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80’s Slasher Film Inspired ‘Sanitarium Massacre’ Represents Everything I Love About Indie Horror Games
There really aren’t enough slasher games. We’ve seen a few, like Manhunt, Naughty Bear, and the upcoming Until Dawn — or if you want to go way back I suppose you could also include games based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and Halloween — but the slasher subgenre that’s so prevalent in films has never managed to find an audience in video games. For some reason, it seems many people don’t find the idea of hunting down and murdering innocents as intriguing as I do. This is why I love indie games, because nothing is off limits.
Pig Farmer Games is looking to satisfy this niche with Sanitarium Massacre, an indie horror game that promises to give us the glorious opportunity to step into the shoes of a guy who looks alarmingly similar to Michael Myers so we can get real stab-happy on people who probably don’t deserve it. More, including a deliciously Grindhouse-esque trailer, after the break.
In 1978, the same year Michael Myers decided he wasn’t a fan of babysitters, a serial killer (you) was caught by the police and locked in an asylum. Because he’s a serial killer, he eventually escapes and angrily starts to murder everything that’s unfortunate enough to get in his way. It’s a stealth game, so you’ll be stalking the hospital staff from the shadows and if anyone notices you you’ll need to end them before they call the police. I’m especially fond of how he walks toward his prey. Serial killers don’t run, they walk, and that makes everything so much creepier.
There will also be special DVD and VHS video modes that sound like filters to give it that genuine, crusty old rental look.
Sanitarium Massacre releases next year on PC, and you can be damn sure I’ll be playing this when it comes out. I so desperately need to get my stab on (please don’t examine that statement too closely). If you like what you see, you should definitely check out the developer’s website.
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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