Movie Review: Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026)/ The Hole in the Ground (2019)

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:23]Heat. Heat.

[00:00:39]Irish director Lee Cronin made a short film Ghost Train in 2013 which won the males the Argent accolade from the European Fantastic Film Festival's federations. A story about two childhood friends annual payment of respect for a friend they lost during a misadventure in a malfunctioning creepyl looking amusement ride known as the ghost train.

[00:01:01]For 16 minutes long filmed shot in 2013 with minuscule budget, Cronin already showed his ability to send chills to unsuspecting audiences. The Hole in the Ground was the feature film supernatural horror debut for Lee Cronin which put him on the map for many horror fans. I will be doing a full review for the 2019 film After the Mummy. In 2020, Crony crossed the Atlantic as he was invited to be one of the directors for an original Quebe series known as 50 states of fright as he took on the Washington's 13 steps of hell from the infamous Mockby Cemetery. It was through the development of the series that Cronin came into prominence to Sam Ramy who also directed one of the episodes for the series. This led to Lee Cronin's been anointed as the director for Evil Dead Rise from 2023, the franchise standalone spin-off about a family living in an old questionable apartment building before unearthing one of the volumes of the Nurom the Monto releasing the evil silk within affecting everyone in the building on a stormy night when electricity got cut. The hauntingly gruesome feature complemented very well with Fidi Alvarez reboot of the Evil Dead series and brought new impetus into the franchise, giving Remy and his team runway to make more sequels like Evil Dead Burn in 2026 and Evil Dead Raph in 2028. Evil Dead Rise was a movie that substantially creeped me out, especially with the performance of Alisa Sutterland and homages Le Cronin picked to previous evil dead movies and other horror movies that shaped him melted nicely with his utilization of gore. I even caught it twice in the cinema. Lee Cronin was supposed to carry on the directorial efforts in the evil date sequels.

[00:02:46]Instead, he opted to work on a passion project. It was his own imagination of the law of the mummy very much unlike the Universal monster franchise which in recent times was remembered for those comedic adventures with the likes of Brandon Fraser and Rachel Weise. Oh, someone sputtered the name Tom Cruz.

[00:03:05]Well, there was that cursed dark universe fra.

[00:03:10]We saw a heartwarming family car ride in Cairo, Egypt with the father and his three children insensitively singing to a relentless tune in the car system to the displeasure of their humorless mother. The mother was harboring a secret in their home state with a pyramid hidden within and in the base of the structure like a sarcophagus with a mummified corpse. Before you thought this Egyptian family was so ingrained into their ancient culture, think again as this was the insight to a horrible chain of events that was going to transpire. Similarly, in Cairo, an American news reporter Charlie was hoping to land an illustrial job in New York, which would give him the best opportunity to relocate a family of four with his wife expecting another child back to America after the whole Arab Spring had concluded. On that fateful day when Charlie received the call that he had been hoping for, everything converged into a tragic end with his eldest daughter Katy had been adopted with any chance of Charlie being able to chase down the perpetrator when he was hindered by a crazy sandstorm. Fast forward years later, the distraught family had to settle for plan B as the abduction of Katy had awfully beaten the family into submission and they could not get over her supposed demise. trying to live their life to the fullest as a family in Albuquerque with the youngest daughter Mont replacing her elder sister she had never seen since she was born.

[00:04:32]One day, Charlie and wife Larissa got a call from the police inspector who handled their case the day Katy was abducted. When the Cairo police had recovered a sarcophagus from an unlikely place and through DNA fingerprinting, it was verified that the cops within was identified as the missing Katy. The most incredulous part was that Katy, despite looking like a dried up corpse, who had undergone ancient Egyptian mummification, was still alive, but she was not functioning like a normal human being. The anxious parents were overwhelmed by emotions, hoping to reconcile with the daughter whose disappearance created a fissure in their relationship to fly back to Cairo only to find a young lady visibly older than Katy when she disappeared in a vegetative state, could not move on her own and could barely breathe. Katie's skull was molded out of shape. Her skin had a creepy wax complexion and her nails were growing out of control.

