Review of Knock Knock (2015) by Thequietgamer — 18 Nov 2020

This makes me wish these male punishment porn movies would break away from the ol' rape-revenge trope more often. I can stomach graphic depictions of gore and mutilation, but not sexual assault. So the way this is centered around the far less heinous crime of cheating allowed me to enjoy the ensuing carnage without my mood having been soured by the main plot device.

While tamer in the blood and guts department than one would typically expect an Eli Roth film to be, watching these women ruin the protagonist's life is nonetheless a blast. Their methods of torment are disturbing, darkly comedic, and on a surprising note even genuinely erotic at times. Plus, the torture never feels especially vile as it's easy to see the whole situation the guy finds himself in is his own darn fault. I'm not saying the punishment really fit the crime, that he wasn't rather aggressively cajoled into the threesome, or that a woman isn't capable of molesting a man. However, no one forced him to have sex with those girls in this case so he doesn't exactly have my sympathy here.

In fact, the only thing that was suspect to me about the whole thing was the acting. Particularly that of Reeves himself. The John Wick star has always caught a lot of flack for perhaps not being the most talented leading man in Hollywood, which is a bit harsh in my opinion. For a low budget movie of this caliber though, he does a fine job. At least when his character isn't being subjected to physical pain that is. His reactions in these scenes are admittedly laughable at best.

Knock Knock is simply a whole lot of fun, and when you consider that all Eli Roth has ever wanted to do is make a bunch of dumb, amusing grindhouse throwbacks there's an argument to be made that this is the best work of his career. For once his stupid sense of humor isn't a hindrance, but instead actually a boon to the movie! Allowing you to revel in the absurdity with greater glee. The director took a concept usually reserved for crummy, pseudo rom-coms and applied it to a genuinely effective horror-thriller format that brings every man's worst nightmare, having to pay for infidelity, to life in gruesome fashion and the results are pretty fantastic. You know, for a B-movie...