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Former Square Enix Boss Sides With Kojima, Calls Konami “Cruel”
I’ve come to enjoy poking fun at the handful of toddlers who currently run Konami. It’s been therapeutic, and more than that, it’s necessary. Companies do bad things all the time, but more often than not the culprit is corporate greed, general human stupidity, or a combination of the two.
Ubisoft releases a multiplayer game that doesn’t work for months after its release. Electronic Arts gives us a sequel to a cult classic that replaces the charm of the original with annoying “freemium” mechanics. Activision refuses to stop being Activision. Microtransactions, season passes, game-breaking bugs, delays, retailer-exclusive pre-order incentives.
This amazing industry has a seemingly endless supply of annoying quirks, and we’re all to blame. The publishers favor a profitable quarter over happy consumers, and we scold them for doing us wrong while we hand over more of our money.
Then there’s Konami.
The same company that gifted us with the Metal Gear, Silent Hill and Castlevania franchises has come undone this year. I will be forever grateful to Konami, which spent much of its decades-long run making some of the bravest and most narratively ambitious games I’ve ever played.
The cancellation of Silent Hills, the removal of the brilliant P.T. demo from the PlayStation Store, the unnecessary closure of Kojima Productions and their continued abuse of Hideo Kojima, who they recently prevented from accepting his own award at The Game Awards 2015.
Konami is a disgrace and they absolutely should be ashamed. They’ve raised the bar for assholery and simultaneously reached a new low. It’s gotten bad enough that the former head of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada, had to speak up in this Facebook post (translated by Kotaku).
“As I know Mr. Kojima, I want to say, ‘I can’t believe this cruel treatment!’ But, here I’m going to give my thoughts as a corporate exec.”
“However you think about this, this is a negative for business.”
“Maybe leaving the home console market is management’s plan, but going out of your way to make enemies with the world has no meaning. Generally, this kind of thing happens when there’s a lack of leadership. I think, perhaps, there isn’t someone in charge who is paying attention and laying out all the little details for whole enterprise.”
“When you are not aware that the feelings of your own department aren’t aligned with the world at large, the results can be deplorable.”
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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