“Knock Knock” proves cliche horror film

By Riley Sullivan

Staff Writer

The movie “Knock Knock” is nothing more than a cliche raunchy horror movie with a predictable plot and pathetic scares.

      “Knock Knock” was a disappointment due to the fact that it contains many typical horror scene that are often used in this genre of film. These errors cause the movie to be predictable and it ultimately fails to have successful scares, and the actors also do not fit their roles and the film does not meet the standards of many of the horror films that director Eli Roth has made.

    Evan Webber, played by Keanu Reeves, is left alone by his family over Father’s Day weekend when two young women knock on his door in the middle of the night. After letting them into his home, the girls trick Webber into seducing them, then punish him for cheating on his wife. The rest of the movie is a cat and mouse chase throughout Webber’s house with some horror elements.

    This movie stars actors Keanu Reeves, Ana De Armas, and Lorenza Izzo who are all new to acting in movies of this genre, but Eli Roth has been making horror movies for over a decade. Overall the cast and crew of “Knock Knock” isn’t accompanied to horror movies except their director.

    Eli Roth has made several horror movies before including “Hostel” and “Cabin Fever”, but lately his films have been getting more and more excruciating to watch. “Knock Knock” is no exception to that with its terrible acting and overdone scenes.

       The plot fails miserably in this movie due to it’s unrealistic scenes. There is no way that Keanu Reeves’ character could be harassed in this way by two small girls because they are much smaller and weaker than him. It is hard to be scared when the “bad guys” are two small girls who should not be able to overpower Webber in his own home.

       The actor Keanu Reeves who has built a huge name for himself in the movie industry, but this movie is his first horror movie he has ever been featured in. This causes his skill in acting this kind of movie to lack severely, and many of the scenes to be poorly done with obvious false emotion and overall bad acting.

      Actresses Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas are extremely inexperienced actors, so overall this cast hurt the quality of the film because most of their lines and actions seemed scripted. If there was a better actor choice for the their roles, then the movie could’ve been much more frightening.

      The plot of this movie had interesting ideas but it failed to deliver, because a terrible script and directing really hurt the quality of the film. If the plot was executed well with good acting and directing it could of made the movie much more exciting.

      One of the most excruciating parts of this movie is how unoriginal many of the scenes and pop-outs are. For example the typical ‘trip in the hallway while running from the murderer’ occurs several times. Roth took an original plot idea, of two girls terrorizing an innocent husband, and made it unoriginal.

      Overall, this movie is a failure because the combination of awful acting and poor directing ruined a movie with a very unique premise. The movie had potential due to Eli Roth’s experience in horror movie, but it did not nearly deliver any excitement or horror.

      The movie “Knock Knock” is rated “R” and was released October 9th, 2015, at select theaters.