Lockbox

The Persistence of Memory

What is a lockbox? Generally it’s a sturdy metal container that requires either a physical or electronic key to open. They provide secure housing for everything from personal valuables to door keys for short-term renters of vacation homes and so on and so forth. As you’ve probably surmised, this movie’s lockbox is a more of a metaphorical thing, and the horror lies not just in the traumas most of us keep locked inside but on the possibility that these traumas can be, let's say, offloaded to some outside vessel.

Directed by Daniel Stamm from a screenplay by Justin Yoffet — a many-hats man with an M.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program, who is both the founder of a Venice, California, theater company and the Cultural Affairs Supervisor for the City of Santa Monica — Lockbox has its roots in an original story, “The Lock Box,” by Knifepoint Horror podcast creator Soren Narnia. It’s about the kind of big, dark stuff that falls into the dreaded categories of “nothing stays buried forever” and “don’t bother trying to forget,” because whatever those things are, they will always be with you. You can tamp them down but you can’t toss them out.