It’s not often that a film director would put his name ahead of the title of a movie unless they have made a huge impact on the cinematic world. You’d expect Alfred Hitchcock to do it, or Quentin Tarantino, but who exactly is Lee Cronin? He’s an Irish filmmaker who has only made two other features, the little-seen The Hole in the Ground in 2019 and Evil Dead Rise in 2023. So what gives him the right to have his name as top billing? Is it ego or is it so the audiences don’t confuse his version of The Mummy with that of Brandon Fraser, or Tom Cruise’s disaster? In fact, this modern version of the story seems to have more in common with The Exorcist than with Egyptians wrapped in bandages. As a horror, it’s fine. Nothing more.

The Cannon family are living in Egypt when their eldest daughter is abducted, disappearing off the face of the Earth. Eight years later, the family have moved back to America, and started their lives with their son Sebastian and young daughter Maude, when they are told that Katie has been found alive in a sarcophagus. Bringing her back to the States, this young girl is no longer the daughter she was.

Cronin has given us a much more contemporary version of the tale. Instead of going down the Egyptology route and having an ancient prince or princess as the creature, it takes a young girl from the modern world to see what happens. What we get is a twisted, often gory body horror that is more like The Exorcist than the recent Exorcist: Believer. This is not a film for the faint-hearted.

The colour palette and the general tone are one of browns and oranges, which gives the whole film a sort of sandy, Egyptian feel, even though it’s set mainly in New Mexico. Having a young family facing the terror that is brought back in the form of a girl who had been trapped in a tomb for eight years challenges the usual approach for the Mummy movies of the past and completely reinvents it for a modern audience’s appetite for body horror. There are moments in this film that will make you wince, particularly one moment involving cutting toe nails.

It does have to be applauded that taking a staple of cinema, from its heyday in Universal monster movies to the Hammer Horror version, and completely injecting new life into it is brave. After the disaster of Tom Cruise’s film in 2017, it was hard to imagine that the character would ever survive, but with this and a new Brandon Fraser adventure on the horizon, it seems that it has managed to brush off the past turkey.

For the most part, it’s pretty decent, with enough jump scares and over-the-top gore, including some of the touches Cronin brought to his Evil Dead movie, none more so than in the final act. Where the film does suffer is the pacing, and at an overlong 2 hours and 14 minutes, it could have done with some editing, especially during the early stages of the film, when we get the set-up.

The performances are fine, with Jack Reynor from Midsommar, and Laia Costa, so good in Victoria, as the parents who are put into this hell, and Natalie Grace is wonderfully creepy as Katie.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a well-made horror film with plenty for genre fans to enjoy. It isn’t perfect, not helped by the uneven pacing, but it has to be applauded for trying something new with an old trait. Maybe Cronin could direct the new Exorcist movie, but try not to call it Lee Cronin’s Exorcist.

3 out of 5

Director: Lee Cronin

Starring: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Shylo Molina, Billie Roy, Veronica Falcon, Hayat Kamille, May Elghety, Emily Mitchell, Husam Chadat

Written by: Lee Cronin

Running Time: 134 mins

Cert: 18

Release date: 17th April 2026