Knackningar

I recently watched the Swedish film 🇸🇪 Knocking (2021) on Shudder. The storyline follows a woman who has recently been released from a psychiatric ward and is beginning her new life in a new apartment. However, she hears strange knocking from the ceiling and walls. Is she losing her mind, or is her apartment haunted?

Directed by Frida Kempff (Winter Buoy), the film stars Cecilia Milocco (The Circle), Ville Virtanen (Bad Family), Charlotta Åkerblom (Agent Hamilton), and Emil Almén (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

This movie focuses on a woman's deteriorating mental state with little else driving the plot. While the acting is solid and the ending is very good, it's a long, slow, laborious journey to get there. The film offers a unique depiction of an individual's mental state, and the special effects at the end are effective in portraying the struggle between truth and reality. It's a poignant reminder of the battles many people face, with or without paranormal phenomena.

In conclusion, Knocking has some interesting elements but not enough to stand out in the genre. I would score it a 5/10 and recommend skipping.

Knocking is about a woman who leaves a psychiatric ward after a nervous breakdown, but she soon begins hearing mysterious knocking sounds in her apartment. Of course, any midnight horror movie is going to catch my attention and this happened to be one of the ones I really wanted to see. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to what I wanted it to be. Knocking follows a typical indie slow-burn about someone who may or may not be crazy. The movie tries to play smart, but we're all immune to any shock factor that comes our way. Everything is something we've seen before, yet I still found the movie entertaining. Cecilia Milocco gives a good performance that drives the whole thing. We know her history in mental health and an event that has scarred her which is fine for character development. My issue is because we know this, the whole time we're thinking she's crazy and hearing this. The end does play around with us leaving an ambiguous answer. For a 78-minute runtime it didn't feel all there, but maybe as a short this would've worked wonders. It's serviceable but nothing too special.

Knocking is more of a psychological thriller than a classic horror film, dealing with the idea of gaslighting and mental illness.

The story could be summed up in a sentence and the pacing is rather slow, but the cinematography is great - and as the film progresses so do the mental prisons of it's protagonist break and reveal the true reality.

A psychological thriller that is handled with a certain suspense, although from the visual point of view it does not have bright ideas. The story benefits from an adequate length (short film based on a short story), although it gives the impression that the path takes us not very far from where we were at the beginning. Good performing by Cecilia Milocco, which is above the predictability of the story.

Knocking, directed by Frida Kempff, is a slow-burning psychological thriller that is equal parts haunting and frustrating. The film follows a woman named Molly who is released from a psychiatric hospital and moves into a new apartment, only to be tormented by a persistent knocking sound that nobody else seems to hear.

The film's cinematography and sound design are excellent, with Kempff using close-ups and atmospheric soundscapes to create an eerie and unsettling atmosphere. The film's lead actress, Cecilia Milocco, also delivers a strong performance, conveying both the vulnerability and the resilience of her character.

However, the film's pacing is a major issue, with the slow-burn approach feeling unnecessarily stretched out and repetitive at times. The film also struggles to balance its psychological and supernatural elements, with the latter feeling tacked on and underdeveloped.

The film's themes of trauma and gaslighting are timely and relevant, but the film's execution falls short of fully exploring them in a meaningful way. The film's ending, while intriguing, is also frustratingly vague and leaves too many unanswered questions.