'Knock Knock' aims to be 'Fatal Attraction'

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

In the 1980s, the consequences of an illicit affair could involve a boiling bunny.

But this is the 21st century, where one unfortunate Facebook photo can ruin a person's life. So director Eli Roth needed his new psychological thriller Knock Knock (opens Friday in select cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix, and on demand) to hit home in a much bolder, more torturous fashion for its straying married man.

“We always saw this as Fatal Attraction for the Millennial generation, where there is nothing private anymore,” Roth says. “Whatever you do, whatever transgressions are in your own home, are no longer in your own home. Because if someone had the mind to, they could just post it on social media and everyone in the world would see it forever.”

If only rabbit stew was the worst thing Keanu Reeves’ character had to face. Inspired by 1977’s Death Game, Knock Knock casts the actor as Evan Webber, a seemingly good-hearted architect whose family is away for the weekend when he hears a knock at the door. Genesis (Lorenza Izzo, Roth’s wife) and Bel (Ana de Armas) are two comely strangers who are dropped off at the wrong house, and Evan offers to help, be it getting them an Uber or drying their wet clothes.

When they put the moves on him, Evan initially spurns their advances. But he finally eventually agrees to a threesome in the shower. As it turns out, he failed that test spectacularly, and Genesis and Bel chase him with a gun, threaten to force him to come clean with his wife on FaceTime, and consider their own death penalty for his acts.

“In the beginning, he’s the nice guy, but there’s something brewing underneath the unspoken dissatisfactions and frustrations,” Reeves says. And even though he insists that he really is a good guy despite his infidelity, “he’s in denial. He’s rationalizing everything.”

Evan grows more angry at the situation, “and by the end, it’s almost like he’s been stripped down to the essence,” Roth says. “There’s been this caged animal inside of him that’s just been biting and growling to get out.

“That’s what the girls believe: If you take any man, whether they have the ring on their finger, the kids in private school (or) the two Volvos in the driveway, if you strip all that away and you offer them a free pizza at 2 in the morning, they’re going to take it because all men are animals.”

Trailer: 'Knock Knock' A man's life is turned upside down when he offers help to two young strangers in the thriller "Knock Knock."

The director has put youngsters through all sorts of horrors in his career, from the infected twentysomethings of Cabin Fever (2002), the unlucky backpackers of Hostel (2005) and the student activists who run into cannibals in The Green Inferno (in theaters now).

But Knock Knock reflects a 43-year-old filmmaker who has seen what his married friends have gone through on the way to divorce.

“I try to write about what I know,” Roth says. “The threat of someone coming into your home and disrupting your life and unraveling everything you’ve worked so hard to build, especially when you’re the one who invited them in and the one who did it, is a very scary thought.”

His vision allowed for an exploration of not only how people live their lives but also technology and social media, Reeves says. “He holds up a mirror to us and to Evan and to the girls. There’s lots to be entertained by and also lots to think about.”

It’s one thing to have the potential life-altering consequences of computers and devices in the back of one’s mind. It’s another to watch it unfold in a visceral way on screen.

“Look at the Ashley Madison hack,” Roth says. “That’s 37 million people who are unhappy in their relationships and looking for something outside of it, and they thought they were being private. It was easier for them to pay money to a service rather than confront that problem in a relationship, for whatever reason.

“But now you have their credit card information, their e-mails and all of their sexual fantasies detailed, and there’s no putting that back in Pandora’s box.”