Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Review: Epic, Vicious Reboot Resurrects the Classic Monster with Evil Dead Flair
Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, and May Calamawy star in the reimagining from the Irish filmmaker behind Evil Dead Rise
by Alex Kaan 16 April 2026
Warner Bros.
From the original 1932 Universal film to Stephen Sommers’ 1999 action-adventure reboot, the various Mummy films have explored their central Egyptian mythology from a myriad of vantage points. Still, right from a gross-out opening kill that immediately sets some frightfully high stakes, it’s safe to say that this graphic latest update, from producers James Wan (The Conjuring) and Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity), has found a fresh angle. An alluring blend of body horror, mystery, and found footage, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a genre-hopping spectacle fuelled by gnarly practical effects and an infectious sense of fun as it unveils its visceral horrors.
While Cronin’s name precedes the title to not confuse audiences who associate the franchise with the Brendan Fraser trilogy, the film doesn’t wait long to introduce you to its new perspective. Charlie’s (Jack Reynor) job as a reporter has brought him to Cairo with his pregnant wife, Larissa (Laia Costa), and two kids, but just as the family is preparing to relocate to New York, their daughter Katie (Emily Mitchell) is kidnapped. Fast forward eight years, and Charlie and Larissa have moved back in with Larissa’s mother (Verónica Falcón) in her remote Albuquerque home to raise Sebastián (Shylo Molina) and Maud (Billie Roy). But when Katie (now played by Natalie Grace) is miraculously discovered after being trapped in a sarcophagus, Charlie and Larissa are instructed that the best way to break her out of her catatonic state is to bring her home. What they don’t realise is that they’re bringing an ancient evil entity into Katie’s old bedroom.
Warner Bros.
At once disgusting, gleefully deranged, and even emotionally devastating, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a standout Blumhouse horror blockbuster that balances its director’s sick sense of humour with just the right amount of heart. With set pieces centred on peeling skin and swallowing scorpions—as well as the worst scene about toenail-clipping ever captured in cinema history—the violence is so pronounced and horrific that it becomes comical. The tone is similar to that of Cronin’s previous film, Evil Dead Rise, but it works better here because the mean-spirited genre thrills are cleverly rooted in the narrative’s emotional backbone. The grief that Charlie and Larissa reckon with, losing a child and then regaining her as a shell of her former self, is incomprehensible, so it’s only appropriate that The Mummy is so uncompromisingly brutal with its body horror flourishes. By facing the trauma head-on, the film works as bombastic elevated horror.
Warner Bros.
As the titular monster, Natalie Grace delivers a forceful physical performance in her debut feature, while May Calamawy is a highlight playing a Clarice Starling-type detective in a refreshing storyline that foregrounds the Egyptian folklore behind an often Americanised franchise. Only Egyptian Arabic is spoken for large stretches of the film, and Calamawy has a commanding screen presence that makes her eerie investigation of Katie’s kidnapping the film’s most captivating subplot.
More fun than it is frightful, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a wonderfully intense big-screen horror experience and an invigorating, genre-bending blockbuster.
The Mummy hits theatres April 17th.