LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY, or THE EXORCIST GOES TO EGYPT

Tom saw LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY, and answers the question: Is this a new horror classic we want to get wrapped up in, or is it better left buried?

LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY

The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace—eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.

Written and Directed by Cronin

Produced by James Wan, Jason Blum and John Keville.

Starring: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, with Veronica Falcón. 

There are reasons THE EXORCIST made such an impact on pop culture, and as a result they are why many people call it the scariest fucking movie ever made. It has its detractors, no doubt, but over all, THE EXORCIST is considered to be the pinnacle of horror filmmaking. Its success isn’t because it’s a horror movie, oh no,  you see it’s because THE EXORCIST is many things. It’s a family drama. It’s a police procedural. It’s a deep dive into the supernatural in a modern world. THE EXORCIST came to prominence at the height of the Satanic Panic in not only America, but in the rest of the God Fearing, Christian world that witnessed it.

Director Lee Cronin is an obvious student of THE EXORCIST and its source material, and his THE MUMMY is a love letter to the Billies (William Peter Blatty and William Friedkin) who brought the latter to the masses. And yet despite him doing this, he somehow missed what truly made THE EXORCIST, well, work. 

Or did he?

THE EXORCIST has given us a franchise worth of sequels and a television series, and yet out of all them, only one remotely matches up with the quality seen in the first film, and that would be THE EXORCIST III: LEGION. It’s no coincidence that this film was written and directed by the novelist himself, William Peter Blatty. The problem all the other entries have is that they think THE EXORCIST is about Chris MacNeil and her daughter… when they are, in fact, the antagonists. THE EXORCIST’S protagonists are Lt. Kinderman and Father Karras, and those characters are the focus of THE EXORCIST III, as well. 

LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY is an almost by-the-beat reimagining of THE EXORCIST, but with Egyptian mythology as the demon instead of Christianity and the Satanic Panic. We start with an archeological mystery, then we move to a parent involved with a television production and the mundane life of a family. Sound familiar? And this is where it shifts tonally from THE EXORCIST, placing the focus on families instead of the friendship between a cop and a priest. As I just indicated, in THE EXORCIST the family is the antagonist, and Regan’s “illness” is the conflict that drives the story. By shifting the focal point of his film, Lee Cronin has actually solved THE EXORCIST sequel riddle with THE MUMMY. From the cold open, THE MUMMY shifts from the material inspiring it and brilliantly becomes a study on how families deal with trauma and illness. 

Cronin’s success here lies in creating a villain we could hate, and in this case it’s a secret society, another family at that. Their actions create the conflict that drives our story. The idea of a secret society having some arcane knowledge is no new trope to horror films of this nature, hell, we even see a version of them in Stephen Somers’ Mummy from 1999 with the Medjai. Hayat Kamille is wonderful in her role as a family matriarch doing what needs to be done to save not only her family, but the world, from an ancient Egyptian boogeyman.

By making the “entity” one that feeds on the destruction of the family makes the horror of this more terrifying, I think. It avoids falling into traps. There’s no infidelity, no family strife, no  abuse, etc. The cast makes it work. The Cannons are good people. They are a good family. And this fucking thing comes in tears them apart. From the obvious “My child was abducted” trope that starts the ball rolling, to the care they want to provide when she comes home, all of the non-supernatural stuff in THE MUMMY could be ripped out of headlines. Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, Natalie Grace, Emily Mitchell, Shylo Malina, Billie Roy, and Veronica Falcone have such great chemistry together on screen, and were the perfect choices for the Cannon family. 

But they aren’t the glue that makes this work. By focusing on the family, THE MUMMY somewhat fails at the police procedural aspect (it’s tertiary at best in the first two acts). However, it succeeds by giving us a more endearing character, I think, than Lt. Kinderman. May Calamaway’s Detective Dalia Zaki, an ambitious young woman moving up through the ranks, eats the screen up when she’s on it, and I’d like to see this character in more movies. 

The special effects laden climax might turn some people off, but I was already too invested in the welfare of this family to let any CGI use bother me. I’m certain the forthcoming legacy sequel to the 1999 action comedy will provide enough slapstick and CGI to satisfy its fans. It’s not all CGI. THE MUMMY has plenty of practical effects, bloody gags, and body horror to satisfy your gore-whore needs, especially if you have issues with toe and fingernails…and false teeth…and I’m getting skeeved thinking about the visuals as I write this. If I have to find any fault, I will cast some side-eye at the “happy ending” Cronin gave us. But is it really happy? Or is it a satisfying dish served cold? I’ll leave that up to you, the viewer, to determine.

You can see LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY at theaters this weekend. It has given me hope 2026 will actually have a good crop of horror films. It’s right up there with 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (and if you haven’t seen it yet, correct that problem, it’s streaming everywhere right now) as examples of prime horror filmmaking this year.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.