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The Next Bad Robert Rodriguez Movie Is…
I’m prepared to go to war with you guys – but I feel strongly in my belief that Robert Rodriguez isn’t a good filmmaker. And I’m not excited for anything he does.
Other than his indie debut, El mariachi, and the sci-fi horror The Faculty, he’s never done anything good (or right) by himself – he’s always had Quentin Tarantino to lean on. Seriously, go take a look. Here’s a small list: From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City, Grindhouse and even Four Rooms. And Desperado can’t be included because the entire third act was missing because they went over budget (a lot of people don’t know this, but it’s true). What about the Spy Kids and Machete franchises? Garbage. The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D? Pa-lease.
If the 1998 The Faculty was his last good movie (without Tarantino), that would mean it’s been 15 years since he’s done anything worthwhile. And I’m not expecting anything anytime soon.
Sony Pictures thinks they’re getting a franchise with a live-action version of the 1983 animated film Fire and Ice, which Rodriguez will direct, but I’d be willing to bet this movie never even happens.
It comes from a good place, at least, being that it’s Rodriguez’s homage to his friend, the late legendary animator Frank Frazetta, on whose works Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi based that original film.
The intention is for Fire and Ice to be the birth of a fantasy adventure franchise, informed by the dreamlike worlds Frazetta poured into his paintings, says Deadline.
In the original film, a small village is destroyed by a surging glacier domain for the evil Ice Lord, Nekron. Sole survivor is a young warrior who vows vengeance, and when Nekron’s subhuman, apelike creatures kidnap a king’s daughter, the warrior becomes determined to track down and free her.
If the latest Sin City sequel and Machete Kills are any indication of the quality of cinema we should expect from Fire and Ice, man, this is going to be disastrous.
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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