Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026)

A couple’s young daughter disappears into the desert only to be found eight years later, mummified… and alive.

Great audiovisual experience with almost no substance whatsoever.

Producer/writer/director Lee Cronin, the man behind Evil Dead Rise (2023) and before that the atmospheric The Hole in the Ground (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/the-hole-in-the-ground-2019-drama-horror-mystery/, returns with a horror film that definitely knows how to look and sound impressive. Visually, The Mummy is polished to near perfection. The cinematography is slick, the energetic editing controls the pace and rhythm, the score is imposing in all the right ways, and the production design constantly demands your attention. It is blockbuster horror filmmaking firing on all cylinders.

But then comes the script. And this is where everything meaningful, like the parents’ heavy drama, collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. I genuinely struggle to remember a recent big-budget horror film with more holes than Swiss cheese. Almost every major narrative turn relies on gimmicks specifically designed to force the plot toward the destination that producers Jason Blum and James Wan clearly envisioned from the beginning. The problem is not supernatural logic – audiences willingly accept mummification, curses, demons, ancient evils, and impossible horrors. That is part of the genre’s contract.

The issue is when the real world becomes more implausible than the fantasy one. Murders occur with seemingly no police involvement. A child reappears after years in horrifying condition and is casually returned home, with no meaningful intervention from child services. Characters effortlessly learn incantations in dead languages as though browsing a recipe book. Scene after scene, I caught myself asking: How is this even possible?

And when a film repeatedly forces that question upon the audience, it begins to feel less like suspension of disbelief and more like the filmmakers assuming viewers simply will not care. The frustrating part is that… many didn’t. Because the gore works. And it works well. The violent sequences are impactful, grotesque, and often genuinely disturbing. Combined with the great acting by Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, and the rest of the cast, and with the relentless pacing, they become effective distractions from the utter narrative chaos unfolding underneath. Audiences surrendered to the spectacle and embraced the darkness overtaking the screen.

As a final note, I appreciated the numerous stylistic nods to Brian De Palma, even if they occasionally felt overused. Ultimately, The Mummy is bold, visceral, entertaining – and intellectually hollow. A haunted rollercoaster with stunning visuals and absolutely no brakes.