Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
When a devoted husband and father is left home alone for the weekend, two stranded young women unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a kind gesture results in a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Knock Knock is a middling erotic thriller from Eli Roth that squanders a reasonably charged premise. The plot follows a predictable arc from seduction to punishment with little subversion, leaning heavily on genre tropes. Keanu Reeves is notably miscast and his performance, particularly in emotional scenes, tips into unintentional camp, while the two female leads (Lorenza Izzo, Ana de Armas) are serviceable but thinly written. Roth brings competent if unremarkable visual execution—the film is clean and functional without being particularly evocative. The film offers minimal novelty, essentially recycling home-invasion and femme fatale conventions without distinctive voice. The ending is mean-spirited in a way that feels hollow rather than provocative, undermining any moral tension the premise gestured toward.