Lee Cronin’s The Mummy makes no attempt to build on what came before. The film cuts ties entirely with both the 1999 adventure series and the 2017 reboot—the film that effectively ended Universal’s Dark Universe experiment before it could take shape. Rather than continuing in either direction, Cronin steers the material toward supernatural horror, backed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and Atomic Monster.
The story centres on Charlie Cannon (Sing Street and Midsommar star Jack Reynor), a journalist whose young daughter Katie disappeared in Cairo eight years ago. When she turns up alive, Charlie and his wife Larissa (Laia Costa) don’t know what to do with their relief, because Katie (Natalie Grace) isn’t quite herself. Detective Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) begins looking into the case and traces what’s happening to something much older, rooted in ancient Egypt, suggesting Katie didn’t return alone.
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. With James Wan and Jason Blum involved, that combination is unlikely to be accidental. Cronin doesn’t transcend those influences, but he works within them with enough confidence that the film builds genuine, sustained unease rather than coasting on familiarity.
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. Natalie Grace is quietly unsettling as Katie, but it’s Billie Roy as Maud who lingers longest, her presence used to unnerving effect as Cronin leans into the “creepy child” tradition to seed a constant, low-level dread.
Where previous versions of this story fell short on cultural specificity, this one makes a deliberate correction. Arab actors, May Calamawy (Gladiator II), Hayat Kamille (Death On The Nile) and May Elghety, are central to the Egyptian-set narrative rather than decorative. Their presence gives the mythological material something to stand on, rather than treating it as exotic scenery.
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. Stephen McKeon’s score works the same way: present without announcing itself, tightening the atmosphere in the quieter stretches rather than filling them.
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. But there’s enough that’s genuinely its own here—in performance, atmosphere, and creepiness—that the film gets under your skin regardless. The Mummy earns its place through consistency of tone and the quality of its performances. It trades spectacle for dread—and the trade holds up.
