Natalie Grace as Katie in ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’
Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line Cinema
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a fresh-but-familiar take on a classic movie monster in which the titular horror can never die—only passed on to a new host.
Writer/director Lee Cronin reimagines the mummy as a domestic disturbance, forcing the unfortunate Cannon family into a hellish scenario, in which the miraculous return of their lost little girl turns into a nightmare.
The Mummy sees tragedy and trauma tear a loving family apart, requiring self-sacrifice and patience to heal (of course, esoteric knowledge of ancient Egyptian magic helps too).
Warning—Spoilers Ahead.
What Is The Plot Of ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’?
Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) and his wife, Larissa (Laia Costa) struggle to move on after their young daughter, Katie (Natalie Grace) was abducted in Egypt by a mysterious woman known as “the Magician” (Hayat Kamille).
After the Magician enchants Katie and steals her away, Charlie tries to chase the kidnapper, but is blocked by a sudden sandstorm that allows the Magician to escape.
Poor Katie becomes a living human sacrifice and placed inside a sarcophagus, her body used as a flesh prison for an ancient demon.
The Egyptian authorities blame the parents for Katie’s disappearance, but junior detective Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) sympathizes with the grieving pair.
Eight years later, Larissa can’t forgive Charlie for failing to catch the kidnapper, and the news that Katie has been found alive seems like a miracle.
A plane carrying Katie’s sarcophagus has crashed, leading to her discovery, but the parents are disturbed to see that their daughter is not the same. Her body and mind are mutilated, but the doctor reassures them that she is healthy enough to return home.
Katie immediately becomes a terrible burden on the family, acting like a monster, in increasingly disturbing ways.
Any horror fan will recognize the influence of The Exorcist and other possession films (it’s always a little girl), but in The Mummy, the demon seeks to escape its host.
After consulting an archaeology professor about the markings on Katie’s skin and bandages, Charlie learns the lore of the demon inside his daughter.
The entity within Katie is an ancient, malevolent being known as Nasmaranian, the destroyer of families. Nasmaranian damages the body of its host and must continuously spread to new victims.
The Magician and her family have been imprisoning Nasmaranian for many years, using multiple layers of binding spells, including the writings embedded into Katie’s skin.
After an accident tears an alarmingly large chunk of Katie’s skin, Katie doubles down on self-mutilation and manages to spread the curse to her two siblings, who begin to act as erratically as her.
Before Katie was chosen as a host, the Magician had cycled through several bodies to contain Nasmaranian, and she mentions the importance of using an innocent child.
As Katie tears off her skin, the bindings holding Nasmaranian weaken, allowing his curse to spread. However, Katie is still there, trapped in her body with the demon.
She manages to regain enough control over her body to communicate with her father in Morse code, telling him the name “Layla,” the Magician’s daughter who lured her in with candy.
Charlie finds a letter from Layla to Katie, realizes that she is connected to the abduction and passes the name to Dalia, who traces it back to the Magician’s house.
Dalia encounters the Magician at her home and shoots her, uncovering the grisly details behind the ancient cult that kept Nasmaranian imprisoned, and the human sacrifices made to contain it.
Layla, who has always been a reluctant helper to her abusive mother, arrives and gives Dalia a VHS tape that reveals the ritual chant of demonic transference, showing Nasmaranian entering Katie’s body.
Dalia travels to the Cannon family to show them the VHS tape, but the family has been torn apart, with Katie murdering her own grandmother and spreading the curse to her two siblings.
Katie’s bindings and skin are almost completely unraveled, and the demon is about to break containment.
As she attacks her parents and Dalia, Charlie decides to make the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter, and Dalia delivers the ritual chant, transferring the demon into Charlie, finally freeing Katie and her siblings.
The ending sees Charlie safely contained within a coffin in the basement, able to communicate with his family only through Morse code. Surprisingly, Katie is recovering from her ordeal, and it seems the family has found a way to live with the tragic circumstances.
However, a twist is delivered in the film’s final scene, with the news that the Magician has survived her encounter with Dalia, and is safely in custody.
Larissa and Dalia arrive at the Magician’s cell, along with the demon-possessed Charlie, and begin the ritualistic chant that will transfer the demon from the father to the Magician.
The Twist Ending To ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,’ Explained
The twist scene completely changes the ending of The Mummy, from a closed, bittersweet ending to a jumping off point for a potential sequel.
This makes a certain amount of sense, as Charlie was not going to survive for long—the Cannons are not trained in the ways of the ancient cult, and could not contain Nasmaranian forever.
Transferring the demon to the Magician surely spells trouble, as it was mentioned that an innocent child makes the best vessel to contain Nasmaranian.
The Cannons have likely empowered the demon, placing it inside a literal Magician with deep knowledge of binding spells, along with dark magic.
If Nasmaranian returns, it will do more than bite and scratch.
Will There Be A Sequel To ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’?
The door is wide open for a sequel, but there’s no official word yet.
Director Lee Cronin seems enthusiastic about the idea, but it all depends on the box office, with Cronin telling Variety that they will “let the audience decide.”
“I absolutely adore the characters in this world, and we’ve dipped our toes into a much, much bigger lore,” Cronin said. “If the audience really likes this world and this universe, then there’s no doubt there would be conversations about how we would continue to grow it.”
