In the wake of the recently announced Brendan Fraser-starring The Mummy 4 (set to hit cinemas in 2028), there’s been a relentless social media campaign regarding the actor’s potential presence in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.
So, let’s get this out of the way from the get-go: No, Brendan Fraser is not in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. And yes, that is its full title – a branding stunt that is simultaneously bold and very pretentious, a clear studio move aiming to differentiate 2026’s Mummy issues from past (and future) iterations.
This year’s mummified menace movie is an entirely separate reinvention of the franchise from a different production house. It’s the first Mummy film that isn’t produced by either the Hammer or Universal Studios. It is also, by our calculations, the longest – with a 134-minute runtime. And it’s certainly the goriest.
That’s hardly a high bar to clear, considering recent offerings have given us swashbuckling adventures and a Mission: Impossible-styled one starring Tom Cruise, which tanked Universal’s plans for a Dark Universe slate of movies. However, if images of rotting flesh being peeled off, overgrown nails being clipped, creepy crawlies sneaking into mouths and severed vocal cords already give you the willies, you may want to sit this one out.
Irish director Lee Cronin (The Hole In The Ground, Evil Dead Rise) explores a new horror angle for the wrapped terror, delivering his take on ancient evil. Instead of giving audiences some Fraserific frolics, or indeed a Boris Karloff or Sofia Boutella figure, we get eight-year-old Katie (Emily Mitchell / Natalie Grace). She’s the daughter of Charlie (Jack Reynor) and Larissa (Laia Costa), who vanishes into a Cairo sandstorm.
Eight years later, the family is still wrestling with the emotional fallout when they get a call from dogged Detective Zaki (May Calamawy). Katie’s been found. She’s one of 57 individuals who were locked up in 3000-year-old sarcophagi. Not everyone made it out alive, but she has.
What happened to her? How did she survive? Who put her in a tomb? And is therapy going to be enough to get her and her family through the trauma?
Spoiler: No. No it’s not.
In many ways, Cronin aims to replicate what Leigh Whannell did with the excellent The Invisible Man (2020). The latter took a classic bandaged antagonist and transformed its story into a potent tale about gaslighting and domestic abuse. Here, Cronin reimagines another bandaged rogue and uses the figure to interrogate the forces of bereavement, grief and remorse.
For the first half, he pulls it off. Cronin ratchets up the oppressive dread during the investigation into Katie’s disappearance, and gradually peppers in some visceral and puss-based scares. Because Lee Cronin’s The Mummy boasts plenty of gag-inducing, Sam Raimi-esque ickiness.
The snag is that Raimi’s warped wit and sick sense of humour is missing, meaning that as the grand guignol – at times Exorcist aping – gross-out horror piles on, so does a sense of exhaustion. The dialled-up-to-11 finale in particular succumbs to more generic scares you’ve seen a thousand times before.
Thankfully, and in spite of its bloated runtime, there’s still plenty to enjoy here. Newcomer Natalie Grace gives an all-out physical performance that is impressive and very creepy, while the sadistic set pieces do hit their messy mark. These positives don’t eclipse the stilted dialogue, a barrage of familiar tropes, and nor do they justify the braggadocious auteur claim of the title. However, you’re still left with a gnarly exhumation which will delight undemanding gore hounds on a Friday night. That’s a wrap.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is out in cinemas now.