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Info Regarding Cancelled Jack The Ripper Game Surfaces
Lamenting the loss of Visceral Games and their proposed Dead Space 4 is one thing, but did you know that Visceral was also working on a game involving Jack The Ripper fighting vampires?
Not to be confused with the 1996 FMV DOS game of the same name, the cancelled game was called The Ripper (insert Judas Priest reference here), and was meant to present the infamous murderer in a dualistic sense. Jack would still kill women, but he’d have been killing vampires that were disguised as prostitutes. On top of that, Jack would experience bouts of PTSD and hallucinations, including having the world itself transform at certain points to further connect the player to Jack (and to mess with them).
Obviously, the topic of presenting Jack the Ripper in a sympathetic light wasn’t exactly the most pleasant idea in the world. EA, however, didn’t cancel the game because of that. Rather, Visceral themselves decided to can the game after constant shifts in direction and vision. The game wasn’t entirely dead, though.
The fighting vampires concept and multiplayer components were salvaged, and used to create a new game called Blood Dust, which was meant to be an online-only, downloadable multiplayer game. This too was eventually cancelled (and Visceral’s Melbourne studio closed down), but not before a video leaked online back in 2011 that contained gameplay footage, as well as concept art from Blood Dust and The Ripper.
In an even more interesting tidbit, the multiplayer component of The Ripper, and its themes of questioning reality were eventually incorporated into Dead Space 2. But given how the multiplayer component turned out for that game, it probably wasn’t the wisest choice.
To read the in-depth story about the game’s development, including seeing more of the concept art, you can read the piece by Polygon here.
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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