Knock Knock Review

3 stars for this reasonable but not inspiring thriller.

Knock Knock is written and directed by Eli Roth (Hostel, Aftershock) and takes place in the affluent hills around the Hollywood area.

Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves – 47 Ronin, John Wick) has the very epitome of the cliched perfect family. He is a successful architect, with a beautiful sculptor wife, Karen Alvarado (Ignacia Allamand – Best Worst Friends) who is preparing for a major exhibition. The story opens in their beautiful home, with their two beautiful children, Jake and Lisa, as they wake up their wonderful father to tell him Happy Father’s Day and give him a cake. The walls are plastered with canvasses depicting their unbounded joy. Do you get it yet? They are a happy family. Perfect. I think we’ve established that.

Karen has decided to take the kids to the beach for the weekend and unfortunately Evan cannot accompany them due to work commitments. Everyone is fine with this, after all, they are the perfect family, what could go wrong?

Fate is cruel however, and as Evan sits working on his project, he hears a knocking on the front door. He opens it to find two bedraggled and scantily clad young girls on his doorstep. Soaked through, they beg him to let them in to use his computer to retrieve a phone number, as their taxi has dropped them in the wrong place.

He allows them in, gives them towels and they introduce themselves as Bel (Ana de Armas – Blind Alley) and Genesis (Lorenza Izzo – Aftershock, The Green Inferno). At first things seem to be going well, however even though he has ordered them a taxi, they make themselves ever more at home and when he agrees to dry their clothes and they both end up in robes, the seduction begins in earnest.

It soon becomes apparent that they are not the innocent young girls that he first supposed and he finds himself involved in a terrifying and potentially deadly game of cat and mouse.

Although it sounds like a good idea for a film it does fall down a little bit in a number of areas. The acting isn’t brilliant, thoroughly overplayed in pretty much every scene. You do feel a bit like saying “I get it, you don’t have to shove it down my throat”.

Also, Evan is utterly useless, it feels like he deserves everything he gets by the end it it. It’s just two young girls for heaven’s sake. He’s like the female lead in horror films, drop stuff, trip over anything available whenever you get the opportunity.

It’s not a bad watch, but it’s never going to set the world on fire, certainly not Keanu Reeves’ finest moment.

“Well, you don’t look that dangerous. Worst case scenario, I know I can take the both of you.”

Knock Knock is available to order now on DVD and Blu-ray and will be released on 19th Oct 2015.