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[R.I.P.] Legendary Actor Sid Haig Has Passed Away
A few weeks ago, it was reported that legendary film actor Sid Haig had an “accident” and was in the hospital’s ICU. His wife, Suzie, later took to Instagram to update fans and let us all know that he was doing better.
This morning, we woke up to the terribly sad news that Haig has passed on. He was 80 years old. His wife shared this message on IG.
“On Saturday, September 21, 2019, my light, my heart, my true love, my King, the other half of my soul, Sidney, passed from this realm on to the next. He has returned to the Universe, a shining star in her heavens. He was my angel, my husband, my best friend and always will be. He adored his family, his friends and his fans. This came as a shock to all of us.”
While many younger horror fans know him from Rob Zombie’s films, one of Haig’s first ever horror movies was way back in 1967, Jack Hill’s Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told, a film that heavily inspired Zombie’s works. Zombie would eventually cast Haig in his Universal Pictures-produced and Lionsgate-released House of 1,000 Corpses (2003) where he would become the horror icon known as Captain Spaulding. He would star in its popular sequel, The Devil’s Rejects, before making a minor cameo in this fall’s just-released 3 From Hell. His recent decline in health was the reason for his short appearance in the latter.
Sid’s other genre projects include Galaxy of Terror, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Night of the Living Dead 3D, Halloween (2007), The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, Dark Moon Rising, Creature, The Lords of Salem, Hatchet III, Death House, Bone Tomahawk, High on the Hog and Hanukkah.
We send our thoughts and prayers to Haig’s family and friends. Haig appeared in nearly 150 projects in his life, and we will celebrate his career until the end of ours. We’ll miss you, Sid.
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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