Someone's Knocking at the Door

The plot: Medical students are haunted by demonic serial rapists.

This was an interesting movie. I'm not sure that I could say that I actually liked it, though. It straddled the line between postmodern, avant-garde film and low budget, exploitation trash. People who are expecting a straight-up horror movie will probably be offended or, even worse, bored out of their minds. The plot is all over the place, involving experimental drugs that induce an near-death experience, serial rapists, demonic possession, a police investigation, and perverted medical students.

I'm not entirely certain what Chad Ferrin's point is, but, as far as I can tell, he's mocking Jacob's Ladder, Flatliners, Scream, and other late 80s / early 90s horror movies. He also seems to be influenced by Frank Henenlotter and Lloyd Kaufman, with lots of over-the-top, disturbing, and disgusting content thrown in, just to offend people. I'll admit, he did actually get my attention, and I thought I was pretty jaded. There are some pretty nasty rape scenes, which are generally played for black humor. Most of the characters are despicable, and the rest are dumbasses. If you're the kind of person who complains about movies not having a likable protagonist, you should definitely avoid this one.

Movies like SKATD often intentionally court as much controversy as they can muster, in order to boost their publicity. Ambivalence is the only reaction that can really harm them. Unfortunately, my own reaction was somewhat ambivalent. I'm tempted to say that it was different, wild, crazy, offensive, or disturbing, but, really, I'm just not sure how much of that is true. However, it's an interesting experiment, and, even if it does fail, it fails in a way that's interesting. I just wish I could figure out with 100% certainty whether this was meant to be parody, homage, or pastiche. Maybe it was meant to be all of them, at the same time. Or it could be that I'm seriously overthinking the whole thing, and it was never meant to be more than low budget trash.

Troma fans may want to check it out, but most other people will probably hate it.

Based on the description, Someone's Knocking at the Door sounded like a good movie. Unfortunately, it isn't. There are no edge-of-your-seat moments and the ending is a huge letdown. Basically, this movie is nothing more than an anti-drug message wrapped up in a bunch of what-the-@*&#. Sure there is blood and nudity, but the nudity isn't even appealing. The acting is decent but the story is awful. SKATD had so much potential if it had focused on the villains pursuit of the college students. But instead it jumped too soon into the attacks and the whole thing got boring fast. Don't waste your time. If you want an anti-drug message search YouTube for anti-drug PSA produced by MTV during the 1980s.

Returning to the medical school where they were test subjects decades ago, a pair of outrageously twisted serial killers use shockingly brutal sex acts to start killing off a group of drugged-out med students.

What do you say about a film that opens with a man getting brutally raped by a man with the world's largest penis? Once you see that, you are more or less prepared for anything the film can throw at you. Of course, it also means you are now expecting the worst and any less might be disappointing.

We have two horror guest stars: Lew Temple as the coroner and Trent Haaga as a police officer. You may or may not notice them (heck, you may or may not know who they are).

The film focuses largely on drugs and the police interrogating the raped man's friends about his drug use and whether or not any of them have ever slept with him. This really made no sense to me, as they clearly had enough physical evidence to narrow down the suspects. But, hey, whatever works.

Plot: Returning to the medical school where they were test subjects decades ago, a pair of outrageously twisted serial killers use shockingly brutal sex acts to start killing off a group of drugged-out med students.

First you have to ask yourself: why are med students drugged out and hippie like? If these are future doctors, I'll take my chances at home.

There is nothing frightening about this movie, and nothing interesting either. In truth, it should get a negative rating. I only gave it a 1 star because the production values are decent. Other than that, don't bother,

Some drug induced shock tactics can't save, or paper over the cracks. Bizarre and disturbing are usually (at least) interesting in the movies but this one tries way to hard and any fantastic notions are quickly replaced by rape and graphic violence.