Far From Excellent
Wow is the first word that springs to mind right now as I try to put into words the review for the movie that I have just watched, and no this is not n indication of my passion for the film in question but rather it is the best way I can put into one word the emotion of shock that I have at what I've just seen.
All of us as film fans have our favourites, those movies that we go back to time after time as they bring us nothing but joy. We also have those guilty little secrets of films that we know are actually quite bad but there is just something about it that appeals to us on some level.
There is however a third category of film that are nothing but bad, leaving you as the viewer wondering just what the hell anyone was thinking when they made such an abomination and wishing we could get back the time that we have just invested in watching it. The film in question in this review falls firmly into that final category and I would go so far as to say that it is the single worst film I have ever had the misfortune of watching which as my wife will attest to is a mighty big statement when you take into consideration some of the poor offerings that I have seen in the time that we have been together. In fact this film is so bad that it makes Mortecai look like a modern masterpiece of Hitchcockian proportions.
The film in question is Knock Knock which is supposed to be a psychological horror of sorts (I think) but actually ends up being nothing more than a complete waste of time and effort. Directed by Eli Roth and starring Keanu Reeves I guess I should have really known not to expect anything else from those involved but not even my previous experiences with their work could prepare me for what I was about to see.
In my opinion Roth is one of the most over rated directors in all of Hollywood. He burst onto the scene with 2002's Cabin Fever which in itself was a terrible terrible film though it was generally well received by fans of the horror genre. Three years later he returned with Hostel which admittedly was better than his debut effort but still was not all that great in my book, the sequel which he directed in 2007 was even worse but again there were those fans that gave him more credit than he frankly deserved. His next feature film wouldn't be for another six years and would be The Green Inferno which I have to confess I have neither seen or even heard of until I looked it up for the purposes of this review.
All of which brings us to his latest effort Knock Knock which tells the story of Evan Webber who is a happily married man with two children and who is about to spend some time alone at home so that he can get some work done. After sending his family off to the beach for a few days two young girls turn up on his doorstep soaked by the rain and claiming to be lost. Evan lets them in and before long they are all naked in the shower before ending up in bed together. Evan does try to fit them off for all of about five seconds but quickly succumbs to their apparent charms.
The next day they refuse to leave and convince Evan that they are underage and that he will be convicted as a paedophile for what he's done. The rest of the film sees the girls become more and more crazed, tying Evan up and torturing him whilst trashing his house and threatening to tell his family what he's done. All of this leads to them apparently preparing Evan for death for his crime and they burying him upto his neck in the garden before posting a video of them having sex on the internet and leaving with his dog to move on to their next victim.
Many times when posting a review the reviewer will gloss over the plot and reduce it to bullet points in order to get to the part where they can voice their opinion and this can do the film an injustice. In the case of Knock Knock however the above synopsis pretty much covers the movie in its entirity.
Evan is played by Keanu Reeves who has always been something of a wooden actor which works for certain roles like the Matrix and Constantine but mostly takes you out of the film as his performance leaves you feeling as if you are losing the will to live. In Knock Knock however Reeves takes his inability to act to new levels of awfulness. He clearly has no real acting abilty and fails to emote even the most basic of feelings. In this film it is almost like he is trying to poorly act to a whole new level just to make his previous acting look oscar worthy. The two actresses who play Reeves tormentors are also suitably awful in this film too. Both Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas are young however and you can only hope that they move on from this and never look back as honestly they should be doing all they can to remove Knock Knock from their resumes.
Eli Roth is also known for writting his films but if this is the best he can do then he should think about doing the world a favour and retiring from the movie game once and for all. Yes I realise that as somebody who is not in the movie buisness it is not my place to make such bold and sweeping statements but as a fan I have toi right to express a view, it is then upto you the reader to either agree or disagree with what I have to say.
In the case of Knock Knock we have a film that contains some of the worst acting ever commited to celluloid, a script that is quite honestly laughter inducing despite it's intention being the exact opposite of that reaction and a story that is dull, lifeless and simply stupid.
I could go on but don't want to waste anymore time and effort of this dross.
Knock Knock gets a big fat 0 out of 10.
