The Mummy has been one of Hollywood's staple creepy creatures for decades, and from 1999 to 2008, the monster plagued Brendan Fraser and his loved ones on the big screen. That chapter of The Mummy's cinematic history has long since concluded, and the franchise will reboot later this year (with Sofia Boutella and Tom Cruise leading the charge) to kick off the Universal Monsters shared universe. However, the second entry in the earlier trilogy, 2001's The Mummy Returns, is receiving new attention in an negative way, as a woman was reportedly influenced by the movie when she murdered her father.
27-year-old Christina Nicassio of Plum, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Pittsburgh) stabbed her father, Dr. Anthony Nicassio, to death at his home late Saturday night, with him succumbing to his wounds at 3:30 a.m. Christina, a former real estate agent and girls soccer coach, told officers that she was re-enacting The Mummy Returns during the act, and "thought he had to die," although she couldn't say why. According to the police statement, Christina named The Mummy Returns as the movie that helped her decide to kill her father, saying:
I got played by Hollywood. In a movie, someone who can't love someone else, they stab their father.
The Pittsburgh-Tribune Review reports that this was the culmination of Anthony Nicassio and his wife trying to get Christina to admit herself to a hospital following her break-up with her fiancé. After Christina started speaking "irrationally and nonsensically," her parents tried to get her into a vehicle, and that's when Christina grabbed a knife she'd taken from the kitchen a few hours earlier. While her mother called the police, Anthony attempted to take the knife away from his daughter, and during the struggle he was stabbed twice. The complaint also mentioned that Christina felt as if "the world was ending" because her parents were trying to get her help even though she didn't want to go. Christina has been charged with homicide, and while the investigation continues, her preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 17.
There are several instances of stabbing in The Mummy Returns, so it's hard to know for certain which of them set off Christina Nicassio, leading her to commit the horrendous crime. Evelyn O'Connell, Rachel Weisz's character, was notably killed in that manner towards the end of the movie, though she was later brought back to life. However, there was also a scene showing Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun stabbing Pharaoh Seti I to death. Regardless, it's extremely unfortunate that Christina Nicassio looked to The Mummy Returns to justify killing her father.
We offer our condolences to the Nicassio family and their friends during this time of mourning.
