I know that Jack Torrance is the main character of Stephen King’s The Shining, but today’s talk is about another Jack Torrance: a freaking and terrifying YouTube channel. Jack Torrance – whose name was obviously inspired by the aforementioned character – is a creepy and sinister YouTube channel that has a lot of found footage videos, some of them terrifyingly creepy, dark and disturbing.

The channel claims these videos are all real, and that they were found at an estate sale, near Austin, Texas. Now, the person who runs the channel is digitalizing all those videos, to upload it on YouTube.   

Some videos are really creepy and disturbing. Apparently all of them decoded, they are usually very short and sinister. In less than half an hour you can see them all. The two minute video Found Footage Super 8 Reel 13.49585.76: Fragment 86t shows what appears to be a person in a dark place, with a flashlight. The individual enters an elevator, and suddenly, passing ahead of this person, there is a dark, unrecognizable figure, and breathing in fear and agony, the person who is filming the video goes to the panel of the elevator, and try to push the buttons to another floor, in an attempt to escape whatever the dangers the mysterious figure could possibly inflict. A very vague reflex of this person can be seen in the elevator door. When this person reaches another floor, after a few steps, an acute noise is heard, and the video suddenly finishes. 

    The almost sepia forty three seconds video Found Footage Super 8 Reel 97.16521.61: Fragment 5s, shows disrupted images of a girl playing, when, in the end, what appears to be a thin, long cryptid arm with enormous, giant fingernails, goes towards the little girl. The thirty seconds Found Footage Super 8 Reel 45.876.78: Fragment 87t, although it has a very unclear image, shows someone inside some place sinister. After opening a creaking door, the person sees the frightening figure of a long-haired dark apparition in a rocking chair, and then the person shooting the video tries to escape.   

The one minute and a half video Found Footage Super 8 Reel 15.656.9: Fragment 5b it is one of the most mysterious and disturbing videos of the channel. It is set in a creepy place, with a lot of bizarre objects. You can see skulls, old photographs, a demonic mask hanging from a wall, a strange hand-like chandelier, and a fox mask, encircled by candles burning, in what appears to be the place of a ritual. Afterwards, you will see a mysterious unidentified object, and a shadow embracing it, that suddenly disappears (obviously, through editing), and someone with a bizarre, horrible mask comes along, in front of the camera, for the rest of the video. 

The Found Footage Super 8 Reel 10.4566.26: Fragment 44X shows a very nervous and anxious person, breathing deeply in affliction, investigating a dark place. When he (assuming that it is, indeed, a male person) opens up a curtain, we see a dead corpse (again, assuming that it is one, the image is very dark and distorted), and the person apparently panics, and a strange noise suddenly disrupts over the video. If you freeze the image in a proper time in the one minute and five seconds Found Footage VHS Cassette 031 Fragment 25n video, you can see what appears to be a demonic figure slowly appearing behind some clothes in a wardrobe. You can freeze the image several times throughout the video, and caught the demon in different positions, as it is moving forward, pushing away the clothes. It has gigantic hands, and a very large, ugly face.   

Not all videos are interesting: some of them have just ordinary images, or dull sequences. But most of them are intriguing, to say the least. Of course, this could be just a hoax, given the fact that practically all videos have, very conveniently, distorted, vague and unclear images, to give the impression that they are old. At least, the product of antique film reels, or Betamax format, like it is explained, in the channel description. Despite being curious, the channel failed to attract attention from a lot of the more mainstream web mystery solvers. Some of them probably think that the channel simply doesn’t worth their time. But the question here is: these videos are authentic, or not? At least, some of them could be real? What do you think? Could we solve the mystery behind the channel Jack Torrance someday?

