While on a family vacation as a child in the early 1990s, Lee Cronin felt left out because everyone else on the trip experienced a supernatural occurrence in the rental home they were staying in. Now, the Irish filmmaker is conjuring up his own otherworldly encounters for the big screen. His latest, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” (in theaters), centers on an American girl who is kidnapped in Cairo, then reappears eight years later in a catatonic state, to her family’s despair. Terrifying events ensue when they bring her back home.
This sometimes grisly, sometimes darkly comedic outing aims to cement Cronin as a bankable, fresh voice in horror, but how did he get here? Here’s a quick rundown.
How did Lee Cronin’s career begin?
After a handful of successful short films, Cronin premiered his first feature, “The Hole in the Ground,” at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019. Released in the United States by A24, the Irish folk horror movie reinterprets the mythology around changelings, the humanlike substitutes that supernatural entities leave behind after they’ve abducted a person.
Cool, but what is Irish folk horror?
“There’s a generation of storytellers from Ireland who grew up watching and consuming American horror movies,” Cronin, 44, said in an interview via Zoom. “But then we also come from a different place, so we tell our stories in a slightly different way, which is important.”
This new crop of Irish filmmakers often reclaim local folk stories for their horror narratives, putting a modern twist on ancient beliefs about malevolent fairies, spirits or other shape-shifting beings.
A number of these films have emerged over the last few years, notable among them Kate Dolan’s “You Are Not My Mother” (2022), Aislinn Clarke’s Irish-language nightmare “Frewaka” and Damian McCarthy’s body of work, including the upcoming “Hokum” (out May 1).
“When you’re operating on that lower budget telling stories that have a sense of identity to them from the place that you’re from, it can be really valuable,” Cronin said.
How did Lee Cronin break into Hollywood?
The attention his debut garnered landed Cronin a meeting with the horror master Sam Raimi. Near the end of the conversation, Cronin, a fan of the “Evil Dead” films, asked Raimi if there were plans for more installments in that franchise. “I wasn’t going to let the meeting go past me without at least asking the question; you’ve got to be cheeky in this business,” Cronin said. The result was Cronin’s first studio picture, “Evil Dead Rise” (2023), which allowed him greater resources to play with “gags and gore.”
Why was Cronin right for this “Mummy”?
Atomic Monster, the horror mogul James Wan’s production company, was looking for a way to collaborate with Cronin, who’d proven himself with the critical and financial success of “Evil Dead Rise” (it grossed more than $147 million worldwide). After Wan saw how his friend Leigh Whannell (who wrote “Saw” with Wan) revamped the Universal monsters by directing new takes on “The Invisible Man” and “Wolf Man,” Wan felt enticed to be a producer on this modern mummy movie, which is being distributed by Warner Bros. rather than Universal.
Wan thought that Cronin’s sensibility and approach, particularly his comedic instincts, could serve this vision well. “I don’t think you can do something as dark and aggressive as his kind of movie without having a sense of humor, ” Wan said at a special screening of the film in Los Angeles.
Why is Cronin’s name in the title?
“Most people who grew up in the last 20 years only know of the mummy off Stephen Sommers’s ‘The Mummy,’” Wan said. “They don’t really know the Christopher Lee version or the Boris Karloff version.” Because of this, Wan said that he wanted to make sure this version was distinct from the Brendan Fraser-starring film, and a name-branded title would help with that.
When another of the movie’s producers, Jason Blum, approached Cronin with the idea of having his name attached to the title, the director initially reacted with hesitation. He ultimately agreed, based on how meticulous he considers himself about every creative and technical choice. To Cronin and those around him, it seemed honest for him to take ownership of the movie this way.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s really exciting to see your name on a billboard in Hollywood,” Cronin said.
What’s next for Cronin?
The filmmaker’s next endeavor will take him back to his home country. In partnership with the production company Blumhouse, Cronin is making a television show set in small-town Ireland in the 1980s and steeped in Irish folklore. “There is a supernatural presence within this story that allows multiple folkloric elements and monsters to surface,” he said.
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