Dir: Eli Roth
Evan (Keanu Reeves THE GIFT) is spending Father's Day weekend working at home and his wife (Ignacia Allamand THE GREEN INFERNO) has taken their children to the beach. Late into the rainy night there's a knock at the front door. Answering it he finds two young, soaking wet women, lost and looking for directions. Being the good guy that he is, Evan lets them in, makes them a cup of tea and calls Uber for them. The two darlings introduce themselves as Genesis (Lorenza Izzo from THE GREEN INFERNO and wife of director Eli Roth) and Bel (Ana de Armas BLIND ALLEY).
Genesis and Bel flirt with Evan who does an admirable job of resisting their charms but their continued pressure eventually weakens him. They spend the remainder of the night engaged in hedonistic pleasure. I'm talking sex here folks.
In the morning it is time for Evan to pay the price as the two young women go full on head game mode. Genesis and Bell tell Evan that they are underage and threaten to expose his misadventures to his wife, children and the police. The games escalate to violence and the two tie up Evan and put him on trial game show style for his crimes against them.
KNOCK KNOCK is a U.S. / Chile co-production and remake of the 1977 film DEATH GAME. In the original, Sondra Locke and Collen Camp play the seductresses. Both are producers on the remake with Camp also having a cameo. The original screenwriters Anthony Overman and Michael Ronald Ross, are given a story credit. Some of the dialogue is used here.
You'd think this would be a better film. There's the male fantasy aspect and ample opportunity for titillation. And the fantasy does turn to nightmare allowing the film makers to play up the warning to middle aged white men not to mess around. But it is all so blase. The talent behind the scenes and onscreen is fine, although Keanu Reeves is miscast; I didn't find him credible in the roll. And it is a hellva coincidence that so many of the characters in a presumably lily white neighbourhood just happen to come from Spanish speaking territories. One of the caveats of a co-production I suppose.
KNOCK KNOCK does take a step in the right direction from its predecessor. Instead of the two young women being mentally unstable psychopaths looking for a sadistic good time, I liked that the two antagonists here are a bit closer to the avenging angel side of the scale rather than pure evil. I think the better film would see the women as tempters and avenging angels. While they don't gleefully and willingly murder anyone like in DEATH GAME, they are complicit in a death of an innocent stripping away any presumption that they inflict harm as a teaching tool.
Neither original or remake stands out more as to be the one to watch and frankly I don't recommend either.
** out of ****
