Opening 10 Dec 2015
Directed by:
Eli Roth
Writing credits:
Eli Roth, Nicolás López, Guillermo Amoedo
Principal actors:
Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, Ana De Armas, Aaron Burns, Ignacia Allamand
Forty-three-year-old architect Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves) says good-bye to his wife and two children who are looking forward to a weekend at the beach. He is happy to remain alone in his beautiful home in the suburbs of California (actually Chile) to catch up on work. In the evening two young girls, Bel and Genesis, ring his doorbell. It’s stormy and they are wet through and through, after having stomped up and down the street looking for the party they had planned to attend. He invites them into the house, puts their clothes into his dryer, makes warm drinks and entertains them until they are dry enough to go home. Naturally, since this is a thriller, it’s all just a set-up to invade innocent people’s homes. Soon he is tied up, raped, photographed naked, and published on the internet. They threaten to call the police if he resists, and claim that they are minors and he is a pedophile. The sadistic horror escalates; Evan is helpless and his family comes home to total chaos.
The scenes in Knock Knock are borderline soft-pornography. My colleagues compared the story to the film Funny Games (which is also not funny). Here we have nakedness, sex, and provocative language. I wondered, “Where is this going and why am I sitting here?” Why is Keanu Reeves making this film?” The title comes from the joke series: “Knock knock--who’s there?” In this case it is, “Knock Knock.” “Who’s there?” “Cheating.” “Cheating who?” “Cheating eventually gets you killed.” (Becky Tan)
