It Knows

As I sat down late in 2022 to watch the 2018 horror movie "It Knows" from writers and directors Mark L. Maness and Rob Winfrey, it was without ever having heard about the movie. I happened to stumble upon the movie by random chance, and seeing it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give "It Knows" a chance.

Right, well the storyline in "It Knows", as written by Mark L. Maness and Rob Winfrey, utterly failed to capture my interest and thus I found very little enjoyment in the storyline here. And that means sitting through the ordeal that is "It Knows" was quite a struggle. Needless to say that I ended up throwing the towel in the ring and just simply giving up, as the movie showed no signs of improving.

The acting performances in the movie were not particularly memorable. I will say that I have definitely seen worse acting in other horror movies, but trust me when I say that you're not in for anything great here, if you opt to sit down and watch "It Knows". I wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, and I can't claim that I am in any rush to go out and watch more of the movies that these performers starred in.

Visually then you're not in for a particular treat when you watch "It Knows". It just simply didn't have the proper effects to be an effective horror movie. In fact, for a horror movie then "It Knows" just swung wide and missed wider.

This is not a horror movie that I will recommend to fans of the horror genre. Nor is it a movie that I will ever return to attempt watching a second time. I just simply didn't care about the storyline or the characters.

My rating of "It Knows" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars.

This is not so much horror as psychological drama and thriller, it is incredibly dark subject matter, and yes, the director should get points for putting this to film. "It Knows" is a film about extreme trauma and abuse, and how people deal with it, wrapped in an unendingly bleak "supernatural" story. There are some parts that are badly executed, largely some of the acting and the hokey costumes used(couldn't they have done better?), and some poorly written dialog. "It Knows" is a low budget film, and unfortunately, in most low-budgets, you must be willing to let go of some of these shortcomings. What this film gets right is what another user defines as constant whining and crying, it is in a constant emotional fever pitch, but justifiably so. How pray tell, are people supposed to deal with these extreme and emotionally and personally disturbing scenarios? By smiling and laughing? The subject matter itself demands that people have either no reaction or an extreme one, and we actually do get both here.

This film, in some ways, it does fare better than "Incident in Ghostland" in dealing with extreme trauma, while "It Knows" is not as technically astute or as slickly made, and again falls very short in a few areas, even with it's faux ambiguities, it mostly works. It puts things a bit more front and center with trauma, the ending is left rather open in a good way, and even though it is a bit over the top, I couldn't help empathise with the main character. I know more than a few abuse survivors who survived abuse not far off from the main character, and I have seen it drive some people completely over the edge into madness; it is truly sad to watch. "It Knows" very well conveys the pain of a long-term abuse victim, although exaggerated, and the long-term side effects. That is what this film gets right. I don't believe it is necessarily trying to hit us with some grand twist, you can see where the story is going, what it does hit us with is it's non-stop and unfiltered view of abuse, and this carries through to the end.

Again, the acting is not good from some players, it is grossly over-the-top in some places, particularly the father, he should have been less over the top and more sinister and quiet, and this does bog the film down. I've been around drunks, the mother actually is not over the top. She's pretty spot on. Still,most of the time, the ambition of this film does not exceed it's grasp. The music can be a little overbearing at times, but either I got used to it, or it got better as the film progressed.

The cinematography is far better than in most very low budget films, and the music itself is well-done, just too loud sometimes. Though the opening credits with it's show one name, show a scene, was beyond annoying, I almost shut it off over that. The audio is well-mixed other than that, what really will kill this film for most people, is aforementioned over-the-top acting. The story itself is not groundbreaking, but what sets it apart is it films it with so much honesty, and it declines to pull a single punches, it goes for the gut every time, low-budget non-studio films can make tough subject matter a lot more honestly than a studio backed one.

I would give this a pass if any of the flaws above will irk you, or if the subject matter of an abuse victim coming to terms with her abuse in an extreme way doesn't appeal to you, then avoid. Note, there is some nudity, of a non-sexual nature in here as well.

God Bless ~Amy

I sat through the first 20 minutes of this movie, but had to give up watching, which I rarely ever do. I just found it excruciatingly awkward to watch. Both the acting and the script were very poor, and you could see where the story was heading a mile away. The dialogue between the characters was stilted and unnatural, which made it even more of a hard watch. I understand this was a low budget movie, but that is no excuse, Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch were made on a shoestring, but still had a massive impact, well scripted and acted. All in all, a disappointing movie and not one I'd recommend.