Knock Knock

Knock Knock (2015)

*** (out of 4)

Husband and father Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves) is home alone working during a storm when two ladies (Lorenza Izzo, Ana de Armas) knock on his door asking for directions. Both women are wet and cold so Evan invites them into his house to wait for a taxi but they soon seduce them into a threesome. The next day Evan realizes his mistake and tries to get rid of the women but soon he realizes they have different plans.

Eli Roth is best known for his sadistic horror movies but he tries something different here and while the film is highly flawed I thought it was good enough for what it was trying to do. I'm not going to spoil what happens throughout the movie but I thought the twists were rather good and for the most part we got some nice performances. Again, if you're wanting high art then this isn't going to be for you but for my money it was a nice erotic thriller that was at least entertaining throughout.

On a technical level this is the best thing I've seen from Roth has he actually does a very good job in the directing department and there's no question that the film is well-made. I thought the director did a very good job at establishing the Evan character by showing him to be a good guy but of course even the best of people can make a mistake, which could change their life. Again, I'm not going to ruin the plan of these women but it's an interesting idea and I think the story is good enough to hold your attention throughout.

The performances are for the most part good. Reeves does a nice job in the role that requires quite a bit from him. This includes playing that lovable father but he also handles the seduction scenes quite well and the various scenes where he is being tortured both physically and mentally. Both Izzo and de Armas are good in their roles as they both play erotic very well and I thought they also managed to be believable in the more deadly nature. Most importantly is that all three have some good chemistry no matter what they're doing.

As I said there are some logical issues that I had with some of the things that happen throughout the picture and at times you want to hit Evan over the head yourself for doing some foolish things. Still, KNOCK KNOCK really did keep me entertained throughout the running time and I found it to be interesting and worth watching.

Why on God's green earth what an actor, A class actor, like Keanu Reeves take this role?

Does he have financial difficulty we don't know about?

I could understand if this was one of his first roles and he was desperate. This was just so bad. The only thing worse than the movie was the ending.

The only decent thing about the movie was Keanu Reeves. Just terrible.

I wanted the two girls in the movie to die a slow and horrible death.

Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves) is home alone after his happy family left for the weekend. He's trying to work when Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bell (Ana de Armas) knock on his door. They're lost and soaking wet. He calls Uber for them but the aggressive flirts have sex with him. As he tries to make them leave the next morning, they turn out to be less than stable.

The idea of hot crazy chicks as horror villains could be fun. Reeves is playing a relative douche which is hard to root for. The girls are not scary. Their characters border on being comical. They keep threatening as underage but they don't look underage. The first time I took as a comedic hollow threat but it's annoying when it keeps coming back. Eli Roth seems to be going for a different kind of horror. I would be a lot happier if Evan punch out the girls and chop them into pieces. This way is a lazy, silly 'Fatal Attraction'. The part with Louis gets too annoying. Everything is too broad, and too obvious. This is not scary nor thrilling. One could almost see this as camp.

After the less than stellar box office return of Hostel Part II, Eli Roth blamed the internet and swore off making films for a long time. In fact, he hasn't directed another movie since then. He's produced, starred in and wrote a few, but never touched the camera again, except for the sniper film that plays in Inglorious Basterds and the Thanksgiving segment from Grindhouse. Almost ten years later and we have not one, but two feature films from Roth. The Green Inferno, which was actually completed in 2013, but held up until now, and the erotic horror thriller Knock Knock, which is a remake of 1977 film Death Game.

Did Roth coming back from "retirement" encourage me to see the film? Was it the deranged sexual element that would draw me in? No, it was Keanu Reeves my friend. Everything else didn't matter to me, I wanted to see Keanu Reeves in movies again. He did a kick ass job in John Wick, now I was going to see if he would be able to play a helpless cheat who is terrified for his life. A role that is really against type for him. Can Reeves pull it off? The man has been labeled emotionless in a lot of his film roles, so this would seem like it would require him to dig down and actually act. Now, he does manage to scream, freak out and indeed, act terrified at times, but there is always and I mean always, something off about his performances. Maybe it's his monotone voice or the deadness behind his eyes, but it doesn't always come off well. Don't get me wrong, I highly enjoy a lot of his work, but a great thespian the man is not. It looks like the man is trying here, I'm not too sure if he pulls it off too well.

Reeves plays Evan, an architect who has to stay at home for the long weekend and work, while his wife and two kids go to the beach house. One stormy night, he hears a knock at his door, two young beautiful women are stranded and need his help. While inside, they manage to seduce him, despite his constant resistance. The next morning he finds out that they won't leave, not without playing a game with him being an unwilling participant.

So the premise alone seems like a typical invasion torture horror flick, with the added element of sex and the intruders being young hot women. Once that is out of the way, the film offers nothing new or insightful. Roth, a man who knows a thing or two about the genre, tries to amp of the suspense a bit, but falls into the same generic traps all these films do. Knock Knock isn't sexy enough, nor terrifying enough. I guess it must just feel weird to direct your wife in a naked threesome with Keanu Reeves.

The question people will be asking themselves is, will Reeves live or die by the end of the film. I won't spoil how it ends, but the build up to that final situation is decent enough to make the film almost watchable. The denouement is completely wrong though and adds an unneeded comedic joke that is literally the very end of the film. You go through this long torturous journey with Reeves, only to have it end with a one liner? Really odd choice that left me scratching my head with disappointment. I wanted some kind of answer to what would happen next, but never got it. Roth leaves a little hint here or there, but I guess I wanted something a little more concrete.

What the film does accomplish is me, never opening my door to anyone. Not even two young, beautiful, wet women who beg me to let them inside so they can have sex with me. That's just for my dreams.

Despite the warnings from negative reviews and low IMDb rating i watched it anyway... I've always liked Eli Roth mainly for his near show stealing appearance as 'The Bear Jew' in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds and his movies, though never groundbreaking for me, offered playful b-movie fun. His efforts here seemed to diminish after the initial creation of suspense. Once we move to the second act the script loses any credibility and little is left for creation of further suspense. It's almost as if the idea was to get Keanu to behave somewhat like Nicholas Cage in OMG mode. That idea i couldn't shake and ironically it became what kept me entertained, imagining cage instead of reeves, which wasn't too hard as Keanu seemed to channel the spirit of the rage cage as if he were possessed by him. Don't let my mention of cage fool you, the acting in this movie is sub par, if Keanu isn't The Wicker Man he's the wooden man and the girls act like female villains in a made for TV batman movie. In summary; I found a few things Keanu said in a serious monologue quite laugh out loud funny and the use of a popular pixies track at the end credits reminded me of a student movie using cool music to be cool. All it did was remind me of it's already iconic use in one of my favorite movies. The movie was just bad enough to enjoy it's shitness or i'd have not sat through it. Avoid this if you get offended by crap movies but I'm almost recommending you to watch this for the points I mentioned for your own curiosity. The movie stuck in my mind enough for m to waste time writing this review, i wonder if that was Roth's intention for the audience or he actually took this movie seriously.