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‘Jaws 2’ Director Jeannot Szwarc Has Passed Away
A French filmmaker best known to horror fans for directing the first sequel to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws back in 1978, Jeannot Szwarc has passed away at the age of 85 this week.
Jane Seymour, who starred alongside the late Christopher Reeve in Szwarc’s 1980 film Somewhere in Time, writes on Facebook: “Today, we say goodbye to a true visionary. Jeannot Szwarc was not just a brilliant director but a kind and generous soul. He gifted us many timeless stories, including Somewhere in Time, a film that changed my life forever.
“May his memory be a blessing, and may his artistry live on in our hearts.”
Jeannot Szwarc got his start in Hollywood directing for multiple television shows throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s including “Ironside,” “It Takes a Thief,” “Paris 7000,” “The Virginian,” “Longstreet” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.” He made his feature debut with the 1972 TV movie Night of Terror, wherein a hired killer hunts down a schoolteacher.
From there, Szwarc directed the 1973 made-for-TV horror movie The Devil’s Daughter starring Shelley Winters, as well as the films You’ll Never See Me Again (1973), The Small Miracle (1973), and Bug (1975), and episodes of notable television shows including “Night Gallery,” “Columbo,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Kojak,” “The Rockford Files,” and “Baretta.”
After the previous director exited the project, Jeannot Szwarc was hired to take over directing duties on Jaws 2 in the late 1970s, which made $208 million at the box office in 1978.
Post-Jaws 2, Szwarc directed films including Supergirl (1984), Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), and The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1986), with his career more recently being focused on television work. He directed on shows such as the 1980s version of “The Twilight Zone,” “Boston Public,” “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice,” “CSI: Miami,” “Boston Legal,” “Heroes,” “Cold Case,” “Smallville,” “Fringe,” “Almost Human,” “Supernatural,” “Bones” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Jeannot Szwarc celebrated the 45th anniversary of Jaws 2 just last year with a retrospective interview for the outlet The Daily Jaws, which we invite you to watch down below.
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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