, her gaze is vacant in a terrifyingly malevolent kind of way and I don\u2019t even want to get into the toenail situation. Doctors say she just needs to be comfy at home to rest and heal up and she\u2019ll be just fine and I say the Cannons should get a second opinion, possibly from an exorcist, but they can\u2019t hear me through the TV screen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First thing Katie does when she gets home is headbutt Grandma and do a crackity-bones body contortion that requires Larissa to hit the kid with the ol\u2019 epi-pen tranquilizer \u2013 and yet her parents insist that they can take care of her just fine. Now, this is one of those Movie Houses with significant space behind the walls for some reason, and that reason is so the family can hear thumping noises and go back there and chase Katie through dimly lit, heavily cobwebbed corridors until she finds a rather large scorpion and swallows it whole, which functions as foreshadowing for a future scene where \u2013 well, no spoilers. But it\u2019s definitely not a spoiler to say it\u2019s really really really really really really gross.<\/p>\n

\"LEE
Photo: Patrick Redmond \/ \u00a9 Warner Bros. \/ Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?<\/strong> Cronin is pretty deeply indebted to The Exorcist<\/a><\/em> and other demonic-possession movies, and some vestiges of Sam Raimi linger from Cronin\u2019s previous film.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Performance Worth Watching:<\/strong> The cast is fine here, nothing exemplary. But hats way, way off for the practical-FX crew, who one imagines is a conglomeration of the kids you remember from elementary school who stirred together various cafeteria foods to create the most horrendous liquid glop possible.<\/p>\n

Sex And Skin:<\/strong> No time for any of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"LEE
Photo: \u00a9Warner Bros\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our Take:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think Cronin\u2019s goal with his Mummy<\/em> is to deliver a simple, brief, logical narrative \u2013 hence why I discard such criticisms in this case. No, his goal absolutely must be to bring the squick with a furious vengeance. Sure, we have to wade through Det. Dalia snooping around, some nonsense with an old VHS tape, a consultation with a professor of Egyptology and other vaguely necessary plot curlicues that push the film to a near-unforgivable 134 minutes. But from the narrative tangle leap moments that are so repugnant, you have no choice but to laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I therefore was entertained \u2013 highly at times \u2013 by a movie with a shaggy mess of a screenplay and not much in the way of thematic intent. But it has The Toenail Scene, more than one wildly creative display of diabolical barfing (call \u2019em variants of The Exorcist<\/em>\u2019s signature projectile-puking moment) and enough peeling flesh for several lifetimes. Cronin directs the living shit out of those moments, his camerawork either a tool for comedy \u2013 highlight: the tumbling-down-the-steps POV cam \u2013 or a means to take in and admire every last inch of glistening pus, bile, miscellaneous viscera or combinations thereof. Some movies are suggestive, and this is not one of them.<\/p>\n

Cronin\u2019s tone is a misshapen melange of utter grimness and twinkle-in-the-eye sadistic humor. It works slightly more than it doesn\u2019t. One could extract some insight from the depiction of a marriage stressed by one\u2019s offspring being consumed from the inside out by a protege of Apep, or witness the face-only-a-mother-could-love notion tested to its absolute breaking point. But let\u2019s be real \u2013 we\u2019re not here for character development or other such high-minded components of traditional storytelling. We\u2019re here for the necro-aesthetic, gravity-defying spewage and all the other yucks<\/em> Cronin can possibly deliver. If you were expecting another movie in which a man wrapped in Cottonelle staggers and moans a lot, you may want to look elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Our Call:<\/strong> You can criticize Lee Cronin\u2019s The Mummy<\/em> for its myriad flaws, or cackle at how hard he brings the blecch. Remember, laughing is always more fun. STREAM IT.<\/p>\n

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n