Personally, I think it is a very cool, but somewhat misleading and pretentious hoax. Certainly, from the perspective of someone who analyzed some of the creepiest and sinister YouTube channels, I think Jack Torrance is more like an entertaining, funny joke. Sure there are some cool videos, but a lot of things simply don’t match. To make fake videos nowadays is so easy, especially if you have the correct technological paraphernalia… if you own a Macintosh, a good digital camera, and really knows how to handle movie programs, to shot this kind of video, and set all the arrangements to give it a dark and old style impression is easy beyond any possibility… but we have to recognize the creativity – at least in some of the more well finished videos – of whoever it is behind this project. Despite being an inferior enigma, especially if compared to the more sinister YouTube channels, in my personal evaluation Jack Torrance remains being a very interesting YouTube mystery, that deserves, at least, a little attention. 


​Wagner

Sweet Home is a 2015 bilingual Spanish horror/ thriller film, directed by Rafa Martínez, and starring Ingrid García Jonsson and Bruno Sevilla. The story follows a couple, imprisoned in an abandoned derelict building, fighting for their lives against a group of brutal criminals, looking to kill them both.

The movie tells the story of a night in the life of Alicia (García Jonsson), a civil inspector, responsible for the state of preservation of home buildings in urban areas. One afternoon, after one routine inspection, she accidentally grabs the keys of an abandoned apartment, and decides to keep it for the weekend, as she sees the location as the perfect place for a surprise party, to celebrate her boyfriend’s birthday. 

After blindfolding her boyfriend Simon (Sevilla), she leads both to the unsuspected location for a romantic night, as a couple, in the abandoned apartment. After a good start, they discuss, and after separating just for a little while, Alicia notices there are more people in the place, which – with the possible exception of one old man who refuses to leave, whose apartment was inspected by her earlier that day – should be empty. 

After being noticed, Alicia is successful in escaping the criminals, but her boyfriend doesn’t have the same luck. After a fight ensues, he manages to escape, just to be caught and stabbed by one of the assailants. When Alicia by chance locates her boyfriend, she manages to help him, and he successfully kills his offender. When both reduce the entire gang to simply one man, they think that escaping alive would be easy, but when reinforcement arrives in the person of one professional sadistic killer, things become really terrifying for the couple, especially when she uncovers the fact that this men were probably all hired by the real state agency, to kill the few remaining residents of the building – mostly aged and solitary people – to demolish the structure, and build a whole new set of luxury and expensive flats. 

The end, painstakingly aggressive and exceedingly surprising, will simply make you jump from the couch. And you will certainly have the desire to see this movie again.   

With great moments from the very beginning to the last final seconds, Sweet Home is a terrific movie, with absolutely no faults at all! Great acting, dramatic moments, agonizing tensions, fearful scenes, afflictive downturns and an amazing soundtrack are all greatly combined, working splendidly altogether, with the final result being this fantastic and superb masterpiece.
The script, decent, cohesive, well-structured, realistic and abrasive, it is beyond convincing: its dark undertones are extremely grounded in real possibilities, with the timing and the correct unrolling of events being a major highlight, completely favorable to the plot, having an almost perfect mathematical set of sequences.   

There are no complaints about this movie. With excellent actors doing their best, an impeccable set of technical proficiency – with special mentions to its refined cinematography and a very lucid photography, responsible for its bright artistic visuals – terrifying scenario, correct timing and pace, everything possible in this movie is beyond compliment; in fact, all compliments in the world still wouldn’t do justice to the professional level of artistic excellence this movie easily achieves.  

With a great history of filmmaking, Spain rarely gives us bad movies. Fortunately for us, this artistic legacy continues to this day. With such a groundbreaking excellence, having executed brightly such a common concept, Sweet Home is a first class movie that certainly deserves one hundred stars, or more, but since I can give to it only five, it is five stars indeed. But it remains being just a few, since it deserves a lot more.   



​Wagner

Agoraphobia is a 2015 supernatural horror movie, written, directed and produced by Lou Simon, starring Cassie Scerbo. In the film, Scerbo plays Faye, an agoraphobic woman, who returns to the house of her childhood, in a desperate measure to overcome her disorder, soon to discover that, apparently, the house is being haunted by a supernatural entity.

