You would not be crazy if you confused Steven Knight’s 2013 man-confined-in-a-car movie, Locke with director David Yarovesky’s new thriller, Locked, which has Bill Skarsgard trapped in a nightmare car with no way out. The former had Tom Hardy as a troubled guy named Locke watching his life unravel during a feature-length road trip. This one has Skarsgard as Eddie, a deadbeat but well-meaning dad to Sarah (Ashley Cartwright) and petty thief whose attempt to steal a luxury SUV turns into disaster because its unseen psycho vigilante owner named William (Anthony Hopkins) has rigged it so bad things happen. And there is no way out as he continues to pull the strings remotely in this motorized fortress as he carries on a conversation with the imprisoned Eddie.
That is the premise of Locked, latest in a series of horror concepts set in a automobile, except this is no talking car like KITT in Knight Rider r lovable free thinker like Herbie in The Love Bug (an inside joke in Michael Arlen Ross’ screenplay has Eddie refer to his daughter as “love bug”). It also isn’t one of those killer-car flicks like The Car or Christine portraying a demon on wheels. This concept came from Mariano Cohn’s 2019 Argentinian 4 x 4 and put through the remake machine by producer Sam Raimi, who has given it a reason to exist due to the casting of its two stars. Neither is a stranger to horror as Skarsgard is coming off Nosferatu and was Pennywise in It, and Hopkins won an Oscar as Hannibal Lecter, a character so vivid the current president of the United States kept bringing him up at campaign rallies, apparently believing he was real.
In Locked, Hopkins isn’t even seen until more than an hour into the 95-minute movie but is only heard in a voice-over performance he gets to phone in. But what a performance! Hopkins can do more with a line like “You got in the wrong car, Eddie” than any actor on Earth. This psychotic wack job has lots of grievances against society, particularly those who are on the fringe and have nothing — unlike him, whose luxury automobile represents a person who has it all and the security technology to keep it that way. Indeed, Eddie got into the “wrong car,” where William plays his games like Jigsaw in Saw, a little well-choreographed torture every few minutes as he muses on the ills of the world and keeps the bad times coming even when he hangs up and forces Eddie to listen to polka music on a loop. Arrrrrgh.
Eddie is in pain and it is only going to get worse, especially when William lets the car start driving on its own on a terror spree down dark alleys running over those he perceives as worthless much to Eddie’s , uh, discomfort. When William finally appears in person late in the game, the face-off between him and Eddie is worth the wait if only just to see these two exceptional actors go at it. In fact the opportunity to see this pairing is the main reason to recommend a trip to the theatre (but maybe you’ll want to take alternate transportation).
Certainly Yarovesky skillfully steers the action in such a confined space, sometimes quite cleverly, and Michael Dallatorre’s camerawork also does the job, although if you are claustrophobic this may not be the dream date movie for you.
I am not at all sure why 35 Executive Producer credits were necessary (they are all listed on the poster too) in addition to 7 producers (including Raimi), and 7 other co-EP and co-producer credits. This is close to a record since the producers guild established a p.g.a. mark to rein in the overuse of producing credits.
Title: Locked
Distributor: The Avenue
Release date: March 21, 2025
Director: David Yarovesky
Screenwriter: Michael Arlen Ross
Cast: Bill Skarsgard, Anthony Hopkins, Ashley Cartwright
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 35 min
Content shared from deadline.com.