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E3: New Trailer For ‘Prototype’!
Arriving on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 comes Prototype, a game that looks just mind-blowing. Just in time for E3, Activision has released the new trailer for the game that reaches for new heights (pun intended). Check it out inside and pick up the game in stores on June 9.
The plot of Prototype centers on a large conspiracy regarding an unnamed mutagenic virus currently infecting New York City. The effects of the virus have been witnessed before in the town of Hope, Idaho in 1971. After being released in Penn Station in New York, the virus spreads through the city, necessitating at first subtle government actions to combat it, then martial law and evacuation. Alex wakes up with heavy amnesia in a morgue under the scalpels of two HAZMAT-suited scientists and escapes dazed into the city. He then begins to come to terms with his powers (including the ability to absorb memories – which is crucial to piecing together his own), and makes contact with his sister, Dana Mercer. Dana assists him in finding members of the conspiracy, which include government officials, military personnel and employees of bio-engineering firm GENTEK, where it is revealed Alex was previously employed.
Alex encounters several characters, not all of which have currently been revealed. His primary physical antagonist is the Specialist, leader of the Blackwatch special forces branch of the US military. Other characters include Karen Parker, a researcher at GENTEK and Alex’s former girlfriend, Dr. McMullen, head of GENTEK, and Dr Ragland, a pathologist that assists Alex and studies the infected.
As Alex adds more and more nodes to the Web of Intrigue (by consuming people’s minds), the virus begins to spread further and further through New York, and the military is forced to step up operations in order to prevent spreading further. The city is evacuated, quarantined and placed under martial law as the military moves in with a full-scale lockdown with tanks, infantry and air support. The virus grows stronger and stronger, mutating citizens of New York into various monstrous forms. As the conflict begins to consume the city Alex’s actions will play a part in deciding the course of the battle and perhaps the ultimate victor. As the game features non-linear sandbox play, the player is free to explore the city with Alex’s superhuman agility through the course of the game. Steve Mele, Art Production Manager of Radical Entertainment, said in a blog “Speaking of exploring, I know there is a severed human leg on a rooftop somewhere in the city which initiates a side-story when found.
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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