Well, unfortunately, from the beginning, the movie is a total disaster. The acting sometimes, becomes so artificial, that the actors in general give the impression to simply spit up their lines, in a much trained sequence, without any emotion or credible tension, just for the sake of obligation. At times, the scenes become so conventionally picturesque and cartoonish, that resembles more a British afternoon soap opera, than an actual horror movie. And soon you pick yourself up just wandering “why the hell in this world am I watching this movie?” Well… do yourself a favor, and don’t!

Although the lead actress deliver a performance that is – at least, for a movie of this category – somewhat decent, the plot doesn’t have nothing in its favor. Very common ground and ordinary, what is really happening, Faye discovers near the end of the movie, is that her husband and her best friend are having an affair, and both are planning to put her in a psychiatric institution, to take full control of her vast inheritance. They somewhat take advantage of her psychiatric condition, to deliberately execute tricks and deceits against her. As a result, she becomes really disturbed, giving to others the impression that she is losing her mind, becoming delusional and insane. As soon as Faye discovers their plan, they decide to kill her. Nonetheless, the house is indeed inhabited by a ghost – of Faye’s deceased mother – that was seeking to reveal to her daughter the dangers she was facing, in the risk of the conspiracy, on which she was the victim. In the end, the spirit of her mother is what saves her life.

Besides the mediocre plot, that is not what the movie has at its worst; things are slow, at times it seems more like a family melodrama, than a real horror movie, and the acting are very unforgivably dull and mechanic. The fact that the entire movie develops completely indoors (of course, she’s agoraphobic) is another major cause of monotony (lacks movement in the structure of the plot). With the possible exception of the performance delivered by Cassie Scerbo, that is quite convincing – and at times, it seems the work of a professional actress [which is quite an achievement, given the below the average performance skills from the rest of the cast] –, the movie is superbly monotonous, and boring beyond imagination. A very low class average low budget B-movie, highly generic, that really doesn’t worth your time.  Nonetheless, I have learned to appreciate the positive points that even this kind of movie has to offer: in this case, a very good photography – in a very classic style, for the genre – and a somewhat intriguing lead character, facing a rather peculiar condition, in a very unusual situation. But the movie doesn’t have anything more to offer, so it is very poor, especially in terms of plot, acting performance, originality and intellectual sophistication. One star and a half does the rating for this movie, quite well.                

​Wagner

Charlie’s Farm is a 2014 Australian horror film, starring American actress Tara Reid. It concerns a group of four friends that decides to go out on a trip, to investigate an isolated farm, on which supposedly lives Charlie, the violent and ferocious cannibalistic killer, that grew all by himself in the vast desolation of the completely abandoned farm – that belonged to his parents –, after they were killed by locals, who discovered their vicious and sadistic rampage of kidnapping, murdering and cannibalizing innocent farm laborers. Assuming this to be folklore, and all part of a local legend, thinking little of it to be true, despite being warned, the four friends decide to spend a couple of days in the abandoned farm, only to be victimized by the atrocious and violent murderer. 

This is a movie with as much as positive as well as much as negative aspects, although the positive ones, somewhat, in the end, seems able to overcome its overall misdemeanors. One of its major problems is the pace of the movie, being incredibly slow. Only after forty minutes the group finally arrives at their destination, and the horror begins at one hour of movie. And when it begins, the excessive and explicit amount of violence it ensues is far too heavy to tolerate, even for a horror movie. Nonetheless, the movie has its remarkable features, like a cohesive and realistic plot, believable background elements, coherent unfolding of the events, well-structured story and good acting, to say the least, which makes it very difficult to evaluate, being so good, and so bad, at the same time. 

Well, the movie is watchable, that is for sure. If you feel patient, and really appreciates a story being told in a very calm, slow manner, with no hurry, and don’t mind turning your head a little bit when the blood (and skull fragments, and many other body parts) starts to spill, you will like this movie. It is remarkably well done, has the 3 C’s (Cohesion, Coherence and Consistence), which is vital for a good plot, and, unlike many other horror movies, comes with a somewhat painstaking degree of audacity, since none of the characters survives the horrible ordeal, which is a rare feature, very hard to find in horror movies these days.

