Brief review: "Knock Knock"

Distributor: Lionsgate



Knock Knock is a respectably gory slasher film with hints of "Criminal Minds" and other detective shows.

A star football player has just finished celebrating with his teammates, psyched for another winning season. He goes into the locker room to grab his things, equally thrilled about the date he has for later that night. Suddenly, a large, bulky man with bandages covering his face shoves him from behind. Before he even has a chance to fight back, the man has eviscerated him and deposited his innards into his locker for the night janitors to discover minutes later.

And he is just the first as the killer continues his rampage, stalking the streets of the football-crazy town, brutally slaying teens while two detectives frantically search for clues to his origins...

Knock Knock looks to have been made with a lower than average budget based on the somewhat grainy cinematography and the bare sets. Still, it manages to use the money where it counts in a film like this, the death/kill scenes. The blood really flows and no detail is spared as the killer finishes off his victims. From the aforementioned innards to severed limbs of all shapes and sizes, Knock Knock delivers the bloody goods.

Also to its credit is the development of a decent narrative arc involving the detectives' investigation. Sure, it may not be anything you don't see on any number of the crime dramas that litter the TV airwaves, but it is at least up to par. Not only that, it is fairly unusual for a teen slasher film like this to feature the detectives as more than an afterthought at the film's conclusion; kudos is due to the filmmakers.

That's not to say all is perfect as Knock Knock has some issues left on the table. First off, the acting, aside from the detectives which are ably played, is rather atrocious. The supposed teens are wretchedly performed by actors obviously at least six years beyond their teen years. We're talking cue card reading bad for some of them. The filmmakers also drop the ball in the later stages as the story nears its conclusion. The pace, for some reason likely only known to the cast and crew, slows to a crawl as we are treated to at least five minutes of the detectives flipping through documents with nothing really coming out of it aside from an affirmation of what we already knew.

That said, Knock Knock is worth your time if you're in the mood for a gruesome slasher that, unlike the sanitized slashers garnering theatrical release (I'm looking at you, "Prom Night"), doesn't hold back where it counts.