Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

• Written and Directed by Lee Cronin
• April 9, 2026 (American Legion Post 43) / April 17, 2026 (US)

A family reunited with their long-missing daughter find themselves confronting an ancient Egyptian demon that possesses its victims.

I went in wanting to like Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. I hoped for something exciting or creepy or just straight up entertaining but I got instead a film that was just a long and boring slog filled with few (if any) scares and things that made no sense in the context of the story or even basic logic.

The movie benefits from a great deal of style and atmosphere and I think that impressed people far more than the story itself deserved. Horror movies don’t try for much of any aesthetic anymore. Audiences are psychologically starved for such and when you get a movie that has a style it may impress those unexposed to artful horror more than they understand.

The first issue is that the characters are not likable. At least not enough to care about them. It was quickly after the introduction that I stopped giving a hoot about what happened to the family-both the ones in the opener and the main family who swing between liking each other and barely getting along. Why should I care about people that can hardly tolerate each other?

I expected some scares. Even jump scares. I would’ve taken an attempt at anything, but Mummy is a lot of vague creepiness. One or two mildly shocking moments but nothing that made me jump or looked like I was supposed to jump. The closest we get is a grandmother’s (Verónica Falcón) death via falling from a window, but it was a pretty standard visual for a thriller. Nothing impressive for horror.

The evil wrought upon the family is brought about by a type of demon called a Nasmaranian who is in the body of the Cannon family’s oldest daughter because a neighbor woman (Hayat Kamille) whose family has kept the beastie imprisoned for 3000 years (that is pretty much what the movie says) was grooming her with candy before kidnapping her while father Charlie (Jack Reynor) was working in Cairo. Sorry for the long sentence.

This thing is a powerful corrupting force that unleashed will torment any and all before killing them. The Magician, as she is called, is the ultimate villain of this because she put the demon in the body of young Katie (Natalie Grace) because the young last longer than the old. May not be ideal but it has worked for three millennia through the rise and fall of multiple civilizations.

Katie spends most of the movie looking grey and leathery like she was an actual mummy though this is really a possession story. Which brings me to something. Considering all the cracking Katie makes, no one really questions it though such noises when you hold hands or she moves could be a sign of an issue like rigor. But they ignore these things to get the movie to happen. Never is it bothersome.

I am a fan of economy of storytelling. Pack your film with events and story no matter the length. Get to the point and limit establishing shots. Lee Cronin takes his good ol’ time not only telling the family’s story of supernatural torment but of Egyptian cop Detective Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) investigating who was behind it all. Two movies in one because neither has enough for a single film. Neither is a subplot. Both are on equal footing.

Keeping with the Egyptian mummy theme, this ‘mummy’ was originally imprisoned in a stone sarcophagus which is what Katie is found in after a plane crash because that is what has been used for the last 3000 years. They did have a good reason to move it since the area was about to be flooded.

My issue is that just before the complete end an individual that is NOT Katie takes the demon into them and is imprisoned in a wooden coffin with some chains around it by the Cannon family. If this worked for the inexperienced then why was this not good enough for the past 3000 years? At no point in the past did somebody think of using something a little easier to transport? 

In the movie wrapped around Katie are strips of linen meant to entrap the demon. They were applied to the girl while in the custody of the Magician and her family, left on when found, remained on while tended to by physicians in the hosptal, and still on during her time with her family only to be taken off so the rest of the movie can happen. Why were they not taken off in the hospital prior to release? They changed bandages on the girl but never touched those strips until they needed to end the movie.

This is the type of movie you get when a director has more hype than skill. Dumb decisions. Nonsensical plot elements. Unlikeable characters or just shallow characterization. And it is all in a movie that is far too long and too slow because the word “No” never passed the lips of anyone towards the director.

I can’t say Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was good. Visually a nice film, but not much of anything else.