Yes, definitely this movie has it all to be a good entertainment, since – by a very thin margin – its positive points, in a certain way, can redeem a little its flaws. It’s a very nice horror piece, with potential to become, one day, a cult classic. Definitely, it deserves three and a half stars, out of five.             


​Wagner

Martyrs is a 2016 American horror film, which is a remake of the 2008 French Canadian movie of the same name. Directed by Kevin and Michael Goetz, it stars Troian Bellisario and Bailey Noble, as two girls unveiling a dark conspiracy by a group of people who kidnaped young children, to torture them, and study their capacities to endure pain and distress, to see which one had potential to become a martyr. 

Lucie (Bellisario) and Ann (Noble) become childhood friends in the orphanage  on which both live. Ann, upon noticing how lonely Lucie was, take the girl upon her wings, and they develop a strong friendship, learning deeply to rely on each other. Soon, Lucie is adopted, and when she finally believes that her life will take a change for the better, the very opposite is what really waits for her.

Years pass, and when Lucie is a grown up woman, she decides to take revenge on her entire surrogate family. One day, she finally storms in with a gun, and kill everybody in the house on which she used to live. After the killing, she calls Ann, to tell her what she did, and to help her in hiding the bodies and the evidences at the crime scene. Claiming that she was abused for years, Lucie finally reveals the fragile side of her personality, and confides to Ann all the horrendous things that she had to endure while living imprisoned with her abusive family. 

Initially dismissing all of the things that Lucie tells her as being paranoia, or symptoms of mental instability, soon the two girls are trapped by what appears to be members of a mysterious group, fronted by an old woman that shows an obscure interest in Lucie, although she don’t reveal at first what her intentions are. When both girls are trapped in the house, locked in separate cells in a dark basement, Ann begins to realize that all of the things that Lucy told her are possibly true. 

When Lucie and the mysterious woman finally got the chance to be alone, you finally discover that an obscure and horrendous organization is torturing individuals since their childhoods, to select the stronger ones, and determine which one has the potential to become a martyr. They submit their experiments to physical and psychological pain, and make they go through hard traumas, to specially observe the most resistant ones. And this is why Lucie is so special to the organization, since she bravely endured the harder tests inflicted upon her, although not without extremely psychological consequences.

When Ann manages to escape her confinement, she notices other iron cages, and in one of them, she sees one little girl, that she decides to rescue. In a dramatic downturn of events, Lucie is finally able to transcend who she really is, and finally get her revenge on the people that inflicted on her the most abhorrent time of her life. 
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While not particularly an excellent movie, Martyrs do have some interesting concepts! The visuals, the acting, the rhythm of the story, and all technical elements that make a good movie, in fact, are all there! The movie is not boring or dull, and the awkward situations, as well as an intriguing plot, compels you to pay attention to the whole story, as the movie has the ability to entice your curiosity, to see it to the very end. The movie have a decent, colorful drama, serving as a coherent background, and Troian Bellisario, who portrays Lucie, gives to the movie a very interesting element, portraying a troubled and traumatized character, with a profound sense of realistic characterization, and great degree of vigorous and abnormal instinct of survival. The relationship of the two girls as two best friends since childhood, with a deep bond, is also a remarkable feature of the movie, with an intensity and a sense of completeness that really fuels the dramatic tones of the story.   

While the movie have its merits, there’s nothing on it that you haven’t seen in a hundred movies before. Although it is not just a generic, formulaic drama driven horror movie, you will hardly be impressed with its artistic achievements. The movie is a great one hour and a half entertainment, but doesn’t go beyond that. As soon as the movie finishes, you will forget entirely what you have seen. Nonetheless, it is a very well done more of the same, and certainly deserves a three and a half stars.         


Wagner

The Pack is a 2015 Australian thriller film, directed by Nick Robertson, that concerns a man and his family, suddenly trapped one night by a violent and dangerous pack of wild forest dogs, having no other option than fight intensely, to have a minimum chance of survival. 


