Bata Antes de Entrar

There are already ...261 (!) reviews for this B (or maybe C?) movie that came out only 2 months ago and that means something, i think.

First of all this is a remake of the movie "Death Game (1977)" starring Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp. The 2 women are serving as producers in the 2015 version while Colleen Camp also stars in a minor role.

This is Camp-y movie (pun intended!) with a lot of torture horror and a couple (mild in my opinion) erotic scenes. The 2 main actresses Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas look crazy enough but Keanu Reeves's performance leave a lot to be desired. Maybe we have used to see him as a hero (from the Matrix to John Wick) and we cannot accept to watch him being lame and weak.

There is obviously a moral here, but the question "who could resist" is also strongly present.

As a movie it's OK and you might have some fun watching it, but if you can't stand movies where the "hero" does all the wrong moves maybe you should avoid it. The direction of photography is bright and that's a plus, but if you are a careful viewer you will find a lot of goofs including numerous continuity errors which could ruin some of the fun.

In the end you might want for the movie to last a couple of minutes more to see the outcome or even the true motives of what just happened...

Overall: Not as bad as most of the other 261 reviews might want you to believe. (Some of them compare Keanu Reeves's recent choices to those of Nicolas Cage, so they might be driven by some hate). See it if you want a light campy thriller for the evening.

Set on Fathers' Day weekend, successful architect Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves) prepares for a weekend of work while his wife and kids enjoy a weekend at the beach. On his first night home during a rainstorm two young women Bel and Genesis (Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo) arrive at his doorstep asking for help. After he allows them in the two seduce Evan resulting in a threeway. After Evan's infidelity, the two reveal their true intentions wreaking havoc on Evan's home and life and subject Evan to increasingly intense psychological and physical tortures which may culminate in his death.

Directed by Eli Roth Knock Knock is an uncredited remake of 1977s Death Game (though the original director and stars are executive producers). Knock Knock hits all the beats from the original while also updating the premise with references to contemporary society and technology. I honestly didn't like Death Game when I saw it because I found the plot repetitive and the characters annoying, but I did give it props for being a well made attempt by an inexperienced director and having a chilling performance from Sondra Locke. Knock Knock is certainly more polished of a product in terms of film making in comparison to its more grind house level predecessor, but while the package has been glossed up the content is considerably lesser this time around.

The opening 40 minutes are easily the best part of Knock Knock as we establish Evan's sexual frustration and hectic family situation that build up to the seduction. It's honestly really well told and is much better here than it was in the original 1977 film where the wife and kids were basically non entities for much of the original film's runtime. The film is also well shot with great looking establishment shots of the house.

Unfortunately beneath the coat of polish that's been applied many elements have been downgraded in terms of quality despite a supposedly more experienced director, Roth, helming the remake of a film that was made by an amateur. Keanu Reeves is a good actor, but only if given the right material. Reeves in Knock Knock does have a fun brief shining moments such as scene midway through the movie where he's trying to rebuke the advances of the seducers, but it feels like the role was written with someone like Nicolas Cage in mind and they just shoehorned Reeves into the role because they couldn't get him. Reeves still sporting his John Wick doo just doesn't sell it as a workaday family man and doesn't sell a role that he just doesn't fit into.

Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo start off well enough as the seducers when they first arrive in the movie, but around the halfway point where they reveal their true intentions they become absolutely insufferable to listen to. Not only do they act like oversexed brats with middle school level vocabularies, they have this unearned sense of "holier than thou" moral superiority that makes them extra aggravating. While movies with killers with prideful moral superiority complexes can work, such as Kiefer Sutherland as The Voice in Phone Booth or Tobin Bell as The Jigsaw Killer in Saw, those movies at least had some level of self awareness that their killers were hypocritical scum doing ex post fact justifications of their actions. Knock Knock is more confused and feels like it muddled its intentions much like Nicolas Cage's Wicker Man remake where they replaced the Paganism/Christianity dynamic with a fundamentally confused masculinity/femininity dynamic. Roth tries to update the very 70s counterculture girls with updated equivalents for the digital age, but it comes off more as an excuse for Roth to amp up the annoyance of characters who were already pretty grating to begin with.

Knock Knock is Roth at his worst. While it's not as bad as his worst movie, Hostel Part II, by virtue of at least being unintentionally fascinating in some confusing choices it's still an unnecessary remake of a very flawed movie that is not approved upon save for technical details. It's not completely without merit thanks to some decent cinematography and brief moments of good acting, but if you have a choice between this and the original, stick with the original, for all its flaws it at least had the excuse of an inexperienced director.

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.

I pretty much never leave a review for a movie.

I also pretty much never stop a movie or book before I finish it.

This movie was so bad that both happened. It's complete trash. The characters are unbelievable, the situation is absurd, and the acting leaves a lot to be desired. It's incredibly slow and there's basically no story or reason to be invested.

Avoid.

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.