April 16, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Lee Cronin
Some language in Arabic with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Cairo and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the horror film “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” (inspired by the 1932 film “The Mummy”) features a white and Egyptian cast of characters (with a few Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Eight years after being kidnapped in Cairo at 9 years old, a 17-year-old girl is returned to her family in Albuquerque, and she wreaks havoc as a mummy monster.
Culture Audience: “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of mummy monster movies and substandard horror movies about girls possessed by evil spirits.
“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” has a plot that’s as decrepit and tattered as an ancient mummy’s dressings. This idiotic horror movie, which is obsessed with vomit, tries to be unique by having a teenage girl as the main villain mummy, but it copies too many ideas from the 1973 Oscar-winning movie “The Exorcist” and the “Evil Dead” movies. Nothing looks believable in “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” a dreadful mess of a film, which turns into an incoherent series of violent fights and gross-out scenes involving body fluids, decaying flesh and bloody wounds. None of it is very scary. Most of it just looks silly.
Written and directed by Lee Cronin, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is inspired by the 1932 film “The Mummy,” which was directed by Karl Freund, written by John L. Balderston, and starred Boris Karloff as the titled character. There have been several different movie versions of “The Mummy” since then, some of which have re-imagined the story as more action-adventure than horror. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” (which is not part of Universal Pictures’ “The Mummy” franchise) is one of the weaker movies inspired by the 1932 horror classic.
“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” takes place in unspecified years in the 2010s and 2020s. The movie’s story locations are in Cairo and in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” was actually filmed in Ireland and in Almería, Spain. Cronin’s feature-film directorial debut is 2023’s “Evil Dead Rise,” which isn’t a spectular horror movie, but at least it’s better than the cinematic slop that is “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.”
The beginning of “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” shows a family of five driving in a vintage car. The unnamed mother (played by Hayat Kamille) is driving, while her husband Gamal Khalil (played by Omar El-Saedi) is in the front passenger seat. Their three underage children Layla Khalil (played by Aisha Laouini), Jabari Khalil (played by Arkin Cureklibatir) and Tariq Khalil (played by Safi Mulki) are in the back seat of the car.
Everyone is singing along to or enjoying a song playing on the car radio, except for the mother, who looks like she’s in a sour mood. The mother abruptly turns off the radio and says, “I’m tired of all of you.” When the family arrives at home, the children are upset when they see that their pet bird in a cage has died a mysterious and bloody death. The mother doesn’t seem surprised or upset at all.
In the movie’s end credits, this mother is listed as The Magician. And after a while, it becomes obvious why she’s very different from the rest of her family. After the scene with the dead bird, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” then shows Gamal and his wife inside a cave, as they hoist a massive metal coffin, by using a mechanical lifting device.
Inside the coffin is a mummy. Gamal asks his wife, “How do you know if it’s time? Is he awake?” Gamal doesn’t get an answer to those questions because as soon as the coffin is opened, a shadowy figure bursts out of the coffin and seems to be able to move around in the air. Gamal somehow gets his lower mouth caught in the mechanical device, so he dies a bloody death.
Meanwhile, an American family that lives near the Khalil family is getting ready to move back to the United States. Charlie Cannon (played by Jack Reynor) is a TV journalist who has been living in Cairo for an unnamed period of time with his wife Larissa Cannon (played by Laia Costa), their 9-year-old daughter Katie Cannon (played by Emily Mitchell) and Sebastián Cannon (played by Dean Allen Williams), who is about 7 or 8 years old when the story begins. Larissa, who is a nurse by profession, is pregnant with the couple’s third child.
The Cannons seem to be a normal family, with the usual minor squabbles between the children. It isn’t really clear why the Cannon family is moving back to the United States, but it’s vaguely mentioned that Charlie’s work in Cairo has come to an end. Charlie doesn’t have a solid job offer lined up in the United States, so the family plans to move to Albuquerque and live with Larissa’s single mother Carmen Santiago (played by Veronica Falcón), who is a retired former beauty salon owner. However, those plans change when Charlie tells Larissa that he got a job offer in New York City.
The next time that The Magician is seen, it’s in the garden of the Cannon family while the family is still in Cairo. The Magician, who identifies herself as Layla’s mother, lures Katie over by giving her wrapped candy. Later, Katie’s parents find out through Sebastian that this mystery woman has been visiting Katie in the garden on a regular basis and giving Katie a lot of candy.