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The movie begins when farmer Adam Wilson (portrayed by Jack Campbell) discovers an almost entire flock of sheep has been viciously annihilated by what appears to be a wild animal. Having serious debts, after their farm has been generating less and less income for the past six months, the problems become increasingly hard, soon after their creditor appears, to collect the debt, or relocate them by force. 

After expelling the man from their home, the first aggressions begins, being the creditor the first victim of the attacks, turning himself into an easy prey, when stopping by an isolated road, to urinate. Soon after, when the wild dogs surround the farm in its entire location, the animals organize a massive attack against the family, which becomes isolated in their own house. After more and more wild dogs appear, the family members have to unite themselves as a team, to do their best effort to fight hard and survive.

Despite some overall flaws, and the simple plot, this movie is very good, and reunites all the elements and components that make a good thriller. Tension, survivalist expectancy, fear and anguish are all there, despite being a little slow in its darkness, and getting the viewer tired at certain times, when the movie becomes frozen in its own plot, appearing to be its own demise, in some tedious sequences that hardly escape the obvious.

Nonetheless, if you have a little patience, you will see how good this movie is. Product of a professional team, great cinematography, excellent photography, believable and credible acting, a decent and coherent plot, realistic moments and plausible situations that could happen in real life, are all elements reasonably combined well, which makes The Pack a good film. You may not be impressed at all with this movie, but you can see for yourself that it has, indeed, very strong points in its favor. Which is good, in a genre with mostly disappointing results.  

Despite the positive result, it becomes impossible to give this movie a great score, since, by the other hand, it isn’t able to overcome its flaws. Being trapped in its own atmosphere of a predictable conclusion, with little more to offer, you will be bored, and wishing not to see the movie until the end, at certain moments. Conclusively, The Pack is a good movie, but just another good movie. You will have fun, but will forget about it, one minute after it is finished. But for its competent team and compelling devices, deserves a score of three and half stars.    


​Wagner            

Lord of Tears is a 2013 Scottish horror film, starring Euan Douglas and David Schofield, concerning a man that returns to the house of his childhood, to clarify the mysterious view of the Owlman, a vision he has seen, since his youth. The beginning of the movie is frightening, with the very first glimpse of the desolate view from the melancholic Scottish countryside, in a movie that relies entirely on psychological horror.     

The desolation, the coldness and the grey numbness of the Scottish countryside is a perfect place for horror, and the pale, isolated mansion, seemingly deteriorated, to which the central character goes to unfold the dark circumstances surrounding his life is even scarier, although inside the mansion is beautifully organized, with a well-designed, antique furniture, and a beautiful housekeeper, that receives very-well the central character.

Despite the intriguing premise, and the dark, mysterious atmosphere of the movie, that’s when things start to go wrong. The slow pace of the movie, although may bother you sometimes, it’s not the worst part at all. The terrible acting, as well as nonsense moments, – like dance and pool scenes, with a catchy 80’s style  floppy pop soundtrack –, and deliberately repetitive camera movements that try to capture an “impression of rapture” from the character’s point of view, will simply make you feel ashamed of watching this movie. And yes, does have the pretension to be a serious movie.     

With the story unfolding weakly, in a tedious and dull style, the bad acting – especially from the two main characters –, will simply make you feel numb. Scotland, like most countries, and unlike the United States, doesn’t have a movie industry, so most films, being independent and made entirely on a low – sometimes indecent – budget (this one partially funded through a kickstarter campaign) does employ amateur actors to fulfill its needs, as it is cheaper, and, as a result, sometimes you can get a little disturbed by the bad – or, in this case, terrible – acting, in a movie whose plot otherwise could have been a little promising. But the acting is creepy, and the intended deliberately happy scenes have a bizarre effect, but not a good one, certainly not achieving from the audience the intended emotion, which, I suppose, from a horror film, could have been tension and fear, but this will make you feel uneasy or impatient, and possibly will make you laugh from the unintended comic effects at a certain point.

Surprisingly, movie critics loved this flop. Since movie critics don’t understand absolutely anything about movies, it’s easy to see why this one matches their taste so overwhelmingly. I give to it no stars at all. This movie deserves a negative score, for its astounding mediocrity.   


