News
The Psychopaths Will Return In ‘Dead Rising 3’
Earlier this month, Capcom unveiled Dead Rising 3 and its gritty, Call of Duty inspired new take on the series. Having never been a huge fan of the first two games, I didn’t have much of a problem with the new direction, but the dramatic change in the game’s style did leave some fans wondering just how different the game would be from its predecessors.
It’s still an open world zombie survival game where you’re pitted against hundreds, or in many cases thousands, of the undead with only your wits and impressive weapon crafting abilities keeping you from becoming zombie poo. If this new report is true, at least one more thing will carry over to the latest game: the psychopaths.
Siliconera is the site that detailed Dead Rising 3’s setting and lead character over a year before the game was officially revealed. Today, they’ve received more news from another inside source who confirmed the psychopaths will be returning in the third game.
One of the psychos is code-named “Shifu,” and he’s a lunatic who tends a garden. When Nick — the game’s protagonist — steps into his happy place, Shifu loses his mind and attacks him with a Guan Dao. There will also be a female professional wrestler whom Nick must battle in a gym. Apparently, when Nick runs into her he mistakes her for a him. This (understandably) ticks her off, so she decides to beat him down using various wrestling moves. There will also be a rich gamer named Trent who’s completely ignorant to the goings on outside his mansion.
The final psycho their inside source leaked — I’m sure there will be more than four — is a motorcycle gang leader (see below) who enjoys the anarchy of a zombie apocalypse. This guy has a custom motorcycle with a steamroller for a front wheel.
I have a love/hate relationship with Dead Rising’s psychopaths. I enjoy the concept of turning crazed people into mini-bosses to help break up the monotony of mowing down easy-to-mow-down undead hordes, but they were so difficult. In the second game, more often than not I’d go around the psychos, because they weren’t worth the frustration.
Hopefully Dead Rising 3’s psychopaths will follow the rest of the game as it strives for “realism,” and not make these guys so goddamned hard to kill.
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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