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Dating back to 1932, The Mummy has been revered as one of the classic movie monsters. That film was the seventh of the classic era of Universal Monsters, embedding the fear factor behind a supernatural, mummified high priest. The perception of the monster and the setting has changed greatly in the near-century since.
Popular entertainment has leant into the wonder of Ancient Egypt and the adventures that can come from being chased by such a foe. On 17 April 2026, however, rising horror creator Lee Cronin looks to bring mummies back to the horror genre.
Horror Mummies a Rarity These Days
Source: Pexels
Looking around the various segments of entertainment, it’s clear that the Ancient Egyptian setting remains very popular. This is particularly true of the online slots space. Almost all sub-categories of slots have an Ancient Egyptian game, and while they’ll feature famous figures, almost none depict mummies or the dead as horrifying.
Eye of Horus and Eye of Horus Legacy of Gold are all about exploring an ancient tomb in search of the precious icon. With it, you can earn the deity’s favour, go to the bonus feature, and potentially secure a big win. It’s about playing into the grandeur and riches of the great Ancient Egyptian dynasties and their gods.
On the big screen, where The Mummy first stumbled into pop culture entertainment, it’s impossible to overlook the impact of 1999’s The Mummy. So beloved for its zany action and charismatic cast, the trilogy will soon become a quadrilogy as Hollywood continues to desperately plunder its former greats to have some level of appeal.
Back in the late 2010s, when Universal was looking to establish its Universal Monsters as an interconnected new franchise, they opted to remake The Mummy as an action flick with horror elements. It flopped significantly, leading to a box-office failure and the cancellation of the franchise model.
Eerie, Grotesque, and Chilling
Source: Unsplash
The Mummy is a reanimated corpse, inspired by the preservation efforts of the Ancient Egyptians for their most prominent figures. The very practice can easily be pivoted into a horror one, and that’s what made it so effective in the 1930s and for decades since. Lee Cronin will be looking to lean into this as much as possible.
Even the first teaser trailer, amounting to not quite a minute, set this new tone. It’s going to be eerie, with shadows moving in dark spaces. The grotesque nature of this evil discovery, from fraying bandages to bugs crawling from someone’s mouth, will be emphasised. Its approach to possession and reanimation will be chilling.
The premise is that someone goes missing and returns eight years later without much by way of an explanation as to how they survived or why they’re returned. When they do, the grieving family embraces the reunion, but soon discovers that very little is right, and that darkness has entered the home.
Cronin’s work so far has created strong expectations for this return to horror for The Mummy. His directing and writing for The Hole in the Ground and Evil Dead Rise were well-received. Now, as he is also the executive producer for this flick, fans expect to see him explore even more of his talent for creating an unsettling atmosphere and a few scares.
The depiction of mummies and their setting may have changed drastically in modern media, but that may work in this film’s favour. It’ll be distinct for being in the horror genre, and might just return The Mummy to its roots.
