Eli Roth, renowned for the horror movies Hostel and Cabin Fever, directed the psychological thriller Knock Knock in 2015. In Roth’s rewrite, he alters his approach to invasion stories by infusing psychological manipulation along with elements of temptation, guilt, and punishment. Supported by Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas as his captivating but cruel tormentors, the movie features Keanu Reeves in an unusual vulnerable role.
The film takes a modern twist on the 1977 movie Death Game. It explores the ramifications of betrayal while providing commentary on contemporary society’s perceptions of gender, power, and the digitalised world. Reimitagion and reinvention sparked debate around the film, but the excellent tone and troublesome themes tended to steal the attention. Despite Knock Knock’s mixed critical reception, the passionate performances delivered from the cast resulted in intense conversation.
Synopsis
The story follows Evan Webber, an ideal suburban family man, in a classy, contemporary looking house. The first half of the movie mostly takes place in the stylish house and deals with Evan’s life. A family man and a prominent architect, Evan lives in a suburban neighborhood with his wife and kids. Everything is smooth sailing until one of the weekends when his wife and children depart for a trip; he gets the chance to spend some time alone.
On a rainy night, Evan opens his door to find two young women — Genesis and Bel — who are claiming to be lost and are fully drenched. They request to make a call for a ride using his phone, and he strangely allows them. What looks like an innocent decision quickly turns into a seductive encounter. Evan tries to play hard to get at first but ultimately gives in to their advances, succumbing to the temptation to cheat on his wife during a weak moment.
Evan is confused why the women decide to stay, expecting them to leave. What begins is a troubling psychological game. The duo of Genesis and Bel bewilderingly shift from helpless strangers to sadistic tormentors who penalize him for cheating. The women trash his house and then stoop to psychologically tormenting him. It escalates to a point where the women use his family and public reputation as leverage to expose him for what he did.
While enduring the experience, Evan finds himself bound, beaten, and made to wrestle with his guilt. The women’s torment takes on a sadistic turn; mentally impersonating his wife, hacking his social media accounts, filming their sexual encounter to blackmail him. Greater anguish is inflicted on him emotionally and psychologically as it reaches the boiling point of his breakdown. It comes to restographer twisted parameter of justice and morality where user setting crosses the line of consent and claiming Evan leaves them all together contemplating their own sanity.
Cast & Characters
Keanu Reves as Evan Webber: An enraged mid-aged architect and family man whose single breach in rational thinking is distressing enough to unleash terror of unimaginable proportions. Drawing from his other rolls, this is how Reeves differs as his stabs of pure agony blend and Conflict with his character’s terrors.
Lorenzo Izzo as Genesis: One of the mysterious women who shows up at Evan’s door. Genesis is charming yet amusing. Slowly and gradually shifting to reveal the more sadistic side of her after bringing out the dollops of compassion lying deep within her.
Ana de Armas as Bel: The Younger sister among the two who’s more graceful exuberates foolishness but Beneath the facade, she is more collateral than Bel ever thought. Hueing this role would put Ana on the rise of stardom of America and out of being typecasted in mere supporting roles.
Ignacia Allamand as Karen: Evan’s wife, who gets little to no screen time but whose absence adds to the weight of the story. Although she is physically present for only a short time, she haunts Evan’s every decision.
Aaron Burns as Louis: Another one of cruel women’s victims who becomes a supporting character after he witnesses the scene of Evan’s captivity.
Themes and Symbolism
At its core, Knock Knock is a morality tale in disguise of a thriller. The film attempts to tackle deeper issues such as temptation, guilt, and the perception of how much control one possesses. Thanks to his success, a separate world that he created for himself, and a life which he considers to be in his control, he manages to live comfortably. However, the arrival of Genesis and Bel shatters that illusion. The movie suggests that chaos can be inflicted upon even the most restrained life by a single decision.
One more principle focus revolves around the idea of consent, and the hierarchy that exists in seduction. There is physical consent from Evan’s side regarding the affair, however the context which surrounds it manipulation, coercion, pressure blurs the attempt. The women have an agenda, one that is not only to take revenge but use the opportunity to challenge how society views male desire and female power to shape a situation.
There is also an undercurrent of class and generational tension. While Evan represents the successful, stable middle class, Genesis and Bel embody disorder and defiance. Evan’s bourgeois stability is threatened by their youth, sexuality, and reckless disregard for consequence.
Direction and Style
Much like his earlier films, Eli Roth’s direction leans more towards suspense and less toward gore in this film. Dialogue and body language, along with the cramped confines of the house, build the suspense. Often, the camera work reflects Evan’s internal state: collected and methodical at the beginning, frenzied and disoriented by the end.
Evan’s life can be represented by the house’s stages: the pristine order representing his life, and the later defacement, chaos and destruction representing the psychological damage they inflict. He is forcibly stripped of the illusion of domestic tranquility while they disassemble his house brick by brick.
A sense of dread surrounds the film, courtesy of the music or lack thereof. Silence has never been so deafening and heightened so much suspense, and the sharp jolts of people losing control only to make the tone seem chaotic. The unpredictability of Genesis and Bel’s antics is what makes their tension, rather than traditional horror one-dimensional foes.
Knock Knock received a critical reception that can be characterized as mixed. Similarly, the film’s IMDb rating rests in the mid-5s bracket. Critics’ disagreement on the tone and execution caused a split in评价. Some people praised the film for subverting traditional home-invasion plots and diving into much darker themes. Others were critical, contending that the film was tonally inconsistent and overly-strong in its approach.
Keanu Reeves’s performance also sparked a debate. While some applauded his willingness to be vulnerable in a raw, emotional role, others thought his performance was stilted, overly tragic, or melodramatic. Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo, on the other hand, received widespread acclaim for their chilling performances, effortlessly blending seduction and menace in a way that was both believable and disturbingly terrifying.
This is a film that causes division. Posing uncomfortable questions while providing few gentle answers, it dares its audience to contemplate where the line stands for victim and perpetrator, consent and coercion, justice and cruelty. While it may not be accessible to all, there’s no denying how much it provokes one’s thoughts.
For enthusiasts of psychological thrillers that take risks and delve into the depths of human feebleness when stressed, Knock Knock offers a bone chilling experience. It is not a horror film in the traditional sense, but the horror it presents – the disintegration of a man’s life from within – is perhaps even more frightening.
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