News
Jesus Has Come for “The Walking Dead”
Tom Payne (“Luck”, The Physician) has been cast as Paul Monroe (aka “Jesus”) for the sixth season of AMC’s “The Walking Dead“. This information came from ET after they published some set photos that showed Payne with long hair, a beanie, and sporting facial hair, just like Monroe, who was introduced in issue 91, does in the comics.
In 2014, Robert Kirkman participated in a Reddit AMA, where he explained why the character of Paul “Jesus” Monroe was gay, stating:
In my opinion there should be more awesome gay people in fiction because there are plenty of awesome gay people in real life. I want Jesus to be a character where his sexuality is as unimportant as Rick or other heterosexual characters. So we won’t focus on it constantly and it won’t be the focus of any big storylines for him… but he’ll make it with a dude every now and then… before going out and drop kicking zombies. He’s one of my current favorite characters.
Related: “The Walking Dead” Season 6 Synopsis and Images, Finally!
“Season 5 of ‘The Walking Dead’ saw our group being formed into consummate survivors by the world around them… nearly making some of them into villains. To make it as far as they have – to have persevered through all of their heartbreaking challenges – they have evolved into incredibly powerful people. But who have they become?
The last five episodes of Season 5 answered that question with Rick accepting an approach of unapologetic brutality in murdering Pete, a fellow Alexandrian.
Season 6 starts with Alexandria’s safety shattered by multiple threats. To make it, the people of Alexandria will need to catch up with our survivors’ hardness, while many of Rick’s people will need to take a step back from the violence and pragmatism they’ve needed to embrace. These reversals won’t happen easily, or without conflict.
But now, Rick’s group is fighting for something more than survival…
They’re fighting for their home, and they will defend that at any cost, against any threat, even if that threat comes from within.”
“The Walking Dead” is executive produced by Robert Kirkman, Showrunner Scott M. Gimple, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Greg Nicotero and Tom Luse and stars Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Michael Cudlitz, Lennie James, Sonequa Martin-Green, Alanna Masterson, Christian Serratos, Josh McDermitt, Seth Gilliam, Tovah Feldshuh, Ross Marquand, Alexandra Breckenridge and Austin Nichols.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.