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Adam Bravely Fought Off The Ninjas To Bring You This Review Of An Absinthe Lollipop
If you haven’t heard of Lolliphile than you obviously aren’t a lollipop connoisseur like myself. They don’t just make lollipops, they make art. Each one is distinct and unique, and if the two flavors I’ve tasted are any indication, they’re super flavorful. I didn’t know you could cram that much flavor into such a small amount of space, but Lolliphile’s elite team of lolliscientists have done an extraordinary job of doing just that. The two flavors I decided to try this time are Maple Bacon and Absinthe, read my thoughts after the break.
Let’s kick things off with the Maple Bacon lolli (“lolli” is what the hipsters call them). I love maple, especially when it’s in its delicious syrupy form and paired with a pancake or waffle. I’ve also been known to enjoy bacon, which I’ll consume in pretty much any form. Slap it on anything and I’m game, I always say.
You would think that combining the two would make for an instant winner, right? Not really, no. It’s actually too flavorful, and this excess of flavor essentially overwhelms the taste buds causing them to go comatose while their friends and family are forced to sit and wait for the adorable taste bud doctor (he has a mini stethoscope and everything) to come out of the ER with news of their comrade’s condition.
So many words came to mind while I was trying, and failing, to enjoy this lolli. For the first 5-6 seconds — this is in no way a scientific measurement as Mr. Disgusting wouldn’t lend me the official Bloody Disgusting Flavor Squad for this review so I had to go by my own experiences — it’s actually quite good. Then, like a Michael Bay Transformer, it undergoes this hideous CG transformation sequence where you have no fucking clue what’s going on on-screen, err, in your mouth. All you know is you need it out, and you need it out right now.
The Maple half, being the attention whore that it is, totally overwhelms the Bacon. I signed up for a Maple Bacon lolli, dude. Not this Frankenstein-esque monster of a sweet that wants to drown me in the lake filled with its own flavor. Also, in case you were wondering, the bacon is kosher since it’s made with Bacon Salt. For all the vegans who enjoy the sweet thrill of taste bud genocide, feel free to dig in.
I see you sneering at your computer screen, preparing a nasty comment in your mind because I teased you with the review of an Absinthe lolli and so far I’ve only discussed my Maple Bacon flavored adventure. Calm down, baby bird. Adam’s about to fill you up with the warm, delicious fullness that only a review of an Absinthe lolli can deliver.
I enjoyed the Absinthe lolli quite a bit more than its monstrous companion. I knew I preferred it when I found I could keep it in my mouth for more than ten seconds, and having had Absinthe before I knew what to expect from its flavor. It smells and tastes like black licorice, and if you’re not a fan of that, don’t worry, because there’s a distinct possibility that your mouth will temporarily go numb about 30 seconds in. At least mine did.
This lolli suffers from a similar excess of flavor, but unlike the Maple and Subtle-Hints-of-Bacon lolli that was like hosting a Saw film in my mouth, the Absinthe lolli can be tamed. It’s a lot like me actually, in that it’s wild and fun, and maybe a little slutty. If you’re hosting a party, these can make for spectacular it’s-five-am-now-get-out-of-my-house gifts, because they’re so wonderfully strange. You can use them to stir the drinks, giving them a bit of Absinthe flavor at the same time, and if you’re anything like me you’ll take quite a bit of pleasure in telling seeing the looks on people’s faces when you tell them they’re Absinthe flavored.
Of course, they only contain 10ppm of thujone (the chemical found in Absinthe), so it’s completely safe and well within legal limits. This also means you won’t be tripping balls after downing 3-4 of these babies.
If you like lollipops and are up for a little experimentation, then I highly recommend you try one of Lolliphile’s awesome creations. They’re not all winners, and I’m a little bummed the lollies I purchased came in a plain brown package void of any stylish packaging, but they’re still pretty great. The two flavors I reviewed are just a small sample of Lolliphile’s strange arsenal of sweets. There’s Amaretto, Chai Tea, Cactus Fruit, Curry (yuck), and even Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, which will sure as fuck be the next flavor I try. I don’t know how I missed it the first time I perused their store.
If you’re interested, you can find out more about Lolliphile and their cache of lollies at their official website.
Final Word: While I wouldn’t recommend you consume the Absinthe lollipop in the traditional way, stirring it in a beverage of your choice to dilute the flavor makes it a little less stressful on the ole tongue. The Maple Bacon ones… yeah, those aren’t very good.
I had a lot of fun with both, but the Absinthe lolli is easily the best. I give these a solid four and a half demonic raccoons out of five.
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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