[00:05:28]Despite being a breathing red flag, the couple put in all the resources they could master to bring Katy home with hoped to nurse her back to health as compensation for losing her from that tragic adoption. The moment Katy returned home, scary things started escalating in a big New Mexico house with creaking wooden structure, which brilliantly added to the vibe and acoustic for the scarce Lee Cronin was delivering in his rendition of The Mommy. It was not hard to find parallels between the mommy and evil date rise.

[00:05:59]The same family unit being terrorized by anient curse or summoning. The same style of unraveling of the mystery in a dark room before [ __ ] hits a fan. The same noteworthy performance from an actor who sufficiently creep us out and in both instances started with a quiet demeanor before a full explosion of physical harm to our protagonist. The same precocious girl who was caught in the eye of the storm. The same extended family who was the first to be on the brunt of the torture. And yes, the same creatively orchestrated unadulterated gore from a studio horror feature. I suppose the nail cutting sequence that is not something for the faint hunter.

[00:06:40]Can we measure up to the cheese grater scene from evil date rise? Aside from that, the mommy was not weighing croning down to escalate the gore to the level of his earlier filmed. It was more effectively a demonic possession feature which played on the calculated jump scares which still worked to scare the audiences despite everyone was anticipating for it. The prime example will be when religious Abuela tried to bless Ridden Katy and it did not end well for her as Lee Cronin wore his admiration for Stanley Kubri's the shining on his sleeves in evil date rise. The homages he paid on William Frkins the exhis was evident here as well. Of course, everyone in the audience was quick to spot the infusion of the daylight possessions in the funeral wig scene. That memorable crawling in tight spaces between the walls of the house when Katy turned Pharaoh definitely reminded me of the first conjuring from one of the producers of this movie, James 1. I love the detective procedurals from the Cairo Police Department, especially the story arc of officer Zachi who played such a crucial role in assisting the family even at the climatic end as they unearthed the ghastly secret behind the adoption of Katy. Lee Cronin had the ability to let backdrop and location to aid in the storytelling. This was evident since ghost train which I have highlighted and I will touch on the visual that enthroled me in the hole in the ground in date rise. The prologue at the desolated lake before putting the decrypit apartment building into center stage was essentially intriguing. In the mummy the house in Albuquerque helped with setting up the mood with every layer of the spine chilling mystery being unveiled. The house felt increasingly suitable as a stage of the various characters meeting their maker.

[00:08:28]The desert landscape of Egypt and even New Mexico was very apt for telling the story of an evil that felt most comfortable with sand. The coyotes which was a normal sight in the place where the family live was a nice touch especially how Cronin incorporated it into the story perhaps as a replacement for an Egyptian jackal. In Evil Dead Rise, we had a relatively unknown Australian cast who bleeds the screen with their excellent performances. The likes of Jack Raina, Lia Costa, and May Malami was definitely not household names. And one thing for sure, their performances were rooted to the characters who had to endure the roller coaster ride of emotions, and none was remotely distracting. The pick of the lot had to be Natalie Grace as Katy who like Alyssa Sland gave the to divorce in the memorable antagonistic role which the movie can bank upon. Young actress Grace has an unforgettable face which helped with manipulating the characters with the twist and turns of her demeanor and effectively chilled me through the process. It was only through doing this review that I realized that the name of the grandmother character is common San Diego. Perhaps she had hoped to disappear to another corner of the world like her namesake. Le Cronin's the mommy was a horror movie event I had been building up for the year of 2026. In no way that it was disappointing and a 2 hours long movie was sufficiently captivating with the nuance in the scarce and a part with unraveling of the ancient law. It was still hard not to dissociate it from Cronin's previous film evil rise and the comparisons just came imminently. This was an interesting take on The Mummy, which of course the filmmakers are very prompt to distance it from the franchise menu we knew. I am awarding Lee Cronin's The Mommy a 7.5 out of 10. The Hole in the Ground was a supernatural horror written and directed by Lee Cronin, which immaculately made use of the dreary nature of an Irish woods. And when you find a massive sinkhole there, it was time to build up.

