The Identity of 'Lee Cronin's The Mummy' is a Total Mystery

In most cases, putting your name in the title signifies a filmmaker's signature take on the material. Considering the past century of mummy movies (barring the highly underseen "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb") have stuck to a series of generic titles you could swap with one another, it makes sense why the decision was made to distinguish another reboot as "Lee Cronin's The Mummy." After having seen the film, I can't imagine it's because they were confident in his vision doing the heavy lifting. To his credit, Cronin was initially hesitant on the idea, especially since it comes at such a relatively early stage in his filmmaking career. Sadly, his 2026 reimagining of the mummy mythos is a rotting assemblage of half-hearted "Evil Dead" gags and the faux genetic makeup of "The Exorcist" without a voice to lead it. Rather than following another story about an ancient Egyptian revenge spree, "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" instead builds its foundation on a family in turmoil. It all starts when the Cannons suffer an unimaginable loss with the disappearance of their young daughter Katie. Cairo, Egypt is their homebase on account of Charlie (Jack Reynor), the family patriarch, being a news reporter in the area. This all takes a turn for the worse, however, when the eldest daughter is lured by a mysterious woman in the middle of the day, only to disappear without a trace. Eight years later, the Cannons receive a phone call that Katie (Natalie Grace) has been found, albeit in a massive, ancient sarcophagus. The lack of exposure to the outside world should have killed Katie, but she only looks like a corpse rather than actually being one. At the same time the family adjusts to having her around again; an investigation searches for answers that led to how this all happened in the first place. "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" is trapped between a rock and a hard place of its own making. On one side, you have a supremely dumb possession movie with a numbing amount of skin-peeling violence, and on the other is a lumbering investigative thriller that always grinds the 133-minute film to a halt. At the center of the film is the story of a missing child who turns up in the most grotesque manner possible. When Charlie and his wife Larissa (Laia Costa) return to Cairo to see their rescued daughter, she hardly resembles the child they once knew. The camera can't even stand to look at her in full, but rather in glimpses of her blackened toenails, chapped lips and coarse skin. You'll learn to sigh at the sight of split diopter shots by the time this movie's over. Naturally, the best course of action would be to transport this deeply catatonic teenager from Egypt to the Cannon's isolated home in Albuquerque, New Mexico without any assistance. Horror characters are known for making dumb, impulsive decisions that drive the plot forward, but the Cannons take the cake in not using common sense. Mom and Dad don't even give their other kids (Shylo Molina and Billie Roy) any kind of proper heads up before springing their cursed older sibling on them. I got a good laugh imagining these two transporting her on a public flight to the United States. It has the potential for a darkly humorous look at two parents whose overwhelming guilt has led them to ignore all the red flags going off. For example, mummy Katie headbutts Grandma (Verónica Falcón) and starts performing Regan-anomic contortions on day one, with the parents deciding a lock should do the trick. Little more is done once she starts munching on scorpions in crawlspace like a spider gremlin. The constant thematic tie in Cronin's body of work is that of children under the influence of a malicious force. "The Hole in the Ground" and "Evil Dead Rise" have their ways of exploring how this breaks down the family unit, but "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" can't comprehend how to handle Katie's mummification. There's no real tragedy to how her disappearance and sudden re-emergence has placed a psychological toll on the Cannons because the film doesn't seem all that interested in them. Cronin is more focused on why this is happening rather than how it's happening, which couldn't be more boring to watch. The investigative plot with Detective Zaki (May Calamawy) is rather redundant considering what's really going on is pretty much laid out in the opening scene, not to mention it bafflingly gives us a reprieve from the Cannons. What we're left with is Cronin trying to relive his experience making "Evil Dead Rise" by filling the runtime with Deadite-adjacent gags that feel woefully out of place. He can't seem to make up his mind on what kind of horror movie he's making. Cronin doesn't show enough contempt towards this very stupid family to make them the explicit punchline of a joke, nor the emotional tether to make Katie's transformation a meaningful impact on their lives. It had me second guessing whether his actual "Evil Dead" movie was as fun as I'd seemingly remembered. There's also the matter of the titular filmmaker shamelessly ripping off "The Exorcist" and, surprisingly, bits from "The Exorcist III." It feels much more akin to Blumhouse's failed "The Exorcist: Believer," but even that very terrible film managed to not pull its punches. Whatever note Cronin could have ended on is hilariously ruined by a hilariously awful coda that has last minute studio mandate written all over it. It's ultimately difficult to gauge what kind of tonal fluidity Cronin is going for here, and that greatly affects how this all plays out. He's content with borrowing from the greats without seemingly understanding what made them great. Do you know how much it kills me that there's a horror movie with acidic bile vomit, an eyeball gag, and a genuinely fun toenail clipping scene, and I can't bring myself to recommend it. The worst part is that I still don't know why it's "Lee Cronin's The Mummy."