‘The Mummy’ trailer: Lee Cronin’s gory, horror reimagining of the monster classic

Blumhouse and Atomic Monster have released the first trailer for The Mummy, revealing a darker, blood-soaked reinvention of the iconic monster under the direction of Evil Dead Rise filmmaker Lee Cronin.

The brief teaser signals a sharp tonal shift from previous incarnations of the franchise, positioning The Mummy firmly within supernatural horror rather than the adventure spectacle of the earlier cult classic. The story centers on a journalist’s daughter who vanishes in the desert under mysterious circumstances, only to return eight years later. Her reappearance, initially framed as a miracle, quickly unravels into something far more disturbing as her family realizes she may no longer be entirely human.

The trailer offers fragmented, unsettling imagery rather than plot exposition. Close-ups of a bandaged, child-sized mummy are intercut with flashes of violence, bloodshed and crawling insects, all underscored by the ominous question: “What happened to Katie?”

Cronin’s approach marks a deliberate departure from the swashbuckling tone associated with the late-1990s The Mummy films starring Brendan Fraser, as well as the 2017 reboot led by Tom Cruise. Known for his grounded, nightmarish sensibility in The Hole in the Ground and Evil Dead Rise, Cronin has described his vision as something far more unsettling. “This will be unlike any ‘Mummy’ movie you ever laid eyeballs on before,” the director previously said. “I’m digging deep into the earth to raise something very ancient and very frightening.”

The film stars Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy and Verónica Falcón. Production is handled by Blumhouse and Atomic Monster for New Line Cinema, continuing the studios’ push to reframe classic monster properties through a modern horror lens.

The Mummy is scheduled to arrive in theaters on April 17.