Katie knows Layla and asks the woman where Layla is. The woman gives Katie an apple and says as Katie takes the apple: “I hope you can forgive me, Katie.” As Katie takes the apple, she sees a scorpion-like insect emerge from the apple. The insect crawls into Katie’s mouth. And then, Katie goes missing.
When Charlie finds out what this mystery woman was doing, he frantically looks for Katie in a busy marketplace. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is sloppily edited and jumps from one scene to the next with little context. How did Charlie know to look for the woman (who is a stranger to him) in this marketplace? Don’t expect an answer to that question.
The marketplace is suddenly hit with a dust storm, just as Charlie sees the woman carrying a girl who looks like Katie and chases after her. He shouts Katie’s name, but the woman is clutching the child in a way where the child’s mouth is covered. Charlie loses sight of the woman in the dust storm. It all looks so utterly fake.
Charlie and Larissa report Katie’s kidnapping to local police. Two police detectives take the report: Dalia Zaki (played by May Calamawy) and her supervisor Detective Ismail (played by Husam Chadat), who have very different reactions to this reported crime. Dalia is empathetic and takes this kidnapping report seriously. Detective Ismail is skeptical that this kidnapping happened and tells Dalia in Arabic that Katie’s parents could have something to do with Katie’s disappearance.
Charlie can understand Arabic and flies into a rage (he pushes items off the table during this outburst) when he shouts at Detective Ismail that he knows what Detective Ismail said. Charlie and Larissa both deny that they had anything to do with Katie’s disappearance. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is such a terribly written movie, it never shows the police investigating the important clue that Layla’s mother is a person of interest and was the last known person to see Katie.
The movie then fast-forwards eight years later. The Cannon family is now living in Albuquerque with Larissa’s mother Carmen, who is a doting and loving grandmother. Katie is still missing at this point. The family now includes Charlie and Larissa’s 7-year-old daughter Maud (played by Billie Roy), who was born after Katie disappeared. Sebastián (played by Shylo Molina) is now about 15 or 16 years old. Charlie works at a local TV station.
The movie wastes some time showing the Cannon family’s domestic life before the turn of events in the story. This pivotal moment happens when Charlie and Larissa get the news that Katie has been found in Cairo. According to the Cairo police, Katie was found in a sarcophagus, where she was presumably kept imprisoned for the past eight years.
Charlie and Larissa travel to Cairo and see that 17-year-old Katie (played by Natalie Grace) has a diseased skin condition and has to use a wheelchair because her bones are deformed. Katie is also nearly mute. After Charlie and Larissa bring Katie home to Albuquerque, Katie levitates and physically attacks Charlie, who doesn’t want Sebastián and Maud to tell anyone outside the family that Katie has been found and brought home.
Charlie briefly suggests to Larissa that they should put Katie in a facility that is better-equipped than they are to take care of Katie. However, Larissa is dead-set agains the idea because she thinks that Katie will be just fine if the family secretly takes care of her rehabilitation and keeps Katie confined in the house. Charlie is eventually persuaded to agree with Larissa about this matter.
At what point during Katie’s levitation and violent attack did Charlie and Larissa think that Katie was just fine? Don’t expect an answer to this question. It’s an example of how more mindless this movie becomes when trying to convince viewers that Katie’s parents don’t want outside help for Katie’s obvious problems.
Another example of the movie’s horrendous editing happens during a scene where Charlie is driving Sebastián and Maud to school. Charlie stops the car when he suddenly sees about four to six coyotes blocking his way on the street. The movie never shows what happened next and how Charlie handled the situation. However, the coyotes are seen much later in a scene where the coyotes attack someone who doesn’t survive the attack.
Katie gets worse, and all hell breaks loose in the household. It’s not spoiler information to say that “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” makes Katie’s monster condition infectious through vomit and those scorpion-like creatures that suddenly appear and crawl in people’s mouths. And it’s hard to feel much sympathy for the parents, who make the worst parental decisions. For example, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” expects viewers to believe that Larissa and Carmen think it’s more important that Katie get a pedicure instead of professional medical treatment.
The acting in “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is nothing special. Some of the performances are downright atrocious, no thanks to the moronic dialogue and stupid scenarios. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” tries to cover up its nonsensical story with blood, bile and other body horror scenes, but all these distractions and gimmicks can’t erase the stink of a horrible movie.
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” on April 17, 2026.
