PLOT: Seeking peace after her mother’s death, Ellen retreats to a rural town and takes in her severely traumatized cousin Winthrop. Their fragile domestic balance shatters when an erratic neighbor warns that Winthrop is dangerous. As strange phenomena escalate, Ellen must put everything on the line to defend Winthrop from a dangerous otherworldly entity determined to track him down.
REVIEW: Possession stories are a dime a dozen, and they often follow a very similar setup: someone gets possessed, and someone else tries to save them. It’s pretty basic. Often, they follow the same structure, where the solution to saving the possessed is to send the demon back to hell. It can result in many of them feeling like the same kind of film. Thankfully, there is a pretty intriguing idea at the center of director Daniel Stamm‘s Lockbox: using someone else as a vessel to trap the demon. But that’s pretty much where any kind of originality ends.
Lockbox is based on the Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop” (which was also the film’s original title), and follows Ellen (Carla Gugino) as she takes in her cousin (Lou Taylor Pucci), who has severe PTSD. An entity takes an interest in Winthrop, and Ellen has to do what she can to protect him. The story is very reliant on mystery, and is rather short in podcast form, so writers Soren Narnia and Justin Yoffe really have to stretch things out. It results in a lot of going in circles and is more focused on adding pointless mystery, where most of the scares are for the audience’s benefit, rather than something affecting the characters.
Like most here at JoBlo, I’m a big fan of Carla Gugino, and it feels like the filmmakers put the entire film on her back. She’s in nearly every scene and has a very commanding nature to her. But there just aren’t enough stakes present to have us care about her investigation. We’re introduced to other characters, like Katharine Isabelle’s eclectic neighbor, but they often feel underutilized. Isabelle is a horror veteran, so it’s nice to see her here, and she has a cool look. She’s pretty much just there to provide some creepy moments and jump scares. And the revelation regarding her character is colossally stupid. Lou Taylor Pucci will always be the guy who ruins everyone’s lives in Evil Dead (2013) because he’s just too damn curious about demonic books, and he’s mostly just sitting around looking traumatized. It’s an issue that’s constantly present in Lockbox, with every character being so one-dimensional.
Lockbox can be dreadfully boring, with the movie constantly having to play catch-up with the story laid out. It takes characters much longer to figure out what’s happening, and as the audience, it’s easy to be ahead of them. Given the pacing, this can make for an experience completely lacking in energy. It often feels like we’re on a ride, where the track is laid out, and we’re going at a far slower speed than intended.
I was impressed with the technical side of the film, at the very least, with some decent production value. It does have that issue of being underlit, so you may be squinting a few times, but it doesn’t feel nearly as egregious as the trailer made it seem. Though, the CGI can be very hit or miss. There were times when I was very impressed and others where it looked very silly. I’m not sure if they just did CGI enhancements for the monster or if it was completely CGI, but it really took me out of the film. I’m also starting to get really annoyed at the “digitally enlarged mouth” gag that has been taking the horror world by storm. It can look creepy once, but anymore and it just comes across as lame.
I could see where Lockbox could work as a story told on a podcast, with weak story beats being sustainable through the audio only format. But as a movie, the plot holes are too apparent and the character’s too thin. The world building is practically non-existent and I’m still not entirely sure it even made sense. While genre-vets are trying their best to elevate the material, it simply doesn’t have enough meat on the bone. I still thinks there’s some potential with the concept of trapping demons in an actual person, but it simply doesn’t work for this one.
Lockbox is now playing in theaters.