LEE CRONIN'S THE MUMMY Explores “Mummification For a Different Purpose” in a Twisted Horror Reinvention

There’s a version of The Mummy that a lot of audiences grew up with, and it wasn’t exactly nightmare fuel. It was fun, adventurous, and packed with charm.

That legacy, whether it comes from The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz or even the more recent attempt led by Tom Cruise, turned the monster into something closer to blockbuster spectacle than pure horror. Director Lee Cronin clearly isn’t interested in continuing that tradition.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy isn’t interested in spectacle-first storytelling. This one leans hard into horror, and not just the jump-scare kind. It digs into something way more personal, way more unsettling.

As Cronin puts it during a recent interview with EW, "The key difference is that it's a really scary mummy movie. It's also a mummy movie partly set in a domestic context. So rather than it being, necessarily, about grand secrets linked to politics and hierarchy, it's actually a small family secret."

Instead of ancient rulers and cursed treasure, we’re following regular people. Jack Reynor and Laia Costa play Charlie and Larissa Cannon, journalists raising three kids while carrying the weight of a devastating mystery. Their daughter Katie vanished eight years ago in the Egyptian desert.

Then comes the call that changes everything. Katie is found. But, not in any way that makes sense.

She’s discovered inside a sarcophagus, one of 58 people, some of them not even alive anymore. Somehow, she is. The family brings her home to Albuquerque, hoping for a miracle. What they get instead is something far more disturbing.

Cronin describes the core idea as "mummification for a different purpose," and that phrase alone tells you this isn’t playing by the old rules.

Producer James Wan, working alongside Jason Blum, saw something unique in Cronin’s approach. It isn’t just about resurrecting a monster, it’s about turning that monster inward.

"When you think traditionally about mummies, you think about pharaohs, kings, queens, the rich," Cronin explains. "One of the things we talked about early on was: What if it was about regular people?"

That idea lines up with what Blumhouse has been doing lately, taking familiar horror icons and reframing them through human struggles. Think The Invisible Man turning into a story about abuse, or The Wolf Man tapping into illness and family strain. This new Mummy follows that same path, but it goes even darker.

Blum explains: "The original monsters, when they were first seen in the movies, were scary. Over time, not just The Mummy but other ones too, they morphed into more four-quadrant movies. Y

“ou could even say that's true of Guillermo [Del Toro] 's Frankenstein. What's unique about Lee's Mummy is that we're returning to the roots of what these original monsters were, which was really, really scary and mysterious.

“There's a great mystery in this movie, and I think my colleagues here would agree with me, a mystery makes a movie scarier."

That mystery runs through everything. Cronin leans into body horror, possession, and psychological tension, all wrapped inside a family dynamic that feels grounded before everything spirals. "It has body horror, it has possession, it has the domestic setup. Underneath all of that, and maybe most importantly, it's a mystery."

That domestic angle is where things really get uncomfortable. Wan even describes the film as "a possession movie that potentially afflicts this family," which makes it less about ancient curses and more about something invading your home, your relationships, your sense of safety.

Cronin leans into the obvious comparison. "It's about family," he says, but don’t expect anything resembling a feel-good vibe. His goal is way more sinister.

"For me, it's a great way to pull the rug quickly on an audience, as well, which is what I want to do. I want you to come into the theater, and I want you to trust me, and then I want you to instantly regret trusting me because now you're on the ride and I've got you by the hand and you're not able to go anywhere."

Cronin, coming off Evil Dead Rise, was already in the business of pushing horror into uncomfortable territory. But this time, instead of chainsaws and chaos, he’s building something slower, more invasive. Something that gets under your skin.

If you’ve been waiting for The Mummy to feel dangerous and scary again, this might finally be it.