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Inspired by the cult podcast Knifepoint Horror and based on an original story by writer, creator, and narrator Soren Narnia, Lockbox explores the theme of how evil attaches itself and pursues those weakened by trauma so that it can inhabit their body and psyche. Recognizing that this demonic force is pursuing her cousin Winthrop, Ellen applies herself to rescuing him.
Carla Gugino has long been one of my favorite actresses with an impressive resume of appearances in major genre projects. Most recently, I’ve enjoyed her performances in The Friend (2024), the television mini-series The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), Midnight Mass (2021), The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and Wayward Pines (2015-2016), among many other credits, ranging back to the late ‘80s. Her characters are often sympathetic caught in extraordinary circumstances and—as is necessary in genre films with preposterous narratives—thoroughly believable, lending credence through the sincerity of her acting. As Ellen, a woman who retreats to a rural town, seeking peace after her mother’s death, Gugino skillfully carries Lockbox as a woman bewildered by the supernatural danger encroaching around her but determined to overcome her own fears to help her threatened cousin.
As familiar as I am with Gugino’s body of work, Lockbox is my belated introduction to Lou Taylor Pucci (who has multiple credits over the past two decades). Pucci delivers a riveting and anguished performance as Winthrop, a man victimized and made vulnerable by childhood abuse and the horrors of war. As demonic forces attempt to overtake him, you join Gugino’s desperation in trying to save him.
Katherine Isabelle, along with Gugino, has been a genre queen for decades, most notably as Ginger in the feminist werewolf tale Ginger Snaps (2000), and most recently in a minor role in the box office hit Backrooms (2026). She inhabits her role as Vahna Minter with dreadlocked and unfiltered ferocity, imposing herself on the quiet domesticity of Ellen and Winthrop as the neighbor who guides evil to their doorstep. She’s the guest they can’t get rid of and in her own idiosyncratic insistence an individualized home invasion.
The concept of the “lockbox” would be a spoiler should I try to describe it and, quite frankly, I would have trouble trying to describe it anyways, so I leave that for the viewer to experience when the film opens later this week. Suffice it to say that it’s the means by which Ellen endeavors to capture the demonic force pursuing and occupying Winthrop. That occupation, incidentally, takes a silly turn towards transvestism, which felt a little bit like being hit over the head, as if the transference of evil from one individual to another could not be understood otherwise. Other than for those perverse fishnet stockings, Lockbox is an engaging thrill and welcome variation on demonic possession.
