#Knockknock california movie#

Clearly, this is an idyllic place-which the presence of Evan’s flirty, artist wife ( Ignacia Allamand) and adorable son and daughter confirms. Roth sets the mood rather elegantly off the top, with long, gliding camerawork over the Hollywood sign, through Malibu canyons and down serene, suburban streets until he winds up at Evan’s front door. He stars as Evan, an architect living in a coolly sprawling minimalist home filled with colorful, modern art in the hills outside Los Angeles. As a piece of social satire, “Knock Knock” winds up being not just toothless but anticlimactic.īut it does feature Keanu Reeves, who’s game for all the craziness that comes his way in the leading role. Roth skillfully builds tension until the moment when everything snaps and goes insane, followed by a series of shrill and repetitive scenes of increasing torture and destruction, all of which leads to The Big Reveal of what inspired these vicious games.

#Knockknock california movie#

His intention, he says in the film’s press notes, was to demonstrate how much more quickly we experience everything in the social media age-both the delights and the torments-and how the rules of civilized society no longer seem to apply.īut he makes his point far clearer in the notes than he does in the movie itself. (The two actresses who were its stars, Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp, get producing credit here while Camp appears in a brief supporting role as a nosy friend). Roth’s film, which he directed and co-wrote, is an update of a trashy little exploitation flick called “Death Game” from 1977.