Knock Knock 
Director: Eli Roth
Writer: Eli Roth, Nicolás López, Guillermo Amoedo
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, Ana de Armas, Aaron Burns, Ignacia Allamand
Part of: Surprise Movie at the /slash Filmfestival
Seen on: 22.9.2015
[Reviews by cornholio and Maynard.]

Plot:
Evan (Keanu Reeves) has the perfect life. He is successful, rich, has a beautiful wife in Karen (Ignacia Allamand), they are in love and have two cute children and a dog. When Karen and the kids leave for the weekend and Evan has to stay back to work, all hell breaks loose though. It starts with two girls ringing Evan’s door in the pouring rain looking for another house. Evan lets Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas) in and that is all the invitation they need to fuck him over.

Knock Knock is a very stupid film. Entertaining enough while it lasts but it falls apart at any glance that is even slightly more than passing.

[SPOILERS]

The film reveals that the two women make it a habit to test men to see if they can stay loyal to their wives. And if they fail the test, they destroy them. In this case this means forcing themselves on Evan (welcome back to the /slash, rape, a few films without you were definitely too many) who finally gives in and the rape turns into more or less willing sex. Afterwards they start trashing his place until he throws them out, only not calling the police because they say that they are underage (which, with all love for Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas, is just completely unrealistic if you look at them). They come back later, rape him, film that rape, trash his place, write insults on his wife’s and children’s pictures, trash his wife’s artwork, torture him, kill a friend (and get rid of the body), steal his dog and finally bury him up to the chin in the garden after putting the video of his rape on his facebook. And we are supposed to believe that with that amount of damage to everything, his wife will come back home and believe that he has just been partying too hard? No way. That is just beyond all credulity.

I understand that the actions of psychopaths like the two women don’t have to make sense to the world, but they have to make sense to them. And raping Evan doesn’t prove any point at all. Why not have him actually willingly join in? Then at least it would feel right that they’d dole out punishment (from their perspective). And when they do punish him, make it really look like a credible party, so that they can actually paint their victim as the perpetrator?

As is the film smacks of misogyny: Poor Evan really tries his hardest, but the women throw themselves so hard at him, how could he possibly refuse? And then these psycho bitches of course have to make his life miserable, because women are always out ot punish men for their transgressions. Because the women’s lives revolve around the (in)fidelities of the manfolk. Or something.

There were a couple of things I liked about the film: I loved that we got to see an actual bilingual family – that is way too rare in films. The dog was cute. Karen’s art was really cool. And it was kinda sweet and definitely hilarious how Keanu Reeves just crashes full of good intentions into the limits of his acting talent. The pacing is also good enough that I was always entertained. But ultimately the film turns into an orgy of shrillness and stupidity. And I’d rather not.

Summarizing: Rather average.