Knock Knock 2

*

I don’t use pointless a lot to describe a film but in the case of Knock Knock 2, I would. I didn’t dislike the four principles in the cast necessarily but their purpose in the film and their actions during it are just rather boring. Essentially two couples (good friends) decide to check out areas of Hollywood with notorious histories (Black Dahlia’s dump site, Houdini’s castle, location where Dorothy Stratton was murdered by her scummy husband, the home of George Reeves where he supposedly shot himself, The Jean Harlow house, etc), and with camera in hand recording their exploits, we experience what they do…absolutely nothing extraordinary. They discuss histories of each as printed off the internet before each visit, and the results of most of them end in nothing. Paint Dry City.

The engagement just might never see a wedding.

Aiden just received a scare from pal Bennett

There’s a scene where the guys and girls bicker over going into an abandoned house. The guys want to just leave while the girls insist on exploring. So this onslaught of “Please let’s just go” & “No, I don’t want to go” continues on and on. It is rather tiresome. If you aren’t driving in a car to places that end up a bust, the ladies are struggling to read from print on paper regarding the history of those sites they visit. It’s a long night ride and stop, ride and stop, that I can’t possibly imagine will entertain much of anyone. It may’ve been fun for those involved, but for an audience, this is the exact opposite.

Steph goofing off in a cheap jump scare

One of the things I can’t stand (can’t fucking stand it) is people all talking at once. I won’t watch political shows because of this. This movie has that throughout. When they fuss about staying put in one room or investigating the house again, I was pretty much at my wit’s end with this film.

The ending has two of the four vanishing (one after climbing into an attic crawlspace, another after closing herself in a room to get away from her boyfriend), with the remaining duo (one continuously knocking her head against either a door or wall, for which we can only hear, not see due to the camera laying stationary on the floor capturing not much of anything) left in horror. With the idiot who was bumping her head into the wall/door now unconscious, the sole remaining member of the four still alive gets a phone call (from who?) and tries to tell whoever it is on the other end of the line that they are trapped in the house. He sees something and is pulled away from the camera’s sight. The end.

It's all gone to hell at this point.

I was reading a thread on Shot-On-Video films in the 80s/90s by a user on the imdb horror board regarding a conversation about them. Video Violence, Cannibal Campout, Shatter Dead, and the list goes on. LOTS of these films are total wastes of time. Amateurish, poorly designed, rottenly acted, and crudely no-budgeted, they were actually sought after because of these problems. I have tried to watch a few of them, but I could barely make it through their entire running time. I believe the found footage genre (with many positive aspects) is similar in some ways. It allows pretty much anyone to make a movie, and distributing them is easy. There are talented people out there making these, don’t get me wrong, but I think Knock Knock 2 is an example of the bottom end of the spectrum.

The film sets up a night of site seeing and horsing around that winds up with the four young adults picking the wrong house to get lost in. Before this house, each visit ended harmlessly. But tempting fate one time too many gets them in trouble. Something within it (the house has a history of a schizophrenic director who murdered his pregnant wife and child then himself) exists and they will fall prey to the paranormal denizens of the house. They try to get out but have no such luck as the windows are well boarded up and the front door is locked shut tight. Attempts to pull away the boards by the guys are unsuccessful. Eventually there’s shouting and hysteria. Before long, there’s the vanishing. Where do they go? How the hell do I know?

Ummm...there's someone behind you.

Some brief (and I mean brief) glimpses of the ghost wife give us an idea of what haunts the place, and there’s sounds of a baby crying. The rest is camera jittering and some score to attempt building tension. This is much ado about nothing. Don’t waste your time.