Knock Knock – Review

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On average, it takes around 200 people to make a film. From writers, to producers, to cameramen, to make-up, to editors, to VFX, it can take years from initial idea through to the final product in your local cineplex. All those people will have put in long hours, in hard conditions to make that film, many of them having spent years to get the skills to make that film. And that is why it is always disappointing when a film turns out to be as unrelentingly awful as KNOCK KNOCK.

Let me put it this way. I regularly review cult and obscure film for this site. Many of these films would be written off as ‘bad’ by the mainstream public but let me tell you, I haven’t seen a film as unremittingly offensive and abysmal as this in years. KNOCK KNOCK is terrible from start to finish, top to bottom. I went to see it with my wife, she walked out after 25 minutes. If only I had been so lucky…



The film tells the story of Evan (Reeves) a married family man home alone for a night when two wet and bedraggled girls come to his door, needing help. Help turns into sex, sex turns into regret, regret turns into psychotic harassment. Y’know the usual. And this is the first place in which the film starts to fall apart. The plot makes no sense. There is no real lead into the decision the characters make, no thought process explained. Evan’s decision to cheat on his wife comes out of nowhere, the girls plans seem ad-hoc and illogical, they have no internal logic to their actions, with morals coming and going as and when the writers want them. Large parts of it make no sense or are deathly dull.

On top of that, every actor in this turns in a shockingly awful performance, foremost Keanu himself. He is unbelievable and awkward as the Dad, even worse as a possible seducer/seductee. His rage is laughable and seemingly unable to rouse any sort of sadness. Either he is horribly miscast or should just stick to monosyllabic action roles. The two girls are slightly better, but even they struggle with some of the material, swinging wildly from childlike psychosis to in-control sociopath, and yet never convincing on either. Any other supporting roles are ancillary at best and forgettable at worst.

And then we hit the final crux of the blackhole that is this movie, what it is trying to say? Unlike Roth’s earlier film which were more concerned with gore and SFX extravagance, Knock Knock dials it back and delves into motivation and ideas. And what terrrible ideas they are. The whole film reeks of misogyny and misandry. The whole plot is kicked off by his wife refusing sex to him, kick-starting his night of debauchery, that truly this is all her fault for not being a good wife. Then we get to the main two girls, who very plot arc paints the picture of female sexuality as a trap, that somehow sexual-liberated women are not really into it, its all just a ploy to lure men to their dooms. On top of that we get the double-whammy of Evan being shown as so base (with the girls insistence that no man every says no), that he is somehow bound by his own carnal instincts and unable to function.

This film offends my morals, it offends me an audience menber, it offends me a film-maker. Avoid at all costs, it is a vapid, purile, yawning abyss of moral turpitude and lazy half-arsed film-making.