The Lock In
Back in the days of Red Eye on Fox News, the topic of this movie came up. Sounded like an interesting concept, but knowing the "Christian" industry, it would be cheesy, corny, with more cheese, and even more corn. All I knew about
The Lock In was there was the movie title's eponymous overnight event at a church with a youth group. Somewhere along the way, pornography is introduced to the gathering of teens, and all hell breaks loose. Is it as bad as most of the reviews I've seen? Are the bad reviews merited? Is it worthy of a chuckle?
Full disclosure. I am a Christian. Haven't been to church in over 20 years but my faith really hasn't changed much. A few things here and there, but considering I came out of the Faith Movement thing I was already wrong on some stuff. Also, I'm a horror movie fan. Ever since seeing Phantasm, Halloween, and Friday the 13th as a kid, I caught the bug. So I can view The Lock In through both lenses.
This is of the found footage genre. Shaky handheld camera, improv acting, and everything. It's Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity filmed in a church. Just like other films of this variety, we are introduced to what happened by Chris the Youth Pastor, who now sells insurance because of this ordeal. After what happened that night, he believes there is a correlation between pornography and demon activity. Hmmm, okay. Here the funny part is Chris saying he hopes the footage of that night never sees the light of day, and then we proceed directly into the film that was edited down for the church board elders to review.
Starting with the nerdy camera kid, Justin, in his bedroom recording himself looking at a magazine that we are to assume is porn. Camera glitch occurs, so I guess this is the porno demon affecting the electronics. After a whole 15 seconds of intent gazing, he puts it away satisfied. Next up is Blake. He is the alpha of the trio of teen buddies. He is also the consummate smart-ass and kiss-ass. Lastly, we are introduced to Nick. He is the friend that seems to go along with what everyone is doing. The big secret about Nick is that he has a crush on Jessica, who will also be at the lock in.
While cameraman Justin is filming Blake at Nick's house waiting to pick him up, there is some really awkward footage of basically Nick's parents telling him to keep it in his pants. After being thoroughly embarrassed by this by his parents praying for him to control his hormones and "keep the barn door shut", the three exit and head off to the church. Along the way, a shoehorned but necessary conversation takes place about Justin being a dumpster diver and that is just one more thing that makes him weird, along with being raised by his grandparents, and homeschooled. They end up pulling over to throw out some trash from Blake's dirty-ass car and yep, you guessed it. While throwing away a whole bag of trash, they find a "dirty mag" in the dumpster. This is when Blake has the brilliant idea that it would be fun to bring it to the lock in. Ohhhhh Shit!!!! Still throwing out trash, Blake is being all sneaky and putting the "dirty mag" in Nick's bag. Oh, that Blake is always up to no good.
Arriving at the church, Youth Pastor Chris goes over the rules for the night, and does a little foreshadowing of how the church has night vision security cameras set up inside so they can see what's going on. No looking at naughty websites because the church's internet will send out alerts. If you open the doors to leave, alarms will go off. And some terminology I've never heard before...Guys have a blue box. Girls have a red box. Don't make purple boxes. I take it that means no "getting together". The ground rules are set and the night is about to begin when as Nick and Jessica are sitting next to each other, Jessica reaches in the Nick's bag for snacks...and you guessed it! She found the "dirty mag" and obviously Nick doesn't know how it ended up there. Yeah, because Blake the prankster put it there and self-righteously denies ever seeing it before.
Nick gets in trouble and has to visit Pastor Chris in his office for a talking to. To remedy the situation, Pastor Chris takes the boys outside to have a little prayer session and then burn the "dirty mag". Problem solved...until they get back inside, unroll their sleeping bags and there is the "dirty mag" again! Cut to security camera footage of church door opening by itself, lantern swinging, and a rocking chair moving back and forth in the nursery. The night has begun.
Freaked out by the return of the "dirty mag", they find a trashcan to dispose of it. As they walk away, there is a growl and the trashcan is tossed quite angrily against the wall. It is suddenly dark outside and they are wondering where everyone is. This leads into a Blair Witch Project type of "what happened to the map" argument about why is it dark and where is everybody. Suddenly a noise behind them and they find Jessica hiding because she is wondering the same thing.
The next half hour or so consists of the four youths wandering around a church in the dark trying to figure out what is going on. They try and escape through doors and windows that are impervious to being lightly tapped by folding chairs. At one point they are hiding out in a kitchen talking about how pornography ruined their family's life, when more jump scare bangs happen, and slowly one by one the teens begin to disappear until only one is left. The last one left ends up yelling and screaming, running around the church where they suddenly end up in the sanctuary where all the other lock in attendees are, including his friends who disappeared, at the scene toward the beginning where Pastor Chris is laying down the ground rules. The movie comes full circle. When the kid runs in, his friends are quietly sitting there wondering why this kid is soaking wet, screaming, and running into the sanctuary where it is...daylight. Ah, the ol' alternate reality plotline. Everything is normal again after that pesky "dirty mag" has been destroyed, and the demons are commanded out of the church. Got it.
Not a bad twist ending, but the actual ending they could have left it open to sequel because after leaving the church and dropping Justin off, once again he sets up the camera in his room and this time records himself throwing away his treasure trove of porn, although in slow motion I did catch a copy of Town & Country in there. And that's it. No credits, no nothing. Maybe they could have had the camera glitch again after Justin walks off with his porno trash bag, have the closet doors open/close, and camera glitch again. They really could have insinuated that maybe he did not get rid of his entire stash of naughtiness, and the porno demon was still there! But no. They just ended the movie with Justin returning and shutting off the camera.
All in all, it really was not that bad. The people are not actors so I am only assuming this was one long improv dialog type of thing. They have a general idea of what they want to do in a scene and made it up as they went along. That's commendable. The acting really wasn't any worse than the three unknowns at the time who did Blair Witch Project. The handheld camera and security cam footage worked for the story much like Paranormal Activity. I think the only reason people give this bad reviews and make fun of it is because it is a "Christian" movie. It gets hokey in parts and the premise overall is a bit of a stretch, but as a found footage movie with non-actors and probably zero budget, it's watchable and kept my interest.
There are no credits, so we don't know if these kids did anything else. Most likely not, as this was probably a church funded project. I did a little digging on this and found something a bit disturbing. It appears that one of the actors was apparently depressed, suicidal, and a cutter earlier in life. Seeing him now, I can only think it was due to some repressed sexuality issues. Maybe during the time this film came out, he was in a really bad spot in life. He's doing well now, in the mental health field, and is a snappy dresser. Good for him.
The Lock In is not a bad movie by any means. If you want to prejudge it on the message of pornography is bad, then you're kind of missing out on a decent watch. I do not believe that pornography is the best thing in the world to fill your mind with, but at the same time, I do not think that some boobies open a doorway to the demonic. Most of the bad reviews I have seen are essentially, "Christians are dumb. Fuck your morality. Your acting sucks and the Flying Spaghetti Monster hates you". We get it, you don't like anything involving Christianity. If you grew up in this type of churchy environment like I did, you will get a kick out of how true some of these people are. Go check it out (available on YouTube) and see if you can spot the "Why wasn't this edited out?" scene where a random person in Nikes walks into the scene and backs away.
