#splat pack

Me:

10-21-2015 Knock Knock (2015) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3605418/

Knock Knock is the title of the newest movie written and directed by splat packer Eli Roth. While it is a remake of Peter S. Traynor’s Death Game (1977), most people will draw comparisons with Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) and his own English spoken remake of that German spoken feature (2007), just because of the sheer fact that Death Game remains mostly unseen.

Set during a father’s day weekend, Knock Knock tells the story of a man called Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves, also executive producer). He is happily married to a successful artist and has two young children. Wife and kids leave daddy alone for a weekend because he has a lot of architect work to complete in their big house somewhere in the fancy outskirts of Los Angeles. In his first evening alone, he hears a knock, and finds Bel (Ana de Armas) and Genesis (Roth’s wife Lorenza Izzo) at his doorstep, soaking wet and apparently trying to find a house nearby. They ask to use Evan’s computer, seduce him into having a threesome and eventually turn his life into a living hell.

After mentioning all kinds of new technology and apps like Instagram, Facebook and Uber, Knock Knock probably feels all hip but fails to actually be all that. Roth likes to make his movie very dark (content-wise in this particular instance), with his message of how adultery can ruin a marriage, but is unable to benefit from his star Reeves, who turns up with the lousiest of acting he has ever come up with. If it was to be a Nicolas Cage impersonation I would have been impressed.

Knock Knock is a movie that makes you wonder instantly how on earth it will end. Hardly ever am I satisfied with the endings of those movies, but the one of Knock Knock isn’t all bad.