Knock Knock (2008)

In Knock Knock, the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, as a disfigured maniac slaughters the kids of those accidentally responsible for his terrible injuries.When a slasher features an excess of mean spirited gore and plenty of curvaceous beauties (including some topless nudity during the obligatory shower scene), I can usually make allowances for a derivative plot and dreadful performances, but so abysmal is the camera-work and editing, mostly during Knock Knock's all important death scenes, that I can find little forgiveness in my heart on this occasion. With horrible 'wobbly cam' and that annoying flickering effect that accompanies rapid cuts in so many contemporary horror films, I soon found my patience wearing thin.It's a shame, because if writer/director Joseph Ariola had just kept it simple, rather than trying to be 'stylish', his film could have been a whole lot more enjoyable—a good old-fashioned, unpretentious stalk 'n' slash that doesn't wimp out on the splatter (victims are repeatedly stabbed, burnt, eviscerated and dismembered). As it stands, there's a good chance that the erratic execution of the film's kills will induce a seizure, which isn't really what we want, is it?

I know people are gonna bash me for giving this a decent review,, but you know what,, I really don't care what everyone thinks.. I liked the movie and that is what matter's... a killer is systematically killing of local teens one by one,, and it has something to do with their father's occupation,,, sure it's not gonna win any awards,,, sure it's n ot the best acted,, and yes it's cheesy,, sleezy,, skanky girls, and all that,, but what's wrong with half naked college girls running around on screen,, the kids are so annoying you are actually wishing that their death would come sooner than later. I liked the movie because of the twist near the end,, but I'm sure most of you didn't make it that far,, altogether I'm going a 6 for this movie,, because iut was more than what I expected.

There are no words to adequately describe HOW BAD this movie is. Normally these slasher movies bother me and I have to hide my eyes during the killing scenes but this just alternated between making me laugh and making me cringe...and not in a good way. I have never met a cop who wears high heels, tight skirts and a see through blouse to interrogate suspects. And please don't get me started on the bad porn music that played while kids are being 'butchered.' It's an insult to porn movies everywhere. The acting was TERRIBLE, the lines were corny and trite and delivered with about as much enthusiasm as a visit to the dentist for root canal. Some of the finer acting moments include fake screams by the parents (the butcher and the dentist being the WORST, which might explain why those two scenes were combined), the lack of the kids reactions to finding out their friend was killed (He's dead, lets eat), the fake country accents of the sheriff and Troy's mom (They've got the bad Southern one and the rest have mild to heavy New York ones which make no sense) and lets not forget the beautiful scene where Cindy has been field dressed and the camera cuts to a close up and you can clearly see her opening her eye as if to say, "Is the scene over yet? Oops, it's not. My bad." While watching the credits, it appeared to be a family affair as every other person had Ariola as a last name but I wonder if some of the people were using code names so as not to be associated in any way, shape or form with this movie...because it was THAT BAD! I mean, Mike Driver as the on-set driver? Coincidence? I think not. I read the reviews where people said that it was a hour and half of their life wasted, I entirely agree. I can only hope that the producers were able to claim this as a loss on their taxes.

Who was there? An incredibly generic serial killer, accompanied by a terrible script and performances that ranged from lackluster to terrible. A group of teens whom we saw for maybe five minutes at the beginning of the film (that, for the most part, don't show up again until their death sequence) are being killed off in a manner relating to their fathers' occupations. However, the big question isn't why this is happening, but do we as viewers even care given how little screen time the victims are given? The plot largely centers on one of the character's grandfather and a lady cop, although the token mentally disabled man-child gets an absurd amount of screen-time as well (whether or not he actually had contact with the killer is never established, yet he somehow knows the method people will be killed in).The story is largely incomprehensible. Due to extreme, unbuffered scene skips sometimes it's night, sometimes it's day, then it's night again all within mere minutes of film time. The fact that the film doesn't even attempt to establish something as basic as time is just one more example of the sloppy direction and script. Of course, the real kicker is when the killer's identity and motive is established there's something of a clear disparity between the killer's actions and the motive. How is this resolved? By a character claiming, "It makes sense", then choosing to not to elaborate on the batcrap logic of the bizarro world where it actually would make sense (as the motive has only the most tenuous of connections to the method, while not explaining at all why the kids are being targeted). Not to mention that the killer's apparent modus operandi, which involved only targeting a certain group of kids for a specific reason (and even letting somebody run off earlier for that reason), is abandoned at the end when he attacks a handful of non-involved personalities.However, films of this sort can occasionally overcome such flaws through the ability of its actors, a sense of humor, or some unique story element. Sadly, none of those was present. Although some character performances were at least tolerable for the most part (including "gramps" Ernest Mingione, who actually was pretty solid at times), the majority was strictly worse than other b-list productions. In particular, Kim Taggart (playing Detective Billie Vega) doesn't even seem to understand the concept of acting and often looks like she's reading the script right off a prompter. This sin might be forgivable if not for the fact she prominently features in most scenes, as a constant reminder of the film's numerous shortcomings. However, one of the more baffling decisions was for the granddaughter to keep a current photo of her grandpa in her room (which the camera seems to deliberately take note). Why a girl who wants no contact with her grandfather, going to the point of not even wanting to see the man, would keep a photo of him close to her (rather than say, one of her parents...) is yet another sloppy film-making mystery (presumably due to poor edits that removed a relevant scene along the way).All in all, I'd be very hard-pressed to name one single element that redeems the movie in some way. When it comes right down to it, Knock, Knock is a joke with no punchline.