Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026)

I get it. I understand why this has been titled Lee Cronin's The Mummy. You don't want to risk confusing people who are eagerly awaiting another adventure with Brendan Fraser and co. You also don't want to risk confusing people (okay person . . . okay . . . me) who might be thinking that one day they'll secretly try to get another Dark Universe movie made, with or without Tom Cruise in a lead role. I'm telling you, rewatch that movie and you may eventually see that it's not as bad as the reviews and box office might have you believe. But I digress. The point I was making was that I won't be insulting to Lee Cronin's The Mummy because of the title. I will, however, be insulting to it because of so many other things in the film.

This is a horrible and joyless mess of a film, seemingly helmed by someone who doesn't really seem interested in the main essence of the monster announced in the title. It's all about Charlie (Jack Reynor) and Larissa (Laia Costa), a couple who go through the pain of having one of their children snatched away from them. Things look up slightly when she's found again years later though, but she's been seriously traumatised. And mummified. What can be done to help her get back to normality? Is she the same soul that she was when abducted years ago? 

As so many others have already said, this is Lee Cronin filtering some mummy movie ideas through the filter of an Evil Dead movie. I wouldn't have minded that if it had been as much fun as that blend suggests. It's not. the 134-minute runtime feels like a real slog, especially throughout the first half of the movie, and there's not enough in the third act to make up for how draining the rest of it is. 

Reynor and Costa are both fine in their roles, although both have been MUCH better in a number of other features. Natalie Grace works well as young Katie, mostly buried under a lot of makeup that helps her to look quite scary and pained. That's really all I have to say. That's not the extent of the cast, but nobody else gets to make a strong enough impression. There's a determined detective (May Calamawy), but she feels as if she's only coming in and out of the film to ensure the main characters get to hear enough exposition. There are other children (played by Shylo Molina and Billie Roy), but they never feel quite as endangered as they could be, considering they are siblings set to be manipulated by their transformed sister. And there are one or two other characters I was waiting to see meet some kind of nasty end. It's a shame that Hayat Kamille isn't used more, because her character (The Magician) felt like someone actually interesting enough to want to spend some more time with.

There's very little else to say about this. It's visually ugly, for the most part, I have already forgotten the score by Stephen McKeon (honestly, it might have been alright, but my mood was so soured by everything else that I was battling against some kind of wall of rage-induced white noise), and someone should have had the sense to scrap everything quite early on and restart from scratch.

I would never claim to be the biggest fan of Mummy movies at any time, they're my least favourite of the big classic monsters, but this turgid pile is already a strong contender for one of the worst cinematic releases of 2026, and also sits very low in any ranked list of Mummy movies, not counting the efforts that were made with a tenth of this budget. 

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Grafted (2024)

The directorial feature debut from Sasha Rainbow, who also co-wrote the screenplay with three other people, Grafted starts off with promise. There's a moment of science-based horror that calls to mind numerous classics from years gone by. You see someone take the plunge with a major breakthrough before their eyes widen and their expression of terror conveys that they just made a big mistake. I was absolutely on board with the movie at that point.

That initial moment of horror is witnessed by a young girl, Wei, who grows up to be obsessed about the work of her late father. She just wants to get rid of the birthmark that has made her feel uncomfortable in her own skin for all her life, and there's a chance that she may be able to surpass his own work with the help of a professor who sees the potential in her. Nobody really knows just how far Wei might go though, not even Wei herself, until people start threatening her as she seems on the very edge of scientific success.

Although it never feels as if it escalates in a way that is expected, and the ending is surprisingly predictable once you see things being lined up, Grafted is a very enjoyable body horror that delivers a few enjoyably gnarly moments of nastiness alongside a standard messages about body image and how society treats those viewed differently.

Although four people all helped to write this, it doesn't feel as if there's a struggle to stay on point. Things move from one beat to the next with a decent consistency, and viewers will soon start to get a bad feeling about everyone who gets too close to our main character. It's just a shame that there aren't more moments of bloody and gloopy "fun", with the third act falling slightly flat compared to the middle section.

Joyena Sun is perfectly fine in the role of Wei, but both Jess Hong and Eden Hart make a bit more of an impression with how they end up acting after being caught up in her experiments. Turner is disappointingly neutered in the role of Paul, the professor who can be friendly or hostile, depending on how things are going with the lab work. Sepi To'a makes a good impression with her smaller role, Xiao Hu is very enjoyable as Aunty Ling, who ends up providing a home and support for Wei, and Mark Mitchinson gets to be involved with a couple of the best scenes in the movie.