[00:10:28]Single mother Sarah and young son Chris moved to an unnamed Irish countryside to resurrect their lives after a seemingly ugly divorce. Chris was not receptive to make new friends in school at onset and had other mental inhibitions and that distinct pickiness on food like not being a fan of shredded cheese. One day upon picking up Chris from school, they found an old lady without a sound mental capacity roaming on the road, causing Sarah to make an audacious swerve of a car, nearly leading to a deadly accident. An old lady slightly suffering from dementia aside, finding a sinkhole the size of a large swimming pool at your doorstep put Sarah's fear receptors into overdrive. Things got more unhinged for Sarah when she was woken up by a loud banging noise one night before finding Chris missing as she suspected he had ran out and got lost in the woods. Just as she was losing hope of finding Chris, he reappeared in the house like he had never left. After being told the old lady by the name of Norin had killed her own son after claiming he was not her real son. Sarah and Chris were petrified to find Norin coming to pound them, warning Sarah that Chris was not her real son. This was the start of things spiring out of control for Sarah when something ominous lurking in the wretched singhole was capable of turning the lives of Sarah and Chris topsyturvy. As addressed, Lronin is dextrous to use the landscape and environment to tell his stories. The sinkhole dig in the middle of the sea of trees can be a sight to behold. Yet on the flip side can be truly disengaging just to look at it. The climatic end with the claustrophobia within the underground tunnels before the creatures come crawling with evil intentions was an effective backdrop to effectively dish the characters and audiences alike.

[00:12:16]The hole in the ground was a subtle form of storytelling before Lee Cronin cran up the manic set pieces with his Hollywood big studio productions. That said, the somber nature of the storytelling give greater significance to the sudden acts of violence shown by the characters. The trave of Sarah and Chris hearken back to the maternal horror team I've done earlier this year.

[00:12:38]In fact, the prominence of a mother's incessant concerns of the safety and welfare of children was ubiquitous for all Cronin's movies so far. I loved how Cronin was planting seeds with regards to Chris personalities and dislikes that threw the audience off the stench before Sarah became suspicious of the ongoings herself. Cronin made use of some classic horror techniques in this formative stage with things like strobing lights and a tracing pouch light in the dark woods as audience is bracing for a likely jump scare. The part with Sarah's arm being grabbed by entity in the underground tunnels before the revelation of the form the entity had taken was awfully creepy. I certainly enjoyed the performance of Irish actress Sienna Kuslake in the role of the distraught mother Sarah. She had a face well suited for a horror movie and hope she will be cast in more horror films in years to come. Young James Queen Maki has some physical resemblance to draw Haley Osmond, but I was glad he did not play things out dramatically as Chris.

[00:13:39]James Cosmo who we have talked about in my review of the Morgan had a key role as the husband of Norin herself brilliantly cast with Finnish actress Katy Ortinan. Cosmo's character provided the important conduit to relay the fear Norin suffered with their deceased son James and I was glad he did just that and nothing else. To be honest, I struggled through the hole in the ground. Not that it was an awful filmed.

[00:14:04]I just find everything to be too softspoken and suppressed and it took a lot of time to get things going with the thread. The part with Sarah revealing Chris as a double ganganger was great with a throwback to a silly antics the mother and son would pull from time to time. It was evident from this early movie that Cronin had what it takes to tell a solid story, especially one he had created himself. The hole in the ground is a seven out of 10 for me.

[00:14:28]Perhaps not watching it at the end of a long work day might help. As I look forward to more intriguing horror films from Lee Cronin, please subscribe to this channel to take this journey with me. Don't forget to like and share this video. My last review was an in-depth look into the history of horror film making in my own country of Singapore with reviews from Konga from Yong Chun Ling and Go Pikjack and Kelvin Tongs the Mate. As a parent, I could empathize with the care and concern you had for your child under any circumstances. But when you see them gobbling down a rat in the attic or savaging on a spider on the ground, it is time to build out of that responsibility.