Mummy Fearest
Celebrating Moms and Mums at the Theater
This weekend, do not forget to honor the mother figures in your life. Carrtoons Pro-Tip: skip the theater in favor of a fancy brunch, because there are a pair of films sure to wreck any maternal relationship you have.
We are in the Year of Hathaway, with Oscar-winning Anne starring in no fewer than five films hitting theaters in 2026. And it kicks off with the stylish Mother Mary (2026), in which Hathaway stars as Mary, a Lady Gaga-coded popstar who literally falls from grace and then seeks out a new dress for her comeback tour. Maybe not the scariest premise for a Horror film—that is, until Mary visits former partner Sam (Michaela Coel), an eccentric fashion designer who has a habit of speaking in Vincent Price-levels of camp. She also lives and works in a creepy ramshackle barn.
It’s quickly obvious that Sam is a scorned creative partner of Mary (and perhaps former lover), who holds quite the grudge. In the first half of the film, which reads more like a locked-room play, and through no shortage of tears, the two speak in metaphorical language so twisty that at one point, Mary outright addresses the puzzlebox dialogue (“It’s exhausting”). Then the barn doors open, and Lowery beckons the second half of his film. Here there be ghosts in the sewing machine.
Mother Mary is such a weird, impressive, and fashion-forward horror film about the creative process, especially once the yonic imagery flourishes. As part of a commune with spirits, FKA Twiggs draws a bloody gash (ahem) across the palm of Hathaway’s hand; later Hathaway carves a jagged little wound down her chest that Sam is all too eager to penetrate—and kudos to director David Lowery for capturing this moment from the POV inside Mary. Never thought I’d want to see less of Hathaway. On theme, the climatic dress is indeed red and…in full bloom, let’s say. When is a metaphor not a metaphor but instead simply a groin?
Featuring not a single line of spoken dialogue from any male actors, Mother Mary is beautifully choreographed, certainly spooky, and it makes quite the case for Hathaway as an arena-level pop star should her next four films in 2026 under-perform. Unlikely, given the start to her year. Here, she is remarkable and reinvented, taking center stage in a terrifying and vulnerable role.
Want to ruin a Mother’s Day? Take Mom to the bafflingly titled Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026)—who in marketing fell asleep here? The Mummy is already a franchise closely associated with the 1990s’ Indiana Jones knock-off starring Brendan Fraser, and adding “Lee Cronin” does not do enough to do, well, anything, let alone differentiate it from the aforementioned. Plus, there isn’t much mummy.
In Egypt, an ex-pat family is hard at work while their children play unsupervised in a garden carefully protected by a dilapidated fence. When the young daughter is kidnapped, the mother and father seek the least competent detectives to do very little detecting until, 10 years later, a sarcophagus falls from the sky and into their laps. Good news, grieving parents: your daughter is found and alive! Bad news, though: she’s the new mummy. Even worse news: she’s not really a mummy. Sure, there are bandages for about five minutes of screentime, but that’s where the mummification ends, and where the squeamish should find the nearest exit. Plenty of squelching ahead.
Mom and Dad decide to bring their clearly possessed daughter home to…it’s very unclear what their actual plan is. Young Mummy carves the flesh from her own leg, bites a priest, feeds Granny to the wolves, and knocks the teeth and brains out of her siblings, but sure, that’s nothing a bath can’t fix! All of this would make for a fun Mummy reboot if it weren’t brow-beatingly nihilistic. There is so much extreme gore in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy that even the gallows humor is lost—except for a brilliant repurposing of dentures in a spectacular funeral scene. In a film full of excess, what it lacks, alas, is simple: good taste and a mummy.
Happy Mother’s Day Weekend!
Alex