The newest iteration of The Mummy monster from Universal Pictures comes to us by way of Director Lee Cronin, whose previous works are Evil Dead Rise and The Hole in the Ground, both of which received positive reception. In fact, Evil Dead Rise turned out to be the highest-grossing film in its respective series. The Mummy is both written and directed by Cronin, making it an auteur film in the truest sense of the word.

How viewers react to this film depends on their comfort level with child actors being put through drastically emotionally challenging situations along with their familiarity and respect towards possession films ala The Exorcist. Because while there is no shortage of scares or disgusting scenes on display here, no one can argue that the film is original in any sense of the word.

After a brief but informative prologue, the film begins when young Katie Cannon (Emily Mitchell) is kidnapped from a backyard garden in Cairo, Egypt. The parents, Investigative T.V. reporter Charlie (Jack Reynor) and stay-at-home mom, Larissa (Laia Costa), are at a loss as to who took her. Their only clues are left behind candy wrappers, indicating that she had been groomed for some time before someone snatched her up. A local detective, Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) and her boss, Detective Ismail (Husam Chadat), look at their case, but Ismail suspects that Katie’s father did the disappearing himself.

Eight years later, the effects of Katie’s disappearance still linger in the Cannon household. The Cannon’s son, Sebastian (Shylo Molina), realizes that the trauma left by Katie’s kidnapping still holds his mother hostage. The family lives with their grandma, Carmen (Veronica Falcon), in New Mexico. Everything proceeds in this vein until the Cannon’s receive a phone call that Katie has been found.

Now a teenager, Katie (Natalie Grace) has spent the last eight years inside a huge, black coffin. She’s been wrapped with bandages with strange writing on them, and her toenails and fingernails need major attention. She can’t speak, but the Cannons take her home as the doctor tells them she’ll need to be surrounded by family to recover. But as the days pass by, things start going awry, and everyone begins to realize that something truly evil has a hold of Katie.

Like The Exorcist before it, this version of The Mummy is mostly a possession film. With that comes blood, guts, viscera, and puke. The aforementioned toe-nails have their own gross-out scene too. In fact, the movie mostly consists of moments like these throughout the middle of its story, which somewhat slow the plot’s progression. It’s not until the latter part of the film that the characters begin to fight back against the evil possessing Katie that the film truly does get exciting.

That the characters decide to wait that long to do something about Katie is frustrating, as we all hate it when horror movie characters don’t put two and two together and realize that something awful is happening. Surely, we think, they should take action and get Katie out of there. But stupid people in horror movies are commonplace.

What’s most disturbing, however, is what happens when Katie’s missing history is finally revealed to her mom and dad. What they see is quite literally child endangerment, and it could be argued that too much is asked of young actress Emily in her performance. The scene is quite brutal and has its intended effect, but it could pull you out of immersion due to the psychological scarring it might cause Emily.

Emily, nonetheless, is fantastic, as is Natalie Grace as her older counterpart. Jack Reynor manages to make a fairly complex character out of Charlie. He’s pulled between his obsession with what happened to Katie and his need to be present. He’s filled with regret over the past, but his major realization is that he can finally make changes. Laia is less complex, and it’s frustrating that she has put off actually doing something about Katie.

The Mummy will no doubt disturb you, but that doesn’t make it original, nor does it solve its pacing issues. You’ll be frightened for sure, but you may be taken out of the film. The movie can be quite long, and while it is entertaining, it’s truly best to check yourself before you see this one.