​Wagner

Ammar Cin Tarikatı (or simply Ammar) is a 2015 Turkish horror film, that concerns a group of friends, that decides to spend a holiday in a distant house, in the countryside. When finally arriving there, dreadful and mysterious circumstances starts to happen, for the distress of the group. Despite the cliché premise of the beginning, you will find interesting the unusual and somewhat very well-mannered slow pace of the plot, that keeps the light of the mystery burning. But when time flows, and absolutely nothing happens, you start to feel tired.

The film per se it’s not bad at all, although you will not find in it something that you haven’t seen a thousand times before. But when almost all movie passes by you, with nothing interesting or relevant happening, you start thinking you’ve wasted your time. That’s the feeling the movie will give you, after thirty minutes. And some minutes later, you will feel even more bored.

The movie revolves around the Djinn creatures of Islamic mythology, and the implications their actions have, when they interact with humans. Although it is not a great movie, it is not mediocre either: if you struggle enough to watch to the end, you will be rewarded with a somewhat interesting ending, entwined in a curious plot twist, as the movie will not be as obvious as the plot would indirectly suggest you to think it is, and an intelligent conclusion will surprise you – at least a little – and make you think twice, when evaluating the movie, giving it the credits it deserves. 

It can be a very good movie if you watch it with the correct amount of patience, analyzing piece by piece its slow unwind of events, not creating great expectations about the history as a whole, although its conclusion can redeem its flaws, for its purpose seems somewhat credible and realistic, in the context in which it is happening.

It is not a bad movie, despite the overall cliché plotline, and the lack of a major central event. But we have to give credits to its production, tough: the movie in general is well done, the history has no major flaws, the actors and actresses involved are convincing. But don’t expect much more than that. In the end, your only consolation will be thinking that there are horror movies a lot worse than this. 

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Wagner

Robert (or Robert The Doll) is a 2015 British horror film, directed by Andrew Jones, starring Suzie Frances Garton and Lee Bane. The movie concerns the Otto family, who is cursed when a possessed doll is given to them, by their former housemaid, after she is fired from working in the house. 

When Agatha, the old housemaid is not able anymore to do a decent job in the Otto residence, Jennifer Otto fires her. As a form of vengeance, she gives to her son Eugene a very sinister doll, called Robert. Upon acceptance of the gift, strange occurrences starts happening in the family residence, and Jennifer rapidly becomes suspicious of the awkward macabre doll. Because of her history of mental illness, Paul, her husband, do not accept her explanations pointing the doll as the culprit for the heinous things that has been happening. Things become increasingly severe when she realizes the doll talks to her little son, Eugene.

Things start getting a dark tone, when a new housemaid is pushed from the stairs, falling and seriously injuring herself one day, and when the babysitter of Eugene is mysteriously killed, when the couple decides to leave one night, for a romantic dinner. Nonetheless, all explanations given to Paul by Jennifer are dismissed as symptoms of her psychiatric condition, and she is not taken seriously. When she decides to investigate the story, she prepares herself to confront Agatha, her former housemaid, responsible for the curse, only to discover that she recently has died. Nonetheless, she ends up meeting a couple who was also terrorized by the cursed doll in the past, and they tell new astonishing revelations to her, being one of them the fact that Agatha was involved in dark magic.

Despite the similar Child’s Play franchise premise, the movie is in fact based in a real life supposedly cursed doll named Robert, who belonged to a painter and author named Robert Eugene Otto, that is now exhibited in the East Martello Museum, in Key West, Florida. Both the real life doll and the movie doll are dressed in a sailor uniform. Nonetheless, the movie is entirely fictitious, with a story loosely based in the actual doll. 

