Movie Review - Knock Knock

Knock Knock (2015)

Starring Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, and Ana de Armas 

Directed by Eli Roth

On Father's Day weekend, husband and father of two Evan (Keanu Reeves) finds himself home alone with his wife and kids out of town.  With thunder cackling, lightning streaking, and rain pouring down one evening, Evan hears a knock on his door and, upon opening it, finds two young women soaked to the core having been accidentally dropped off by Uber at the wrong house.  Evan invites them in to allow them to wait for their ride, but the two girls Genesis and Bell (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) begin to sexually flirt with Evan who, after initially resisting their advances, eventually succumbs to their charms.  However, when he wakes up the next morning, Evan realizes that Genesis and Bell may have some more deviant intentions than just a one night stand with a married man.

While Knock Knock has potential, its story grows tiresome after Evan wakes up following his first-ever sexual indiscretion.  Co-writers Eli Roth and Nicolás López (who were behind Aftershock, the worst film of 2013) refuse to flesh out the characters of Genesis and Bell, rather having them be motivated simply by however they want the film to turn plot-wise.  There are some tremendously ridiculous moments in the film's last two-thirds that play out as cartoonish and poorly planned rather than integral to the plot.

Color me surprised, however, that Lorenza Izzo who topped the RyMickey Awards Worst Acting list in 2013 comes off the best here.  While her character is over-the-top and oftentimes hilariously manic, Izzo showed me hints that the former model (and wife of Eli Roth) has grown a bit since I last saw her in a film.  She certainly fares better than Keanu Reeves whose dumbfounded looks and dry line readings had me laughing more than once as Knock Knock unfolded.  As he's tortured and ransacked by these two young women, Reeves' Evan had me hoping the two gals would off him sooner rather than later.

Knock Knock isn't nearly as bad as the aforementioned Aftershock, but it continues to prove that Eli Roth as an actor, director, writer, or producer may not be my cup of tea.  One of these days, I'll learn...

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Aftershock

Aftershock (2013)

Starring Eli Roth, Andre Osvárt, Arial Levy, Natasha Yarovenko, Nicolás Martínez, and Lorenza Izzo

Directed by Nicolás López

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I read in some article yesterday about Eli Roth's latest film being picked up after it screened at the Toronto Film Festival.  In the article, they mentioned that Dimension Films had picked up a film called Aftershock for over $2 million at last year's festival.  That must be a decent sign, right?  Having seen the trailer for Aftershock likely on some shlocky horror movie I've watched over the last few weeks, I had already added it to my queue because for some reason the premise looked intriguing, but this article made me think that I might actually get something decent out of this.  Good Lord, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Aftershock is a horribly acted, written, and directed flick that revolves around six "young-ish" people, several of whom are native to and some of whom are vacationing in Santiago, Chile, when a huge earthquake occurs.  (At least, we're to assume a huge earthquake occurs as the special effects that are supposed to signify this are some of the most poorly executed I've ever seen, eclipsed by anything you'd see in a late night low budget cable tv flick on SyFy.)  These six people, none of whom are appealing or whom we feel any rooting interest to survive, find themselves having to deal with the aftermath of the natural disaster which would've been bad enough on its own, but here it's interspersed with gang members stalking the sextet attempting to steal their money and rape the women.

There's just nothing positive to say about this in the slightest.  The writing is just heinously poor, forcing us to follow this insipid sextet for thirty minutes as they explore Chile and act deep and thoughtful (when they're not talking about banging one another) before the earthquake rocks their world...and the script gets worse after the quake happens.  The directing is horrendous.  I can just see Nicolás López telling his actors to "wobble on your feet" to simulate the earth shaking underneath them -- we're talking Sharknado level directing here.  And lest we forget the acting.  Eli Roth is just abysmal, but even he looks like a Shakespearean actor when placed next to Lorenza Izzo who plays an American party girl.  Don't get me wrong -- she's gorgeous, but she's utterly laughable as an actress.  Apparently widening your eyes to their fullest extent and darting your eyeballs around in frantic motions for sixty minutes while shaking uncontrollably and yelling at the top of your lungs is all that it takes to prove you've got talent to someone like Eli Roth who cast her in that aforementioned film that got picked up at the Toronto Film Festival -- a film which I'll be avoiding like the plague now.

The RyMickey Rating:  F