Evan is a rich, successful architect who has a beautiful wife and two adoring kids. And a beautiful home. And a cute little dog. It's all so sickeningly sweet and mundane that it plays like a
Hallmark commercial, which incidentally, is the most terrifying part of the film.
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| IF THAT PICTURE DOESN'T TERRIFY YOU, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL. |
Lucky for us, two gorgeous girls,
Genesis and
Bel, show up at
Evan's front door one rainy night to break up that monotony with a steamy threesome, some torture, vandalism, and maybe even some murder. Don't ask us anything else about the plot, because it honestly doesn't matter.
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| "SURE YOU CAN COME IN AND DRY OFF" SAID EVERY STRAIGHT MAN EVER. |
Knock Knock is a remake of the oddball
1977 Thriller,
Death Game. As remakes go, it's a more technically sound movie than the original, and its erotic elements are far sexier. It also plays more like a black comedy that the original did, and it did have that darkly fun vibe about it. I'm not saying that that vibe worked, but it was there.
Lorena Izzo made for a pretty convincing
Femme Fatale. She didn't push it too over-the-top like so many other actresses do in similar roles, and she was actually the character that we liked the most in this one... which shouldn't be the case at all, but there it is.
Ana de Armas was about as cute as a creepy sidekick can get too. So, the ladies did a good job.
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| YEAH, SHE WAS ALRIGHT WITH US. |
Keanu Reeves though, hams it up almost to the point of parody in this one, as the "loving husband and father" who is drawn into a threesome by two gorgeous girls under protest. Now,
Keanu has never been the best actor (he's great in action flicks, or in anything where he doesn't have to talk much), but he just comes off as ridiculous in this one. We're pretty sure that he's supposed to come off that way, and for that, he's doing his job well, but many of the movie's scenes which were (presumably) supposed to inspire fear or dread, only served to make us laugh.
That pizza monologue... well, that about hi-lights everything that's wrong with this movie.
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| "I JUST WANTED SOME FREE PIZZA!" |
Had the
Femme Fatales been portrayed as mentally unhinged nutcases who were out to hurt people to feed some deeper need, this movie would have probably worked way better. For the most part though,
Genesis and
Bel behaved like retarded teenage girls who were all jacked-up on speed, screaming wildly and breaking things, and acting like they hadn't taken their
Ritalin in a few weeks. There was really no point to what they were doing.
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| THEY LOOKED GOOD DOING IT THOUGH. |
Eli Roth has always been good with shock elements, but not so hot in the subtle nuance department, and since
Knock Knock contains very little in the way of violence or gore, all that's really left to fill its 90-minute runtime is nuance and character development. And that's probably why it wasn't a great watch.
The chicks were hot though.
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| HOT, NAKED, AND WET. |
If you can take this movie for what it is -a remake of an obscure, odd, erotically-charged, low budget movie from the
70's- then you might like it. Aside from some decent nudity, and a solid performance by
Lorena Izzo, there wasn't much about this movie that we liked.
Eli Roth can do better, and he really needs to.
D+
Knock Knock is available now on
VOD.
Ana de Armas is gorgeous, and
Eli Roth's wife isn't too bad either.
Free pizza, huh? Man, my vote goes to "Castration". The real one, not chemical. For the real serious crime of a phedophile, it should. Here, I would have been content, if the ending was more violent. The whole movie would have been better if darker and meaner. And another male lead would have helped, too. Keanu still looks good but this wasn't his best role. A very far cry from being his best role, in fact. Better stick to action flicks. Pretty please!
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