Lede

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy promises ancient terror and delivers The Exorcist wearing discounted bandages in IMAX.

Hermit Off Script

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is one of those films where the title walks in like a pharaoh and the story crawls behind it like a wet receipt. If you are thinking about the films that made a name for The Mummy, don’t expect anything even close to that old adventure sparkle, that sandstorm charm, that feeling of ancient curse mixed with proper cinematic fun. This one feels less like The Mummy and more like The Exorcist after someone dropped it in a sarcophagus and forgot to add a soul. But hey, it is IMAX at least, because nothing says “premium cinema” like watching skin, dust and family trauma enlarged to the size of a public building. The problem is that gross is not the same as scary. Gross makes you look away. Scary follows you home. This mostly waits until you have paid for the big screen, then waves gore at your face like a desperate magician with embalming fluid on his sleeves. I managed to resist until the end, which deserves at least a small medal or a refund-shaped biscuit. I skipped over the gross parts and the so-called scary scenes, because after a point the film was not frightening me, it was just testing my stomach and my patience. With that kind of budget and story, maybe this was always the tomb we were going to open. Big screen, small fear.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy | Official Trailer

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: Ancient Curse, Modern Gross-Out

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a 2026 supernatural horror film written and directed by Cronin. It follows journalist Charlie Cannon and his family after their young daughter disappears in the desert, only to return eight years later in a state that turns reunion into nightmare. Rather than going down the old treasure-hunt route, this version leans into family trauma, possession energy and body horror, with the mummy myth treated more like a vehicle for domestic dread than grand gothic adventure. Critics broadly praised the gore and visual flair more than the story itself, which tells you quite a lot about where the film puts its faith.

Cast and credits

Director: Lee Cronin
Writers: Lee Cronin
Genre: Horror, supernatural horror, body horror
Main cast: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Shylo Molina
Composer: Stephen McKeon
Production company/studio: New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, Blumhouse, Wicked/Good
Runtime: 2 hours and 14 minutes on Rotten Tomatoes
Release year and platform: 2026, theatrical release, including IMAX in North America according to Blumhouse

What does not make sense

• Calling it The Mummy while leaning this hard into possession horror is like selling fish and chips, then handing people soup with a fin in it.
• IMAX scale cannot save a thin idea. Bigger gauze is still gauze.
• Gross-out horror is being used as a substitute for dread. That is not fear. That is cinema doing a biology lesson with attitude.
• The classic monster gets reimagined so aggressively that the mummy starts to feel like a guest in its own grave.
• A 2-hour-plus horror film needs rhythm, escalation and tension. Padding is not atmosphere. It is just runtime wearing perfume.
• The audience is asked to care about the family nightmare, but the film keeps shouting “look at this disgusting thing” over the emotional bit.

Sense check / The numbers

1. Rotten Tomatoes lists Lee Cronin’s The Mummy at 2 hours and 14 minutes, with a 47 per cent Tomatometer score from 135 reviews and a 76 per cent Popcornmeter from more than 500 verified ratings, as of 20 April 2026. [Rotten Tomatoes]
2. The official synopsis says the young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert and returns 8 years later, turning the reunion into a nightmare rather than a classic treasure-hunt adventure. [Rotten Tomatoes]
3. Associated Press reported that the film opened in 3,404 North American locations with $13.5 million, placed third behind The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary, and had a reported $22 million production cost. [AP]
4. The Numbers lists $13,515,000 domestic box office, $20,500,000 international box office and $34,015,000 worldwide box office after opening weekend, with domestic share at 39.7 per cent. [The Numbers]
5. The Guardian called the film “absurdly, watch-checkingly overlong”, “tonally unsure” and “not all that scary”, which is a polite way of saying the tomb opened and the suspense stayed inside. [Guardian]

The sketch

Scene 1: “Premium Burial”
Panel description + dialogue: A huge IMAX screen shows a tiny sarcophagus while a cashier hands over a luxury-priced ticket. A viewer holds popcorn like emergency medicine.
Cashier: “Bigger screen, bigger fear.”
Viewer: “No, just bigger gauze.”

Scene 2: “The Wrong Tomb”
Panel description + dialogue: A mummy opens a coffin and finds a possessed-child horror manual inside. The mummy looks offended while a demon waves from the appendix.
Mummy: “Where is my curse?”
Demon: “I borrowed the franchise.”

Scene 3: “The Stomach Test”
Panel description + dialogue: A cinema seat sits under a sign reading “Scary Scene”. The viewer covers one eye while a bucket labelled “gross-out budget” overflows.
Viewer: “Is this horror?”
Bucket: “No. I am the plot now.”

What to watch, not the show

• The prestige-brand trick: putting a director’s name in the title before the film earns that grand chair.
• The franchise shuffle: old monsters being dragged out, renamed, rewrapped and sold as innovation.
• The IMAX problem: premium format being used to enlarge spectacle when the story still needs a pulse.
• The horror shortcut: gore replacing suspense because it is easier to show tearing skin than build dread.
• The budget logic: $22 million is modest by studio standards, but still enough to ask for more than noise, fluids and vibes.
• The audience split: critics smell padding, audiences may still enjoy the body-horror circus. Both can be true.

The Hermit take

A mummy should feel ancient, cursed and inevitable.
This one feels like The Exorcist got lost in the gift shop.

Keep or toss

Toss.
Keep the ambition and May Calamawy’s serious presence.
Toss the overlong gross-out padding, the borrowed possession furniture and the belief that IMAX can embalm a weak story.

Sources

• Rotten Tomatoes film page: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lee_cronins_the_mummy
• Associated Press review: https://apnews.com/article/lee-cronin-mummy-movie-review-4aceb9888cae38fb7d93291b99b839a7
• Associated Press box office report: https://apnews.com/article/box-office-mario-hail-mary-mummy-965c2fb1e54a7789362077c1733ff8d3
• The Numbers box office page: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Lee-Cronins-The-Mummy-(2026)
• The Guardian review: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/apr/16/the-mummy-review-lee-cronin
• RogerEbert.com review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lee-cronins-the-mummy-movie-review-2026
• Blumhouse film page: https://www.blumhouse.com/film/lee-cronin-s-the-mummy
• Lee Cronin’s The Mummy IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32612507/