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Rock of the Dead Review: It’s Almost Genius
I absolutely love the idea of killing zombies — as well as assorted mutated bugs and aliens — with music. I’m one of roughly five unfortunate souls who never really got into the music genre, mostly because I’m awful at games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but the few times I did pick up a guitar shaped peripheral I think it would be incredibly kind to say I was passable. You’d think a zombie-themed music game would be just the trick to get someone like me into the genre, and it might’ve been.
I’m barely passable without the looming threat of something monstrous inching my way, so when you throw enemies into the mix I go from amateurish to looking like a total flailing idiot. With that said, if you share my fondness for the idea of mixing zombies and rhythm, head past the jump to read my thoughts on this interesting new game.
The Baby Factor: If Typing of the Dead and Guitar Hero got together to make sweet, musical love; Rock of the Dead would be their brain-munching (and toe-tapping) offspring.
Often the best ideas are the simplest, and Rock of the Dead’s concept of tossing an assortment of monsters into a rhythm game is excellent, I only wish it would’ve been implemented better. For full disclosure, many of my issues stem from my lack of any music game peripherals, which makes slaying the many beasts this game throws at you pretty damn tough. I don’t own a plastic guitar or drum set so I had to rely on my controller to not-so-nimbly take out the waves of enemies I encountered.
First off, you can’t change the button prompts to read out the letters on the buttons, and that’s how I’ve memorized them. When I’m playing a game I think X, Y, A and B, not blue, yellow, green and red. Maybe that’s just me but even if it is it would’ve been nice to have the option. Hell, why not have the color and the letter displayed in the prompt? Just an idea.
Rock of the Dead has a great sense of humor that makes the terrifying situation of asteroid revived creatures of the night a little less unsettling. If I found myself in the same situation as the game’s protagonist(s) I don’t think my first thought would be to kill them with music, it’d probably be more along the lines of soil myself and run away crying. But that’s why I will never be a hero, because I revert to a child far too easily.
It’s humor is paired excellently with a cartoony art style that certainly won’t have this game winning any awards for best visuals but they do their job well enough. I didn’t have any issues reading the prompts that were placed fairly intuitively so you never feel too overwhelmed when the larger waves come.
Easily the game’s biggest selling point is its cooperative play that has you and a friend defeating hoards of alien monstrosities together. This feature makes the game worthwhile to check out, particularly if you’re a fan of the music genre but are looking for something a little different.
The Final Word: Despite an appealing style, good humor and fairly polished gameplay, I feel this game would’ve been more successful as a cheaper arcade title. It’s a great idea but Rock of the Dead doesn’t have enough features or polish to warrant its full game asking price. As a rental though, it’ll get you through a particularly dull weekend.
This review is based on a retail copy of the Xbox 360 version of Rock of the Dead, which was provided by the publisher.
Have a question? Feel free to ever-so-gently toss Adam an email, or follow him on Twitter and Bloody Disgusting.
Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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