Lee Cronin Talks The Mummy’s Body Horror and Legacy [EXCLUSIVE]

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is out now on Digital, and The Mary Sue got to talk body horror with the director.

If you haven’t seen the blood-curdling spectacle of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, horror fans, you are in for a treat. Some of the grossest moments on film this year occur in that runtime. And Cronin is delighted by the visceral reactions people had to the film.

Our Rachel Leishman got to ask the filmmaker about adapting such hallowed ground. The Mummy is a favorite of both hardcore movie buffs and Millennials of all stripes. Cronin is well-aware of the ground he’s standing on here.

He’s helped bring Evil Dead to new audiences, and this is a new challenge. “It’s an interesting approach and an interesting challenge,” Cronin admitted. “I think for me, I saw a difference between The Evil Dead and The Mummy.

“ So for evil Dead rise, I was a big big fan of those movies. I’ve kind of always harbored an ambition to make an Evil Dead movie,” he added. “When the opportunity arose I was like wow. Because, we’d already been there with The Cabin in the Woods. I wanted to do something a little bit different.”

“For The Mummy it was about bringing the things characters and themes that I was interested in,” Cronin recalled. “ I was making sure nonetheless that there was a through line to the types of experiences you’re having. As with the mummy, all bets were off. I kind of saw a total reinvention.”

Tackling a hit franchise in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

Heading into Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, you couldn’t find a way to discuss the film without mentioning the fact that this take lean more towards horror than the version that most millennials refer to when they wax poetic about the series.

 Don’t worry, Cronin is well aware that we all love Brendan Fraser. But, the director was driven to try something different with the series. Horror fans seemed to really enjoy it. And the rest of us had to hide our eyes from some of the sequences because things get really intense.

As with most things in life, it’s really more about balance than anything else.

“There’s been lots of Mummy movies throughout cinema history that have taken different approaches,” the director reasoned. “And, my ambition was to make the most frightening one, the most affecting one, the most visceral one that we’d seen?”

“I didn’t really reflect on what had been put out before, and was focused on what I could put out that was new. But, I was obviously aware of a fandom that was there. I have massive respect and reverence for the movies that had gone before. But, I just saw it as a different story about a historical thing. A historical item for want of a better description, but has also presented itself as a monster on the silver screen.”  

(featured image: Warner Bros.)

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