“Knock Knock” is a psychosexual thriller not intended for the faint of heart and easily disturbed. In the upcoming Keanu Reeves starrer, critically acclaimed horror director Eli Roth takes fear notches higher as he pits a married man Evan (Reeves) against two irresistible seductresses Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas) who initially knocked on his door for help on a rainy night eventually turning his dark fantasies into his worst nightmare and his life a living hell.
Artwork plays a major role in the film. The director’s mother being an artist, grew up with her paintings all over their house. Roth shared that “I’ve seen first-hand how difficult it is to create, and what it takes to fill an empty canvas with imagination and soul. In fact, my mother in many ways is my biggest influence on my own career as a writer/director. Yet art, at the core of it, might simply be a concept that does not exist. Proving the existence of art is like proving the existence of God. The evidence is everywhere, yet it only exists because someone labels it as art. To one person a sculpture might be a priceless work of art, yet to another it might just be colored plaster. I am well aware of my reputation for bodily harm and dismemberment, and with Knock Knock wanted to substitute chopping off the sculpture’s limbs for a human’s. I find the destruction of art much more painful, because the idea that no matter what we create it’s completely worthless to another person is a very real and terrifying one. Everything we find sacred in a work of art could mean absolutely nothing to a complete stranger, who would destroy it all with a swing of the hammer without a second thought. I saw the artwork as a metaphor for Evan’s relationship, for his family, for the life he built, and once he lets in a dangerous force, he risks losing everything.”
“Knock Knock” opens October 21 in theatres nationwide from OctoArts Films International.
