Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026): Review & Ending Explained

Director: Lee Cronin Screenplay: Lee Cronin Cast: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Verónica Falcón, Shylo Molina Year: 2026

Few horror creatures have been recycled as often as the mummy, and for more than two decades its image has been tied to the 1999 version starring Brendan Fraser, an Indiana Jones-style adventure built on action, comedy, a few touches of horror and a cast that became iconic. I love those films, but that road has already been traveled and there is no need to travel it again, something the Tom Cruise version made abundantly clear. That is why my expectations were so low when a new mummy was announced, and it is exactly why "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" has become the surprise of the year for me, because it abandons the adventure template entirely and dives headfirst into pure horror.

In "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" we follow Charlie and Larissa Cannon (Jack Reynor and Laia Costa), a couple living in Cairo when their daughter Katie vanishes without a trace. Eight years later, back in the United States, they get the call they had long stopped expecting, because Katie has turned up alive, though catatonic. What should be a joyful reunion starts to sour almost immediately, as Katie's behavior grows stranger and the family begins to realize that what happened to her during those years cannot be explained by an ordinary kidnapping.

Lee Cronin, who wrote and directed the film, is well known for an uncomfortable, grimy, worn-down style that gives his films a very particular atmosphere, something we had already seen in "The Hole in the Ground" and "Evil Dead Rise", and which carries over to the mummy fully intact. That is where much of the criticism comes from, with many arguing that it plays more like an Evil Dead entry than a mummy movie. I completely disagree, because while the parallels with Evil Dead are obvious, and unavoidable given that it is the same director, the film never stops being about a mummy, taking a monster that cinema has squeezed dry and finding a fresh idea and a style of its own, leaning on the mysticism of Egyptian mythology to pull everything firmly into horror territory.

Much of the film rests on Natalie Grace, who plays Katie and does tremendous work, because so much of what draws you in is watching her sit still and catatonic while you, as a viewer, know something is about to happen without having any idea what it will be. When it finally does, it is almost always unexpected, and as the threat inside the house grows stronger her performance becomes more and more central, matched by Jack Reynor (whom we remember from "Midsommar") as a father watching his family break apart from the inside. The effects live up to that performance, since every scene that relies on them looks spectacular and, at the same time, is painful to watch, with the same attention to the physical and the repulsive that Cronin showed in his earlier work.

The film runs 133 minutes, so it is on the long side, but it never feels that way, because the story keeps you intrigued from beginning to end and it is genuinely hard to predict what comes next, which keeps the viewer alert to every detail. It is enjoyable from start to finish precisely because it never settles into what you expect from a mummy story.

Fans of "Evil Dead Rise" and of the most uncomfortable, physical strain of possession horror will find one of the best films of the year here, while anyone looking for the lighthearted adventure and humor of the Brendan Fraser version won't find much appeal in it, because Cronin has no interest whatsoever in repeating that formula.

Rating: 9/10

Ending Explained (Spoilers ahead)

The key to the film is that Katie was not taken by just any ring, but by a woman known as the Magician, Layla's mother, who used her as a vessel for an ancient Egyptian demon, the Nasmaranian. The demon is kept contained through a mummification ritual, sealed inside a living body that is then mummified and kept closed for as long as possible, and once its influence starts to show in the surroundings, its keepers know the body has to be replaced with a fresh one, and Katie was that fresh body.

Once she is home, the demon regains strength and does what it does best, which is break the family apart from the inside, going as far as killing Carmen, the grandmother, and manipulating Sebastián into removing his sister's bindings. Meanwhile, Detective Dalia Zaki traces the case to a house in Aswan built on top of a pyramid, where she finds a tape showing how the transfer into Katie was carried out, and with that knowledge the family finally understands how to fight back.

The only way to save Katie is to move the demon into another body, and Charlie chooses to sacrifice himself and accept the possession, ending up sealed in a coffin in the basement, from which he taps messages to his family in Morse code while Katie begins to recover. The story does not end there, though, because Larissa and Dalia reach the cell in Cairo where the Magician is held, bringing the still-possessed Charlie with them, sedate her and begin the ritual to pass the demon into her. Everything suggests she will be mummified and sealed, condemned to the same fate she imposed on others, and the film frames it as revenge for all the physical and psychological suffering this family endured over so many years and, above all, in those final days in which they lost people they loved. Cronin ends the story just as the chant begins, leaving the viewer to complete what comes next.