Knock Knock Director’s Commentary

It started with a conversation with Colleen Camp when we were discussing shooting sex scenes, and she casually dropped she had had a threesome with Sondra Locke and Seymour Cassel in one of her first movies. The film was called Death Game, not to be confused with another movie she made the year prior, Game of Death, or a film she made a few years later, Deadly Games. I had never heard of it, and it was incredibly difficult to find. Sage Stallone had championed it, and was working on a release for Grindhouse Releasing when he passed away suddenly. I had to find this movie. 

I was able to find a blurry 360p copy on YouTube, under the name The Seducers, and it looked like it had been transferred underwater through a fishbowl. I realized that the film was a perfect remake, and at that point in my career I had only done my own original stories, so I thought it would be a fun challenge to make a movie basically in one location using a single drop of blood and try a non-original story but one I could add my own ideas to. After my experience going deeper into the Amazon than even Werner Herzog took his crew to make The Green Inferno, the idea of making a movie all in a house was very appealing. Little did I know that filming in a glass box at night would be a nightmare for lighting reflections and extremely difficult on the cast and crew. Death Game was officially an “abandoned” movie. There was a bankruptcy that prevented the film from being released and over the years it just fell into legal limbo, which meant it was impossible to get the production insurance to film a remake. We found a way around it by contacting all the original people involved and bringing them into the production, and within a few weeks we had rented a house and were prepping to shoot. There was just one problem: we had no money. 

Colleen Camp is truly one of a kind. I’ve known her since I was 20 years old working as a producer’s assistant, and she was always so kind to me then and took me seriously as a filmmaker, and she has become family to me in the years since. I remember it was March of 2014 and she said to me, “I have an extra ticket to the Oscars, you’re coming with me and we’re getting that money.” We had rented the house for April, so we had to be shooting by then because the family was moving back May 1. So I went with Colleen to the Oscars, and during the ceremony we would pop out to the bar to look for money for the movie. Now, I do not recommend this to anyone as a producing strategy, but shockingly, it worked. We saw Cassian Elwes who had sold Cabin Fever for me at the Toronto Film Festival, and we told him about the movie. He said it sounded great, and I emailed him the script at the bar. The next day he called me and said, “I think this would be perfect for Keanu Reeves,” and asked when we needed the money by. I said we were filming in three weeks, so we would need it right now. Cassian said if Keanu liked it he could get the money in a phone call, and he had just made a film with him, and sent it to Keanu. Keanu did like it, and after a call with me he said yes, and within two days we had the money to make the film. We knew Lorenza Izzo was going to play Genesis because I had written it for her, and we were trying to land another actress for Bel but she was having scheduling conflicts and couldn’t commit. And then Colleen called me and said, “I found the girl. You gotta meet her. Right now.” I asked where she found her and she said, “The valet at CAA,” the talent agency. This girl spoke no English, but she was Cuban and we were filming in Chile so we knew that language wouldn’t be a problem. She said she could learn the English phonetically for the takes. The girl’s name was Ana de Armas, and she was on her way to the airport to finish filming her part in Hands of Stone with Edgar Ramírez. We met her on the way to the airport for her flight, at Hugo’s Restaurant in West Hollywood, and the moment she walked through the door Lorenza and I knew she was the girl. We cast her on the spot, a week later we were in Chile prepping, and two weeks after that we were filming. Some movies are just meant to be. 

I am so grateful to the cast of this film. The movie is a chess match, and you’re just watching every little subtle move they make one tiny step at a time, and the film wouldn’t work without the brilliant performances of Keanu, Lorenza, and Ana. They are simply magnificent, every shot, and it was such a pleasure to rewatch and see their incredible work hold up even better ten years after the release and eleven years after filming. I wish there were a “For Your Reconsideration” category during awards season, because much like Colleen’s performance in the now-revived Death Game (retransferred lovingly and spectacularly by Bob Murawski at Grindhouse Releasing), I believe that what they all gave here are some of the best performances of their remarkable careers, and all three are awards-worthy. It was an honor working with them, and even though the film did not get the theatrical release we all felt it deserved at the time, I am grateful we can all revisit their performances here and enjoy every frame in 4K. I hope you feel the same.