Don’t bother answering the door for Eli Roth and Keanu Reeves’ new thriller.
By Josh Lasser
Eli Roth’s name is often associated with his over-the-top horror movies, films that push the boundaries. Roth has made movies with sadistic killers and some very violent scenes. However, the only thing sadistic about his latest film, Knock Knock, is asking audiences to sit through it.
The film stars Keanu Reeves as family man and all-around good guy, Evan Webber. Oh sure, his wife might joke about him hurting his shoulder picking up bags off the carousel for pretty girls at the airport, but there’s no sense that he’s actually a bad guy and he certainly seems to love his two children. Sadly for him, the wife and kids are heading out of town for a long weekend (they’re actually leaving for this weekend on Sunday and returning Tuesday, but they’re calling it a weekend anyway) and Evan has to stay home and work on his latest architecture project.
We want to hear it.
In the middle of the first night alone, two women, Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas), knock on Evan’s door, explaining that they’re trying to get to a party and are lost. It’s raining, it’s late, and Evan is, as stated, a nice guy, so he lets them come inside and wait as he calls an Uber. After some laughable (for the audience) flirting on their part, flirting which makes Evan very uncomfortable, the women de-robe and become quite sexually aggressive. Evan soon sleeps with Genesis and Bel and the next day they torture him for it.
Now, it must be stated that Evan’s actions are inexcusable. The simple fact is that cheating on his wife is not okay. It doesn’t matter if the women get naked and really push for the sex, it’s still not okay.
That transgression, however, does not rise to a level requiring his torture, particularly his torture from those with whom he cheated. If he himself was a killer, if he regularly cheated, if a myriad of other things occurred, Roth could get the audience to sympathize better with Evan’s comeuppance. If it was his wife doing the torturing that would also work.
None of that is the case though. Evan is just a guy who made an inexcusable mistake and who probably deserves to have his happy home life ruined, but does not deserve this particular punishment.
The audience watches as a series of increasing—and infantile—humiliations are visited upon him by Genesis and Bel. They start by ruining his kitchen, up the ante by threatening to tell his wife, and soon have Evan tied up as they play a game where he has to answer questions or have physical pain inflicted upon himself.
The entirety of the movie, from the depiction of Evan’s home life to his lustful night to his subsequent punishment is perhaps best described as annoying. Reeves’ Evan is annoying as he goes about making mistake after mistake. Genesis and Bel are annoying with their horrifically bad flirtation and uninventive torturing. The performances are wooden, the dialogue is flat, and from beginning to end it is all entirely mundane.
We want to hear it.
One might think that this would all have the movie rise to the level of camp, and while it peers over the line into camp from time to time, it never quite gets there. Keanu yelling about how the torture is “serious” after hours of said torture taking place is definitely funny—to be clear though, not as funny as the end moments—but Knock Knock never feels in on the joke, any of the jokes.
The best Knock Knock can muster is some good camerawork. There are some shots in the movie where the camera ventures through the house as interloper, slowly creeping along hallways and examining family photos. Early on one of these shots sets a great, tension-filled tone for what is to come, but it never capitalizes on it, instead just letting it hang there and then slowly dissipate.
Do not look for any answers behind what takes place in Knock Knock, motivations are paper-thin if they exist at all. Do not look for scares either as the film is a far cry from some of Roth’s other work. Do not look for knowing winks or nods about the foolishness to the audience, Knock Knock feels in no way self-aware. Do not bother thinking through what you might have done in such a situation; few would ever find themselves having made the first ludicrously bad choice and no one would have ever followed it up with so many more bad choices. In fact, the whole film is full of bad choices and is better forgotten.
