Rating: 3.5/5
Should we drown Dad?
San Francisco, 1975 George and Karen have a delightful day of croquet and wine for his 40th birthday. A call interrupts their evening, and Karen has to fly off to deal with a family emergency.
That night, he phones Karen while it pours outside. The doorbell rings. George answers and finds two women, Jackson and Donna, soaking wet, looking for the Gregory residence. He doesn’t know any Gregory.
They ask to use the phone, and he obliges. They try to get a ride and ask to stay until their friend picks them up. They dry off and sit by the fire. They are flirtatious with George — complimenting his record collection and vibes. They run off to the bathroom. After a long time, he checks on them and finds them in the hot tub.
They coerce him to have sex with them in the hot tub. He wakes up the following day to find them making breakfast. He asks why their friend didn’t pick them up, but they make an excuse. Soon, George realizes that Donna and Jackson don’t intend to listen to George or to leave.
I didn’t realize Knock Knock was a remake. Not that I’ve seen it — I remember the trailer and the premise was similar.
On the surface, this is yet another “women seduce and ruin man” story. And it’s not, not that. But here, George is not innocent. He invites these women into his house and is complacent with having sex with them, but once they stop being a fantasy, he grows aggressive and tries to control them.
Are you angry with me? I only wanted to love you, Daddy.
The movie regularly uses the song “Good Old Dad,” further pushing the gross abuse of a father/daughter dynamic.
Still, the movie emphasizes men’s fear over women’s empowerment. It is only feminist in how it overturns the patriarchal order.
The script makes some choices that it doesn’t know how to get out of and makes some impossible leaps. It could be dream/nightmare logic — it’s not important why or how things happen, but George cannot escape it. But for a movie that claims to be “based on a true story,” it can’t have it both ways.
Seymour Cassel is such an odd lead choice, but he has such ’70s dad energy that it’s perfect.
It all comes down to Colleen Camp and Sondra Locke’s performances. It’s a dark, inverted Daisies, full of wanton excess.