Entertainment

11 Years Later, Prime Video’s Stellar Psychological Thriller With Keanu Reeves Has Only Gotten Better

Published

on

Outside of maybe Brendan Fraser, Keanu Reeves is comfortably one of the most universally beloved actors working in Hollywood today. That’s why it was savvy, if a little obvious, to have him play a beloved Hollywood star in the upcoming Apple comedy Outcome. But that’s not the first movie to play on Reeves’ likability, because there’s also the 2015 home invasion thriller Knock Knock (streaming now on Prime Video).

Directed by divisive horror filmmaker Eli Roth, Knock Knock came out right after John Wick kicked off Reeves’ career renaissance (which was a few years after a viral image of Reeves looking sad on a park bench convinced the internet that we should all be a lot nicer to him). Knock Knock doesn’t so much weaponize his likability as it does exploit it, making a point about Hollywood’s conception of what a victim looks like that a lot of viewers and critics weren’t especially on board with. To come right out and say it: The movie only has a 37 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but it seems well-positioned for an eventual reappraisal.

Advertisement

What Is ‘Knock Knock’ About?​​​​​​​

Ana de Armas as Bel and Lorenza Izzo as Genesis standing under the rain in Knock Knock.
Image via Lionsgate Premiere

Reeves plays Evan, an architect who stays home to work while his wife and kids go on a vacation together. During a rainstorm one night, two young women — played by Ana de Armas (Reeves’ future Ballerina co-star) and Lorenza Izzo — knock on his door and ask to use his phone. He invites them in so they can dry off and he orders them an Uber, but instead of leaving, they get naked and seduce him. The next morning, they not only refuse to leave but lie to Evan that they’re underage and threaten to call the police on him.































































Advertisement

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz
Which Sci-Fi World
Would You Survive?

The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Ten questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

Advertisement

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

Advertisement

01

Advertisement

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?
The first instinct is often the truest one.





02

Advertisement

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?
What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.





03

Advertisement

What kind of threat keeps you up at night?
Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.





04

Advertisement

Which of these comes most naturally to you?
Your strongest skill is your best survival asset — use it accordingly.





05

Advertisement

How do you deal with authority you don’t trust?
Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.





06

Advertisement

Which environment could you actually endure long-term?
Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.





07

Advertisement

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?
The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.





08

Advertisement

A comfortable lie or a devastating truth — which can you actually live with?
Some worlds offer one. Some offer the other. Very few offer both.





09

Advertisement

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?
Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.





10

Advertisement

What would actually make survival worth it?
Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.





Your Fate Has Been Calculated
You’d Survive In…
Advertisement

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. Read all five — your result is the one that resonates most deeply.

💊

The Matrix

Advertisement

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things, the places where the official version doesn’t quite line up. In the Matrix, that instinct is the difference between life and permanent digital sedation. You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you. The machines built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.

🔥

Mad Max

Advertisement

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you. You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.

🌧️

Blade Runner

Advertisement

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either. In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.

🏜️

Dune

Advertisement

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, pattern recognition, political awareness, and an understanding that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic, earn its respect, and perhaps, in time, reshape it entirely.

🚀

Star Wars

Advertisement

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re someone who finds meaning in being part of something larger than yourself. You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken. Whatever you are, you fight. And in Star Wars, that willingness is what makes the difference.

Advertisement

From there, things escalate in sort of a Funny Games way, though Knock Knock was based on a ‘70s exploitation thriller called Death Game that predates Funny Games. It’s also more about the psychological torture that Reeves’ Evan undergoes than it is about actual serial killer violence. The argument could also be made that it’s not even a home invasion thriller, since Evan does invite the two girls in and willingly sleeps with them (at least at first). It’s not a The Strangers-style random act of terror; they’re punishing him and they believe that he deserves it.

Why Does ‘Knock Knock’ Keep Getting Better As Time Passes?

Image via Lionsgate

There’s a YouTube comment on the Knock Knock trailer from 10 years ago that says “Imagine if the genders were flipped.” At the risk of being reductive, yeah, that seems like the point. It’s pretty common in horror/thriller films for women to be abused by men, whether it’s in something like Last House on the Left where the horror is grotesque or in Friday the 13th where teenagers are killed for having sex and the audience hoots and hollers.

Advertisement

You watch it happen to a man, specifically a man who just played John Wick and who everyone has a soft spot for, and you’re just waiting for him to turn the tables and get revenge. The punishment he’s getting doesn’t seem fair, surely he’s going to lock in and defeat them, right? That would be a more satisfying story, and one that would probably get more than a 37 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but — to its credit — this movie doesn’t back down from a story that seems designed to make some people frustrated. As time goes on, and Knock Knock’s legacy changes (and as everyone continues to love Keanu Reeves), more people might come around to what it’s trying to do.


Advertisement


Release Date
Advertisement

October 9, 2015

Runtime

96minutes

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


Advertisement

Source link

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Trending

Exit mobile version