'Lee Cronin’s The Mummy' Review: A Bloated, Formulaic Horror Better Left in the Crypt
When I saw Evil Dead Rise at SXSW 2023, I thought Lee Cronin had the juice to carry Sam Raimi's legacy, aping his pulpy, grisly flair for a new generation. Yet for a movie with little authorship, hubris struck with his third feature (no relation to the Brendan Fraser series or the ill-fated Dark Universe reboot). Yup, he stamped his name on the title, acting like he's Bram Stoker and shit. Lee Cronin's The Mummy might've been better off branded as Blumhouse's The Mummy, given it was co-produced by them, alongside James Wan, and feels like another homogeneous modern horror whose only originality stems from its concept. It’s an overlong, lethargically paced slog that can't decide whether it's a mummified possession flick or a creepy procedural like Seven.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
MPA Rating: R (for strong/bloody violence and language.)
Runtime: 2 Hours and 13 Minutes
Language: English, Arabic
Production Companies: New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, Blumhouse Productions
Wicked/Good
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: Lee Cronin
Screenwriter: Lee Cronin
Cast: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Verónica Falcón, Shylo Molina, Natalie Grace, Billie Roy
U.S Release Date: April 17, 2026
TV reporter Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) lives in Cairo with his pregnant nurse wife, Larissa (Laia Costa), their eldest daughter, Katie (Emily Mitchell), and their young son Sebastián (Dean Allen Williams). Just as a move to New York seems within reach, tragedy strikes: Katie is abducted. Local authorities prove useless, with rookie officer Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) sidelined by a superior who treats the Cannons as suspects.
Eight years later, the family has resettled in Albuquerque, living with Larissa's eccentric mother Carmen (Verónica Falcón). Charlie now works as a producer; Sebastián (Shylo Molina) is an angsty teen, and their youngest, Maud (Billie Roy), is a born Taylor Swift fan. Still, Katie's room remains untouched – a shrine to hope. That hope is realized in the most unsettling way: a teenage Katie (Natalie Grace) is discovered inside a 20,000-year-old sarcophagus recovered from a plane crash. Returned to her family, she is barely recognizable – malnourished, decaying, and eerily unresponsive. As Charlie reconnects with Dalia, now a detective, to uncover the truth, Katie's return unravels the household, revealing a far darker, possibly supernatural force at work.
The titular corpse daughter looks creepy at least.
NATALIE GRACE as Katie Cannon in New Line Cinema’s, Atomic Monster’s and Blumhouse's “LEE CRONIN'S THE MUMMY.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release.
Lee Cronin's The Mummy is admittedly gnarly whenever he taps into his inner Raimi (again), wrapping the film in grisly horror beats that carry over the mean-spirited atmosphere from Evil Dead Rise. Much like that film, Cronin is most active when he's inside the house, escalating a familiar, terrible time for the family involved. The body horror, gore, and gross-out moments work best, getting a rise out of me whenever Katie grossly vomits, turning the family's water to black goop, disturbingly infecting others with her spit, or oozing strange, yucky textures on her bedroom floor. The practical effects team shines here, as do the prosthetics. Cronin highlights how gross her mummified look is during scenes where her pained parents (mainly Larissa) tend to their corpse daughter as if nothing's wrong. The body and flesh effects feel realistic, emphasizing pus atop all of the blood.
Katie's mummified look, complemented by Natalie Grace's cold, creepy performance, works well. It's also nice to see some actors deliver solid horror turns. Laia Costa effectively conveys an "it's fine" energy as Larissa attempts to make up for her absence during her daughter's abduction. May Calamawy plays a caring but cool detective who remains deeply involved in the case. Jack Reynor, who I love to see in any movie, is a welcome presence, especially working with an Irish brother like Cronin.
Lee Cronin unravels a bland, sloppy story hampered by shoddy direction.
Caption: MAY CALAMAWY as detective Dalia Zaki in New Line Cinema’s, Atomic Monster’s and Blumhouse’s “LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release.
I'm all for a filmmaker going for a "one for them, one for me" trade-off with a studio. New Line Cinema clearly gave Cronin carte blanche after Evil Dead Rise became a hit. But Lee Cronin's The Mummy wants to be, at its core, a story about the ramifications of a traumatic event that still permeates, and literally festers, within this family, mixed with a '90s-style mystery. The problem is that it reveals its ace card (who abducted Katie, and the players involved) far too early. Even with the grief-stricken arc, the film's lack of surprise – from the A-plot of corpse Katie torturing her family to the B-plot of Calamawy doing a Prisoners in Cairo – makes it a chore to watch unravel. Every beat is seen coming from a mile away, executed with bland precision, and far too prolonged.
Though Cronin retains a mean, cruel atmosphere that's quasi-fun when he leans into pulp every so often, it's undone by an overemphasis on high-angle shots, extreme close-ups, and split diopters. These choices make the horror beats feel manipulative and gimmicky. Split diopters account for half of the movie's composition, and they have little effect – damning for a horror movie. I've never seen a filmmaker have so little sauce by overusing split diopters. Brian De Palma should send you to director jail for that.
There are glimpses of genuine fun as Katie's chaotic reign of terror affects her siblings and grandma, somewhat leaning into being a mummified adjunct of The Exorcist. Yet the film cuts away during several set pieces that could’ve had fun direction. The shoddy filmmaking and horrendous pacing – often dropping the horror plot in service of the procedural with terribly constructed timing – render the film exhausting, then annoying. By the time the entertaining climax arrived, I was ready for this overlong 133-minute movie to just wrap itself up.
The funny thing is that the movie is produced by Blumhouse, which sometimes attaches its label to a film's title. Think Blumhouse's Fantasy Island, Blumhouse's Truth or Dare, Blumhouse's The Craft: Legacy. Every turn of this overly familiar, actively unfocused horror, which claims authorship but lacks a distinct identity, would have been better off as Blumhouse's The Mummy. Not only to avoid confusion, but to bear all the essentials and monotonous plotting of a Blumhouse flick. You've got a horror concept that's a metaphor for grief (not particularly scary but gory), possession or exorcism, an effects-heavy, action-oriented, chaotic finale, and the trope of a cutesy little girl possessed and cursing at an adult. Granted, these are regular modern horror tropes, just more present across Blumhouse movies. Throughout this film, I found myself going, "I think I've become too old for these." They're all becoming the same movie in different packaging; all I want to do is throw them into a tomb along with their other disposable, forgettable titles.
FINAL STATEMENT
Whatever potential Lee Cronin's The Mummy has is deadened by weak pacing and an unfocused dual story, worsened by plotting that's better off left in a crypt.