Remarkably, Robert is a surprisingly good movie. Sometimes, falls in the error of becoming more like a family melodrama than an horror film, but still, it is worthwhile watching it. The acting is very professional, dramatic, desperate and filled with anguish, and the difficulties the family has to endure that are all caused by the doll are able to intrigue and captivate the attention of its audience. The drama that Jennifer Otto has to fight to make her husband believe in herself is convincingly credible and heart-breaking. Despite very little horror scenes, tension in the movie is well done, constructed carefully, under a thin layer of anxiety, fear and expectation. The only problem in the movie is the aggression scenes involving the doll. Because of the obvious low-budget of the movie, those scenes are rare, and the little you can actually see is almost always very subjective, since they probably couldn’t afford a special effects team to make scenes of the actual doll moving itself along, to make the horrendous things that a cursed doll is supposed to do.   

Well, while this movie will certainly not change your life, it is remarkably well done for a doll movie with a low budget, since it relies more on a good, decent, cohesive and well-structured plot and in the abilities of the actors involved, than aggressive blood and gore scenes, and special effects, something I think Hollywood should learn from, doing the very opposite thing for a long time now. I think that filmmakers working outside the Hollywood industry don’t have any other options, besides being intelligent. They don’t have other choices than being smart to solve with good ideas the problems inherent to a low budget. Hollywood, on the other hand, don’t have to be smart or intelligent. They have money, after all!

Well, this movie certainly falls in the very good three stars and a half category. If you like a good horror movie, you will certainly enjoy Robert, the cursed doll!        


​Wagner

Knock Knock is a 2015 Chilean-American co-production, starring Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas e Lorenza Izzo, directed by horror pioneer Eli Roth. Although categorized as a thriller film, defining this movie becomes quite hard, specially taking into consideration the fact that it begins very well, and ends up being more like a deadly college prank, than a serious piece, after all.  

The movie tells the story of a night in the life of Evan Webber (Reeves), a husband, father of two, and accomplished architect, that, staying alone for the weekend, suddenly has, at a certain rainy night, two girls knocking on his door, telling him that they got lost, while looking for the address of a party. Soaked by the rain, and virtually lost, Evan wants to help them both, and let the girls enter his house, but this will turn out as the biggest mistake of his life. 

While appearing to be nice and friendly, the two girls, little by little, become more vicious, dangerous, abusive and sexually aggressive, and after seducing Evan, have a threesome. After that, things become really bad, in the worst way possible, as the pair of female assailants gets brutal, violent and increasingly irrational.

While the premise of the movie is really interesting, the movie becomes progressively tedious, tenaciously dull and inherently obvious, especially when it comes to the girls, as the movie progresses, that reveals themselves to be just two bored females, looking for fun at the cost of easily seducing middle aged and successful married men, just for the sake of playing a psychotic game. 

As the story unfolds, the movie becomes more and more pointless and seemingly random, especially when, towards the end, nothing unusual or really clever happens, and the plot follows just another conventional linear narrative arc, with a simpleton objective, with nothing more to offer, being a great disappointment, after all, creating expectations that not fulfill the audience, in any way. 

The movie is bizarre, for the fact that, starting with a naïve, but very intriguing promising story, turns out being just another simple and mischievous common place. The mediocre, boring, conventional – and absolutely obvious – ending, with no twist, nor smart turn of events, leaves the viewer disappointed and sad, with that sensation of time lost, for nothing after all. In the end, it is just another story, in a very conventional movie. A simple product, just another delivery from the movie industry. 

Another severe problem in the movie is Keanu Reeves choice for the main role. He is not convincing as a husband and a father. Perhaps for the reason that we do not see him take this kind of role frequently (never, so to speak), and perhaps for the fact that he has not taken – ever – neither roles in real life. For these reasons, it is quite hard to see him in this kind of role, and his acting simply doesn’t buy credibility – “chocolate with sprinkles” – nor it is convincing enough, to help us believe his character. It turns out to be comic – and voraciously funny – at certain parts.

Eli Roth is a great director, that is for sure. While this movie will not damage his reputation, will bring nothing to it, either, absolutely. Unfortunately, Knock Knock turns out to be a great sum of talents, wasted in a worthless filmmaking effort. Knock Knock, in a best case scenario, deserves one and a half star for its score, at the most possible optimistic evaluation.        

​Wagner