Review of Knock Knock (2015) by Potzerzaken — 12 Oct 2015

Babe chicklets infiltrate turf of repressed square family man whose family is off for wifey's exhibition of art bauble grotesqueries. Seduce and betray hilarity ensues but film falls between two stools: either it has to be a) genuinely terrifying but it isn't: critical lost beat there: the cutsey mutt Monster survives the invasion of the estrogen snatchers his adorable puppienss intact or b) genuinely comic: it has to be aware of its own ironic/subversive intentions and establish a comic rhythm and timing: but it can't. Reviewers have been unkind to the two lead actresses and their take on jail bait from hell--but they do what they can given Eli Roth's hand's off direction. Reeve's performance is the weak link. His wooden stolidity helps in setting himself up as the repressed pseudo-hip square stuck on his decades old self-image as a cool daddy hipster; but as the film drags on his stuck in neutral awkwardness offers nothing below the textual surface for the girls to play off of--there's no emotional subtext interaction behind the cliched motivations hard wired into the script. At the end the final line spoken fails as a comic payoff and echoes off as a receding non-sequittur into the credits.

Nice cinematography and tracking given the one-set location.