[Knock Knock]
Plot:Knock Knock is a horror film that combines fear with revenge, hate with justice and responsibility with sacrifice. The bible says an "Eye for an Eye." Rico was just a big fun loving son of a hard working neighborhood business man. The problem is his dad is an undertaker. Some popular high school Students thought he was weird because of it. Rico kept to himself and helped his dad around their funeral home after school. One night after a high school pep rally, some of those students wanted to have a little fun. The town would never be the same. Local cops have never seen anything like it. The beautiful detective thought she knew it all. Is the drunken old detective right? Why was it happening? Who will be next? Answering the door will never be the same again!

Cast:Nicole Abisinio, Chris Bashinelli, Kat Castaneda, John Cipriano Jr., Jarett Del Bene, Jeremy Drew, Stephanie Finochio, Ben Fiore, Jim Ford, Matt Fraley, Asher Grodman, Erika J., Joli Julianna, Ilene Kristen, Damion Lee, Susan Lehman, Matt Lish, Suzi Lorraine, Sal Manzo, Antonio Mastrantonio, Misty Dawn Meeler, Ernest Mingione, Anthony Palladino, Lou Savarese, Sal Sirchia, Kim Taggart, Yury Tsykun, Shawn-Caulin Young.

My Thoughts:"Knock, Knock..who's there? It's Leatherface!"

Review:"Knock Knock" is the latest indie slasher film to grace video stores. The film follows a brutal serial killer who stalks a smalltown, taking out the popular kids who run in the popular clique. As you all know by now, in a horror film, when popular kids are dying...you know they've wronged someone. After all, how can you become part of the "in crowd" in High School without having participated in some prank where someone gets burned horribly, embarassed to the point of permament mental trauma, or winds up dead all together right?

You know what they say, can't make an omlette without breaking a few hearts. Stereotypically, the first of the popular kids to die after an opening scene death in the movie, where a woman answers her door and ends up paying for it in the worst way...is of course the black dude. That's followed up by a series of other grissly murders where the killer takes out his victims in brutal fashion, but gains access to them by knocking on the door. Yes, that's how he murders his victims.

He delivers what could be called a death knock on the door. Then when the potential victim answers the door, a series of mind games is played before the killer gets them in the perfect position to rip them apart in a surprise attack. But there are also occasions where the killer uses the more direct approach of sneaking up on someone in a dark locker room or garage and snuffing them out. So the gist of the movie is we're supposed to try and figure out why the killer's killing, and what does "knock, knock" have to do with it?

This film never lets us forget the significance of those two words, as whispers of "knock knock, who's there?" are played during the death scenes, and during alot of the films scarier moments. It's almost the movies entire soundtrack if not for a pretty snazzy musical score that's played at the start of the movie. But this is the type of film where the killer takes advantage of smalltown stupidity. The cops are alot more hardcore than usual, not surprising considering this movie is set in upstate New York.

But like southern or midwestern smalltown cops in slasher films, they still are clueless about who the killer is and why they're killing. And they drag in the usual suspects such as the town loner/weirdo/pedophile who obviously is not the killer because if he were, he wouldn't play with dolls. This enables the killer to continue on taking people out. The one twist to the police in the movie though is a female cop, a hot blonde might I add...is the lead detective on the murder case.

Nice to see a small hint of originality injected into this movie. Lord knows we're tired of the grizzled old sheriff who can't catch a cold. The deaths are indeed gruesome in the pic, but not very original. Although their sadistic nature more than makes up for that. There's a nicely sinister death where a woman is tied to a shower rod and stabbed repeatedly in the back. Pretty twisted stuff indeed. But the films killer is ultimately it's biggest problem. If you remember how Leatherface looked in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", that's exactly how the "Knock Knock" killer looks.

The guy could be a dead ringer for Leatherface from that film in fact. And that's the movies one glaring weakness. The killer is a dead ringer for Leatherface from "TCM 2", and I'm actually surprised the filmmakers were able to get away with it. But considering the killer is kept in the dark most of the time because he strikes at night, and is also visually distorted alot with flashy camera angles...maybe it's not blatant enough to arouse any trouble.

But I noticed, that's for sure. The ending of the film is a bit silly, but if you can ignore the ending and it's abhorent ridiculousness...and enjoy the mayhem which proceeds it, then you should find "Knock Knock" to be a decent time waster.

Positives:Twisted deaths, decent musical score, a few interesting characters, and the female lead cop was a finger in the eye to genre cliches.

Negatives:The killer looked like Leatherface from "TCM 2", the ending was retarded.

Overall:Two out of four stars.





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