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Another ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s Trilogy Confirmed!
It’s decided. This is the year of Freddy Fazbear. If you thought 2014 was as good as it could get, with its paltry two Five Nights at Freddy’s games, then developer Scott Cawthon’s plans for what’s left of 2015 will make you happy enough to clap. Because of the runaway success of the first trilogy, Cawthon has already started investing the fortune he amassed making games that most people would rather watch someone else play into his next project.
When I reached out to Cawthon for this interview, it didn’t take long for him to invite me to his sixth home, which he’s used child labor to transform into a comically oversized pool filled with enough gold doubloons to make Scrooge McDuck jealous. He refused to answer any of my questions until some fun was had, so I reluctantly agreed.
The next twelve hours flew by, and while I can’t tell you everything that happened — Cawthon had me sign an NDA — I can confirm that half a day’s worth of debauchery is something I recommend you try at least six times in your life, so long as you can handle it. I’m enough of a professional that I had nary a trace of terror in my voice when I explained that my right eye had, at some point in the evening, stopped working. Cawthon told me that sort of thing happens all the time, so we moved on.
The groundwork has already been laid for a second threesome of horror gaming goodness, starting with Five Nights at Freddy’s 4, which Cawthon aims to release on Steam tomorrow.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s is already the Star Wars of video games, so it makes sense to give fans what they truly want,” Cawthon might’ve told me. I stopped listening when his head turned into one of those Reece’s Pumpkins that only come out in the fall. “Merchandising is next. I won’t stop until every child in the world can open a box of cereal and see Freddy Fazbear’s murder-hungry eyes staring back at them before they sit down to watch someone else play my game on YouTube.”
I was able to get a brief rundown of what we can expect from this new trilogy. The fourth game will be almost identical to the first three, but it will end in a way that sets the stage for a follow-up, a prequel, that Cawthon says will have something to do with clones. The sixth introduces the biggest twist of them all by letting players control an animatronic creature. The twist is you’re still stuck in an office, only this time you’re being hunted by a kid with marinara fingers.
Cawthon promises it will be the end of the franchise until the seventh game comes out.
Some YouTubers are already at each other’s throats for a chance to get an exclusive “Let’s Play” of the upcominggame, which some analysts expect to sell in the “shitloads”. Unfortunately for them, Pewdiepie, the Bro-King of YouTube has already nabbed an exclusive playthrough of the first half of the game, with fellow YouTuber Markiplier getting the rest.
Rumor has it that once the game is complete, the two will perform an ancient dance that will combine their subscriber counts to form PEWDIEPLIER.
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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