Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Review

Lee Cronin scored a big hit with his revival of the Evil Dead franchise. He attempts the same trick by bringing The Mummy franchise back to its horror roots.

Charlie and Larrissa Cannon’s (Jack Reynor and Laia Costa) lives changed forever when their daughter, Katie (Emily Mitchell), was abducted when they lived in Cairo. Eight years later, Katie is found alive in a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus, but in a comatose state. When Katie finally arrives back in America, her presence ends up having a corrupting effect on the Cannon family.

It was a ballsy move to name the film Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. It differentiated the film from other films called “The Mummy,” but Cronin has only made three films; he hasn’t earned the reputation of filmmakers like Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, or Guillermo del Toro. According to IMDB’s Triva page, Cronin had to be convinced to change the title, so at least he had some self-awareness.

From a technical standpoint, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was solid. It was an extremely gory affair that should churn most stomachs. Nails were pulled out, skin pulled off, and embalming fluid went all over the place. It’s a film that aimed to be as gross as possible. There were a lot of violent deaths and injuries for more traditional gorehounds. The horror sequences were effective, especially during the final arc, where it turned into the Evil Dead due to its tone, action, and cinematography. One of the best horror moments was when a group of characters viewed a videotape.

The Mummy franchise has seen many iterations. It started as a Universal Monster Series in the 1930s, standing with Frankenstein and Dracula. Modern audiences will probably think of the Brandon Fraser pulp adventures, and some older audience members in my screening might have thought this version was going to be a swashbuckling adventure. The 2026 version was far from that.

At its core, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was a family drama. The disappearance caused a rift in the family. Charlie felt guilty about Katie disappearing under his watch, leading to his career regressing. He went from a TV reporter who was in line for a big job in New York to working as a producer in Albuquerque. His wife became devoted to Katie and became her full-time carer. However, she buried her head regarding all the strange events that had happened since Katie’s return. The other Cannon children, Seb (Shylo Molina) and Maud (Billie Roy), were scared of their decaying sister and had to keep her reappearance a secret. The film did feel like it was inspired by the disappearance of Madeline McCann, since a foreign child’s disappearance, the parents were considered the prime suspects, and the family had two younger children to care for. The missing persons posters looked similar to the ones made when Madeline disappeared.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy had two major problems. The first issue was the length, standing at 132 minutes. The film does struggle to justify this. The film had multiple openings, making it feel like the reserve of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part Two, which had too many endings. There were three prologues before Katie gets reintroduced. The film had a wide-ranging story. Katie’s presence affected the family in various physical ways. Charlie investigated the strange writing on Katie’s bandages, and in Egypt, Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) searched for Katie’s kidnapper. The film ended up being trope-laden because of the investigations and all the strange events Katie was responsible for.

The other issue was that the film lifted ideas from other sources. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was a mash-up of Cronin’s first two films since it was about a missing child being found, whilst having the visuals of Evil Dead Rise. There were clear influences from films like The Exorcist, Pet Sematary, and Insidious, since a child was possessed and corrupted after coming back from the dead, and the parents decided to care for their afflicted child at home. There was even some of The Exorcist: Believer, since that reboot was about two teenagers going missing and all children being reintroduced as disturbed figures in hospitals.

The logic of characters was highly questionable since Katie’s discovery was kept secret, and the medical advice given to the Cannons was that Katie needed TLC, even though she looked like a living corpse and clearly needed intense psychiatric care. It leads to the question, how did Katie get transported from Egypt to America, considering the secrecy and the medical challenges?

Aspects of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy can be admired because there were strong horror sequences, but the story elements couldn’t tie the film together.