Much like the excellent 2016 flick, The Monster (Review HERE), Don't Knock Twice is more of an emotional story about the relationship between an estranged mother and daughter than it is a Horror flick.
Now, this IS a Horror movie, and it's got all kinds of supernatural hi-jinks going on throughout, but the real strength (or weakness, depending on your point of view) of the movie lies in the dynamic of that troubled relationship.
For us, it was a good thing, and actually, given the fact that the supernatural story that is at play here felt uninspiring, it was the saving grace of the movie.
There's a house by the freeway that used to belong to an old lady named Mary Aminov, who people thought was a witch. If you knocked twice on her door, you'd summon her pet Demon, and then probably die. Mary Aminov was also suspected of abducting and murdering some local kids, which makes the whole knocking twice thing even more terrifying. The poor woman ended up killing herself because kids wouldn't stop knocking on her door at all hours.
MURDERERS! |
THE LOOK OF LOVE. |
"HADOKEN!" |
First off, it's a visually impressive movie, with director Caradog W. James making the most out of the mundane script by at least giving us some shadowy figures, creepy locales, and impressive shots to feast our eyes on.... which were greatly needed to make us forget about how much of what we were seeing was not only overly-familiar, but confusing.
The real strength of the movie, and what keeps it from being a totally unwatchable bore fest, is the performances by its two leading ladies. Any geek worth their salt knows and loves Katee Sackhoff. From Battlestar Galactica to Longmire; Oculus to Riddick, the sassy blonde has been ass-kicking her way into our hearts for years now. She plays the troubled mother here with conviction, and she always makes whatever she's starring in, more watchable.
As for Lucy Boynton, her character was a bit too angsty for our liking, but she delivered a fine performance despite the fact. The interaction between her character and her mom basically carried the film and gave it some weight, if not depth. She's also delivers a great performance in The Blackcoat's Daughter (Review HERE), which you should check out when it finally hits VOD in a few weeks.
THERE'S NOTHING QUITE LIKE A MOTHER-DAUGHTER BONFIRE TO WARM THE SOUL. |
OH, SOMETHING TERRIFYING DWELLS THERE? WHAT A SURPRISE. |
Without spoiling anything, how is it that someone is "chosen" by the Demon in the first place? We were kind of scratching our heads at the end wondering why they were so special, and for what reason. Did this person know that they would be chosen, and just decide to interject themselves into the lives of others for the chance?
And as far as the child murders go, that whole reveal was easy to spot, and it just didn't work. That whole plotline should have been given some more depth.
DON'T GIVE US THAT LOOK, KATEE. YOU READ THE SCRIPT BEFORE YOU SIGNED ON. |
BUT THERE IS A WHOLE LOT OF BONDING. |
BUT THERE ARE MANNEQUINS. CREEPY, POTENTIALLY DEADLY MANNEQUINS. |
C
Don't Knock Twice is available now on VOD.
Katee and Lucy.
I was like, man that title sounds familiar, lol, then I realized that I was watching it it just 2 days ago.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I get these movies that are so bad that they just can;t be watched. Not even the good kinda bad. This was looking like that only a few minutes into it, so I kinda skimmed through it to see if anything caught my eye.
Except for the witch thing, this movie seem really off.
I watch maybe 15 minutes of it spread out over the whole movie.
That women with her baby with the accent that comes in then leaves when they saw the daughter? Like, that accent seems so over the top, don't know if it was real, but still was too much.
And the ending, it was like they needed to have to go into this long scene to explain everything... Wasn't there animation? or pictures? IDK, seemed cheap. Not low budget. Just not put together right...
I watched the whole movie scratching my head. I can't say that I was bored but highly confused because the whole thing was such a mess. Estranged mother who might having a bad trip, sassy daughter who might having a bad trip, young and sexy step-father who had nothing to do besides of being handsome and a detective whose actions a
ReplyDeletewere far far out there and those scenes might have been part of a bad trip, too. Sadly, old Mary wasn't that scary but rather pitiful. For a one-time-watch, it was bearable but those two leading ladies deserve better. Much better indeed.
The only thing I'm trying to figure out, after watching this movie is, can Jess(Sackhoff) trick someone else in to taking her place? Just like the lady that tricked her. Also, in more less words, her(Jess) job is to open doors for the demon to take the innocent?...a gory usher if you will.. This script had so much potential if only they would have took more time to play this out in their mind. Really see it before its been acted out and filmed. A little more depth where needed, and less time on the things that didn't matter. Like Ben. All that time wasted on a character that was never developed past the husband and a financial and moral partner to the main characters history. I understand why that much want given on the lady/model, for the twist. But there want enough back story in supporting cast to build up the mythology or the link. Jmo
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