I’m assuming the writer/director’s name has been added to the title to avoid any confusion with the Brendon Fraser Mummy movies, one of which is currently in production. It also, most likely unintentionally, reflects that fact that Cronin’s creative stamp is firmly on this flick, and so, for better or worse, he gets to own it.
The premise for LCTM is, on paper, an interesting one: The pre-teen daughter of an American family is abducted in Cairo, and is found eight years later, mummified but alive. The execution, however, isn’t.
The trouble is apparent in the pre-credits sequence with its Raiders of the Lost Ark-style indoor pyramid and a kill that should impress to kick things off, but just doesn’t. The movie, then, begins with a whimper, and not what seems the intended bang.
Post-credits, we see little Katie learning Morse Code, which we know will play a role later in the story. She's then abducted, and Dad (Jack Reynor) comes across like a macho American asshole, his rage and frustration showing itself via entitlement rather than concern. He’s a difficult charter to empathize with, despite the weight of his situation. It's the kind of character mid-career Mel "Givmebackmyson!" Gibson excelled in.
Eight years later, through the eyes of a teenage cyclist, we see a cargo plane crash in the far distant mountains. Seemingly seconds later, the boy has traversed distance and time to arrive at the crash site. Not only does he discover a deuce of dead bodies, but he also finds a sarcophagus standing upright, shot like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. When archeologists examine the sarcophagus, they find the mummified Katie inside, who bolts to life moments later. That she survives plummeting to Earth in a heavy AF stone coffin seems something we’re intended not to question.
All this is so much set up for the story proper in which Katie’s family, now relocated to her maternal grandmother’s home in New Mexico, bring her home. It’s a fine setup for what could be a disturbing and affecting flick about what happens when a traumatized family member is brought back into the fold, and her return destroys rather than reunites the family. Instead, it’s during this homecoming scene that we discover just how boneheaded this movie is. Instead of lifting the nonverbal and semi-catatonic Katie from her wheelchair and carrying her upstairs to her bedroom, Dad pulls her up the staircase, bumping and thumping her wheelchair up each and every step. Dad’s care looks an awful lot like abuse.
Katie’s not the only child in the Cannon family; there are three, and each becomes possessed to varying degrees, with Katie as the primary source of all the supernatural hokum. Not much has been added to what cinematic possession looks like since The Exorcist, and if we’ve ever needed proof of just how terrific Linda Blair’s performance in that watershed flick is, we need look no further than what little Billie Roy as Maud Cannon, Katie’s younger sister, is called upon to do with the unconvincing casual use of shock words like “cunt”. It’s not Roy’s fault; the basis of the problem lies in the writing, direction, and expectation placed upon such a young actor.
As much print spilled about LCTM has mentioned, the flick quickly devolves from a mummy movie into a variation of Cronin's previous film, Evil Dead Rise. It also throws in elements of Ari Aster’s Hereditary, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Danny and Michael Philippou’s Bring Her Back, and countless other horror films, including a funeral scene that crosses, I kid you not, The Simpsons with Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell and Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary.
Beyond LCTM’s penchant for playing mix tape with every horror film made since 1973, it’s also an ugly film to sit through in terms of its cinematography. Apparently lit to suggest an Egyptian tomb, the Canon’s suburban home is so filled with sandy earth tones and so dimly lit that it would be uninhabitable. It’s a fitting setting, however, for Katie to wolf down numerous unconvincing CGI insects.
The film has its good points — its Egyptian setting, the performances of Emily Mitchell as the returned Katie, Laia Costa as Katie’s mother, May Calamity as a Cario-based detective on the case, Hayat Kamille as the villain of the piece, and Katie’s character make up from Arjen Tuiten’s R-E-N Studio, as well as some very wet gore effects — but it’s well and truly a dud.
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