Knackningar

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 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.

Knackningar (or Knocking for the English title) is a Swedish mystery/thriller. It's also categorized as a horror movie but that is absolutely not the case, not a bad movie but just not a horror. Although the running time is rather short (78 minutes) the story development was slow paced and made the movie seem longer. But the ending made up for that, not bad at all. During the entire movie there is a mysterious vibe that keeps you guessing and interested in the story. Cecilia Milocco was good, very believable in her performance. There's only a handful of actors and they all did good. Overall not a bad movie but with a faster pace it could have been better.

After her release from psychiatric care, a woman's attempt to settle into a new apartment is disturbed by a series of upsetting events.

Not-so-tight psychological thriller that left me unsatisfied. The main strength is the lead performance, which presents a difficult character who causes everyone around to take a step back. Plenty of close-ups, and a couple of scenes where psychotic-breaks are represented by body-cam focused on the actor's face as she moves around.

The story tries to have the apartment block stand in for society, with its well-meaning but uncomprehending reaction to the protagonist's deteriorating state. But it also seems to stand for her own psyche, as she insists that a woman is dying within its walls. It might have helped if we knew what she was actually missing through the unspecified tragedy in the flashbacks. Just companionship? But why would that induce psychosis? In the end the story seems to insist that the experience was all literally true, and does it through voice-over rather than imagery - not a great way to finish off a piece of cinema.

Just too many discrepancies left for me - am I supposed to believe the other residents and the social services were in bad faith? - and I always thinks it's a mistake for a psychic story to insist on literal truth, because it takes away the nuance that allows meaning to find a place in the gaps in the official version.

The editing is good, but the pace was a bit of a drag, mostly because the woman's behaviour became tiresome. Music and sound design created good tension.

Overall: Simple story that sedated its own psychology.

Great performance from the lead. I felt her fear and anxiety the entire runtime. My wife and I were both felt so stressed and empathetic to the protagonists suffering.

After sitting with the ending overnight, I also really enjoyed it. It leaves me feeling happy, oddly enough.

Perhaps my favorite horror from Sundance? Censor was good too.

Give it a watch and stress out with our hero!