Lee Cronin’s The Mummy First Reviews: Plenty of Gore and Visual Flair but A Little Too Familiar
Critics say Cronin's take on the monster offers plenty of gut-wrenching body horror and solid performances, but the story could be stronger.
Just to be clear, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is not part of the traditional Universal Monsters line-up. It has nothing to do with the lumbering character from the classic films from the 1930s and ’40s, nor the Hammer films of the 1960s, nor the widely beloved Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz adventure films of early 2000s, nor the ill-fated Tom Cruise vehicle of 2017. This is its own beast, telling the story of a journalist whose daughter goes missing in Egypt, only to show up mysteriously eight years later at their Albuquerque home.
The first reviews for the film have just arrived, and critics are somewhat divided on the film. While some say it successfully sets itself apart with gory thrills and visual flair, others say it feels too derivative to truly deliver.
Here’s what critics are saying about Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.
How does it compare to previous versions of the Mummy character?
There is a mummy here. There are bandages. There is a sarcophagus… But nobody has to fake being unable to evade a creature that moves at the pace of molasses down a gentle slope.
— Donald Clarke, Irish Times
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy makes no attempt to build on what came before.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
Yes, there’s a mummy in it, and yes, the film is full of supernatural horrors, but writer/director Cronin treats the mummy parts like window dressing.
— William Bibbiani, TheWrap
The film veers sharply away from the legendary Universal Monsters take on Egyptian death practices.
— Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict
[Cronin’s] Imhotep-free version feels like it’s trying to get away from every mummy movie lurking before it; only an Egyptian tomb, bandages and an ancient curse connect it to that mythology.
— Radheyan Simonpillai, Globe and Mail
While it’s called The Mummy, the link to mummies and the mythos behind this ancient and innovative embalming process is superficial at best..
— David Jenkins, Little White Lies
Is it comparable to any other films?
Think The Exorcist meets Hereditary and you’re on the right track.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
The film’s clearest reference points are The Exorcist, in its depiction of a child overtaken by something beyond comprehension, and The Conjuring films, in its measured pacing and tonal discipline.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
Cronin’s latest is uncannily similar to his last movie, Evil Dead Rise. Both are about families ripped apart — literally and figuratively — after a loved one gets possessed by a demon. And both films are gross as hell.
— William Bibbiani, TheWrap
There are endless reminders here of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and, as in that film, the action makes borderline-dubious use of our unease at decay and disease.
— Donald Clarke, Irish Times
Cronin’s version really made a mess of an Exorcist movie that also crams in bits from Don’t Look Now, Hereditary and The Evil Dead.
— Radheyan Simonpillai, Globe and Mail
It owes far more to The Exorcist and the Poltergeist films than to anything Boris Karloff or Lon Chaney Jr lurched through, arms outstretched, in the 1930s and ’40s.
— Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
Is it scary?
The bottom line is: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is, first and foremost, a scary movie — and it’s scary, scary, scary.
— William Bibbiani, TheWrap
It’s been a while since a horror film came along that left you genuinely fearful for the spiritual wellbeing of all involved.
— Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
If any of this were scary, all would be forgiven, but we’re left with a bunch of cheesy jolts and a vulgar array of physical assaults, most of them aimed at young girls and old women.
— Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict
Is it gory?
Cronin has an uncanny knack for human mutilation, which would probably be a bad thing in any other context, but if you’re making gross-out horror movies, it’s practically a requirement.
— William Bibbiani, TheWrap
Those who found Whannell’s Wolf Man a little too muted will have no such complaint with Cronin’s shameless efforts here to test the audience’s capacity for recreational revulsion.
— Donald Clarke, Irish Times
Although it ends up crossing the line from unsettling to punishing, you still have to take your hat off to it, if only because a makeshift sick bag may be required.
— Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
Cronin is never not going for effect here, but the onslaught of cracking bones, skin peeling, and teeth removal gets tiresome fast.
— Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict
Cronin is a purveyor of gore – he finds oh so many ways to make us squirm, not in terror but disgust.
— Radheyan Simonpillai, Globe and Mail
How is the story?
Cronin has the emotional heart of his film down pat, but he can’t get a handle on his plot. That’s not a problem when your film is Evil Dead Rise and the plot is “demon book makes people demons,” but this is a plot-heavy mystery with tons of exposition.
— William Bibbiani, TheWrap
The pacing asks for patience, and the horror architecture is familiar enough that the joins occasionally show.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
[Cronin’s] skill at whipping up a crescendo of horrors helps distract from a plot with too little connective thread between the big showstoppers.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
What really sinks Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is its creators’ heedless insistence on flooding viewers with the ridiculous, logic-frying plot twists.
— Simon Abrams, AV Club
Missing is a very basic sense of where the characters are in the story and how they interact with one another.
— David Jenkins, Little White Lies
What about the acting?
[Cronin] is assisted by excellent acting right down the dramatis personae. Reynor has heroic genes. Costa worries with majesty. And young Natalie Grace deserves huge praise for connecting with such blistering force through wads of restrictive make-up and prosthetics.
— Donald Clarke, Irish Times
Costa and Reynor ground the film emotionally, giving Charlie and Larissa a believable sense of parental desperation that keeps the supernatural elements tethered to something human.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
May Calamawy is particularly good as the stubborn Cairo detective tracing Katie’s captors.
— Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
Falcón and Calamawy carve out some moments of intensity for themselves; poor Reynor has been directed to blink as little as possible, and while his eyes are certainly striking, his startled stare loses its potency before long.
— Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict
How does the film look?
Cinematographer Dave Garbett shoots in deep shadow and deliberate eeriness, and the New Mexico setting, later in the film, feels less like a backdrop than a condition.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
The collaboration with DP Dave Garbett that brought rich, grungy textures, frantic movement, uneasy angles and disorienting split diopter shots to Evil Dead Rise pays off with similar visual intensity here.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
There’s an appealing enough film grammar to his movie about a mummified child, with fun shot choices and clever edits, that you can reasonably argue a sentient filmmaker is in fact putting his personal stamp on this movie.
— Radheyan Simonpillai, Globe and Mail
It looks great, and Cronin is a gifted stylist.
— Kevin Maher, The Times (UK)
What about its music?
The Mummy‘s throbbing, heavily-foregrounded soundtrack might get under your skin anyway, especially whenever characters are listening to something loud and inexplicable happening in a nearby room, just out of view.
— Simon Abrams, AV Club
Stephen McKeon’s score works the same way: present without announcing itself, tightening the atmosphere in the quieter stretches rather than filling them.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
Are there any problems?
What’s missing between every moment that has us clawing at arm rests – like a pedicure scene that goes hideously wrong – are emotional stakes.
— Radheyan Simonpillai, Globe and Mail
This movie makes you wince every couple of minutes. That’s enough to recommend a horror movie. It’s just not enough to make it a great one, with or without the mummies.
— William Bibbiani, TheWrap
The pacing asks for patience, and the horror architecture is familiar enough that the joins occasionally show. The nods to its influences can feel a little on-the-nose.
— Linda Marric, HeyUGuys
Cronin’s movie gracelessly piles on new ideas and images with each new scene, while never effectively building up to the next big jolt. Most of the movie’s standout moments have no real momentum and are visually dull to boot—but hey, there’s plenty of blood, pus, and barf.
— Simon Abrams, AV Club
Cronin leans into all the horror cliches — storms, dollhouses, flickering lights, muttered spells, whacked-out cults, bathtubs filled with rotting water, skittering insects and random coyotes — to establish a staid and eerie foundation, only to go over-the-top gorefest at the end.
— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opens in theaters on April 17, 2026.
Thumbnail image by ©Warner Bros. Pictures
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