Good, but not great, Grafted is another debut that serves as a clear declaration of an emerging talent who we should keep a very watchful eye on. There's enough here to keep most people entertained and engaged, even if some scenes don't knit together as neatly as the, well, as the skin grafting on to skin that features in every main experiment.

6/10

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Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Here we go again, a decade after the last Evil Dead movie (one I have rated slightly higher after repeat viewings), a little while after the very enjoyable Ash Vs. Evil Dead TV show, and over forty years until this franchise was started with The Evil Dead. Writer-director Lee Cronin has now been entrusted with the property, and he delivers a barnstorming selection of blood-soaked thrills and escalating tension that allows this film to compare favourably to anything that preceded it, which is quite an achievement.

Alyssa Sutherland plays Ellie, mother to Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), Danny (Morgan Davies), and Kassie (the youngest of the three, played by Nell Fisher). This family unit aren't having the best time of things, and they will need to move to a new home soon, their apartment building having been scheduled for demolition in the near future. Ellie's sister, Beth (Lily Sullivan), finds out about this when she pays a surprise visit. When the kids are sent out to pick up a pizza, an earthquake strikes, which opens up a hole that Danny decides to explore, finding a book that probably shouldn't be opened, as well as some very special vinyl records. One thing leads to another, and before you can say "kanda, estrata, kandos", well . . . a voice starts saying "kanda, estrata, kandos", and things start to get very painful and bloody for those targeted by demonic forces. It all starts with Ellie, but nobody is safe, either from the threat of death or the threat of possession.

I’ve already seen a lot of love for Evil Dead Rise, but I have seen just as much criticism of it. Most of the criticism amounts to one or two main complaints; it doesn’t feel like an Evil Dead movie, and there’s no Ash. Not to invalidate the opinions of people who left their screening of this full of anger and disappointment, but it sure felt like an Evil Dead movie to me. You get great imagery throughout, a Necronomicon being the cause of all the troubles, and demonic entities that are as playful as they are deadly. The fact that there is no Ash is a) untrue (find him in a very well-hidden cameo), and b) neither here nor there. I love Bruce Campbell as much as most horror fans, but the franchise has figured out a way to ensure that it wasn’t just tied to one character, and especially one character that nobody would want to see recast. 

All you will find in this review is love for this film. I had a blast with it, from the opening sequence (including a fun gag, and some nastiness that we then cut away from after one of the best opening title cards in modern cinema) to the third act that covers every part of the screen with the most amount of fake blood scene since, well, Evil Dead. Cronin has brilliant instincts for his treatment of the material, and only stumbles when trying to shoehorn in some familiar soundbite from the previous movies, and he accompanies the wild and gory visuals with an audio mix that often becomes genuinely uncomfortable and distressing at times. There are moments here in which the sound builds and builds and builds in a way that you feel will either break your brain or make you vomit, and I mean this as a compliment (but also a warning to prepare yourself - this can feel like an assault on your senses, which is another aspect that helps it feel very much like an Evil Dead film).

And as for those being put through the necronomiwringer, I liked everyone onscreen. Sutherland generally had the most fun, being turned before anyone else and being the main threat in the movie, but Sullivan is easy to root for in the face of increasing danger. Echols and Davies are also very good, typical teens who become believably terrified as everything starts to spiral into insanity, but not only does Fisher get to be an amusingly quirky pre-teen, she also reminded me of Heather O’Rourke’s character in the Poltergeist movies. Whether deliberate or not, there’s one shot near the very end of the film that felt like an attempt to replicate a moment in that horror classic. A few others get dragged into the horror, providing extra potential souls to be swallowed, but the two who make the strongest impressions are played by Jayden Daniels and Mark Mitchinson, although nobody here drops the ball.

Despite the criticisms I have seen from others, I would highly recommend this to fans of the franchise. It has the camerawork you expect, an impressive array of special effects, some familiar weaponry, and moments to make most people genuinely wince and/or laugh at the onscreen insanity. If Cronin has plans for another one or two instalments then I will be keen to see what he gives us next. This film certainly shows that Sam Raimi’s faith in him was not misplaced, and moving the terror away from that cabin in the woods, but still keeping people trapped in one main location, ends up working even better than I hoped it would.

Go get some.

8/10

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