Simplifying The Daily Existence

Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026) premiered on JioHotstar in India on September 17, 2026. One look at the movie poster on the Jio app might make you believe that this is connected to the Mummy franchise that built and then destroyed Brendon Fraser. You are wrong! Lee Cronin's The Mummy is an entirely different movie. The content is not even remotely connected to the globally popular franchise. Lee Cronin's The Mummy is more like folklore without the special effects associated with the original. It is classified as a horror movie on Jio Hotstar, but you might not feel the scares. The movie is set in Egypt, where an American family is temporarily residing. It is their little daughter who falls into the darkness of a lady who is perhaps the vessel for an evil force. The little girl is kidnapped and returned to her family nearly a decade later. What happened during this time? Why does a teenage girl look like the possessed child from The Exorcist?

Body Horror is perhaps the right niche and definition for Lee Cronin's The Mummy. You will find plenty of it spread across the movie. Expect skin, nails, meaty flesh, hair, bodily fluids, and blood to take center stage every time a sequence builds up. The movie does not explain much. It does not dig into the origins of the prehistoric evil that is known to rip apart families - it is just there - sometimes in a mummified tomb and then as something that can be transferred from one vessel to the next medium. The good thing about Lee Cronin's The Mummy is that it does not relent.

There are no family vacations or happy moments. The entire movie is about the darkness, including the family's desperation to save their own.

If you like body horror, scripts that weave in the family angle rather than hormone-high teenagers, and a story told without losing pace, Lee Cronin's The Mummy can be a good watch. The faces might not seem familiar. However, everyone does their job rather well. The possessed girl is convincing. The folklore horror also seems believable. The ending was really good - it creates a type of closure you would want to see. A few scenes might clearly resemble possession-themed horror movies, but that is something you just cannot escape - any story where evil has taken over a human body needs some twisting of the bones, drainage of blood, and an inhuman, creepy, raspy voice. The good thing is that Lee Cronin's The Mummy uses all of this in the right proportions. It doesn't present research to support its storyline, and the body-horror scenes are perfectly controlled.

There is AI, but it does not feel out of place. There are predictable reactions from the parents, but they seem genuine. A massive crater in the backyard concealing a mummy's tomb can also be allowed if you are not trying to pick your brains. A father who wears the same expression of shock for nearly 90 minutes is also forgivable. Even the Egyptian cop, who is predictably in perfect shape in every possible way, convinces you because she does not overdo her anxiety about working on a missing persons case over nearly a decade!