Review: ‘Knock Knock’ by Eli Roth is not worth answering

Beautiful visitors create assaultive chaos for Keanu Reeves, playing an ill-prepared family man in “Hostel” director Eli Roth’s home invasion thriller “Knock Knock.”

Early scenes set up architect Evan (Reeves) as a contented homebody whose loving wife and kids embark on a short vacation, leaving him alone to work. When seductive party girls Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas) show up during a rainstorm, claiming to be lost, Evan invites them in as a courtesy, but his self-control is no match for their open carnality.

“Fatal Attraction” turns into “Funny Games,” though, when in the morning the girls reveal a feverish terroristic agenda that involves upending Evan’s life: tying him up, trashing his house, threatening exposure to his wife and preparing to kill him.

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Scenarios don’t get much simpler, or more tedious. The girls’ antics and motivations generate only meager suspense. They’re more like cartoon brats on an energy-drink bender than truly scary temptresses of doom. And Evan, though naturally sympathetic, is relegated to repeated pleas for mercy.

Roth, who is no Michael Haneke (or even Adrian Lyne), seems unconcerned with creating genuine tension or digging into an allegory of moral consequence. What’s left is a tiresome exercise in collapse that might as well have been called “Knock Knock Joke.”

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“Knock Knock.”

MPAA rating: R for disturbing violent behavior, strong sexual content, nudity, language.

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes.

Playing: Sundance Sunset, Los Angeles.

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