PLOT: On Father’s Day, Nathan takes his two daughters on a RV camping trip to get over the death of their cancer-stricken mother. While out in the mountains, they become harassed by a harem of hooded homicidal homunculi.
REVIEW: Grief and guilt can be destructive forces. Such is the conceit, however unconvincing, of Adam Mason’s mild and monastic new horror outing THEY COME KNOCKING, the ninth chapter of Hulu/Blumhouse’s holiday-themed horror series Into the Dark. The most criminal indictment of the film derives from a simple question. Is it possible to sympathize with victims who dumbly dare not even try to evade their assailants? More concerning is, when we learn the risible reason why they never mount an escape, can we honestly forgive the filmmakers for actually launching a duplicitously fallow 90-minute psychological allegory that winds up and circles back to nowhere? Sure, provided the material is frightening and the performances are compelling enough. Alas, “Father’s Day of reckoning” in THEY COME KNOCKING really only succeeds in the latter part of the equation. For, in what amounts to a cripplingly skimpy and straightforward single-plot narrative, it’s neither the evil antagonists nor the reasons for them to exist that is scarily persuasive, but rather the actors’ dedicated performances, namely Clayne Crawford, that makes the movie at all worth watching. It’s a tough call, but if THEY COMING KNOCKING nears your door, you might be wise in not bothering to answer.
The movie opens with a rhyming riddle that all but gives away the conclusion. Nathan (Crawford) and his two daughters, teenage Claire (Josephine Langofrd) and preteen Maggie (Lia McHugh), are devastated by the death of their mother Val (Teen Witch herself Robyn Lively) who recently succumbed to cancer. More specifically, Nathan made the tough decision to pull the plug on his wife, as she wished, in a form of assisted suicide. As a result, the family not only contends with the grief of their loss, but also the guilt of possibly causing it. To lift their spirits, Nathan decides to trek his girls out to the camping spot where he proposed marriage to Val. As a memento, he’s brought a special bottle of a ’92 Chateau Margot, something we gather meant a great deal to Nathan and Val. When the threesome arrives at the campsite, detach their RV and set their stakes in the ground, not much happens until nightfall. In the middle of the night, the trio is awoken by the faint whisper of children’s voices. A knock slams on the door. An innocent voice cries out “Can we come in?” Nathan peers outside and sees a hooded homunculus with an alien-like face adorned with a creepy grin. He goes out to check it out and learns that, like vampires, the creatures cannot enter unless invited, and that their intention is to lure victims outside in order to prey on them.
Of course, had Nathan simply packed up and left the site at this precise moment, as anyone in their right mind would do immediately, the movie would end after 30 minutes or so. Writers Carey and Shane Van Dyke (THE SILENCE) know this, which is why they lazily shoehorn Nathan’s broken down truck come the following morning. It’s hard to relate to any victim who does not even attempt to escape, much less fight back in self defense, until the woefully unsatisfying finale. Worse, knowing the threat that awaits them, the decision for Nathan to split up and leave his girls behind in order to find a cell-phone signal is the stuff of clichéd horror lunacy, and again works against fostering our sense of sympathy for the characters. Here’s the thing though. Clayne Crawford, who I’m only familiar with from the slew of unflattering tabloid headlines in the recent past, really does go above and beyond the performative call of duty for this particular screenplay. He gives a dedicated, serious attempt in a movie that no doubt depends on it to succeed, but that the screenplay hardly deserves. Given the inconsequential fright of the hooded stalkers, we’re left to cling to Crawford’s compelling turn as a man willing to do anything to protect his daughters from danger. Except of course, leaving right away!
By the time the third act arrives, the movie shows its hand as less of a stalk-and-slash horror outing and more of a deceptive psychological thriller. Without giving away too much, we’re to believe that the collective grief shared by the family has manifested outwardly as an existential threat, the details of which fizzle to vapor with any sort of scrutiny. The aforesaid wine bottle comes into play a major role, which personalizes the horrific plague of the family so much that it all but renders an earlier scene in the film – in which a random stranger has also been victimized by the hooded figures – utterly moot. That is, if we’re to grasp that the torment the family suffers is just an allegorical figment of their guilt-stricken imagination, then how the hell did the baddies affect a total stranger in a similar fashion? Was he too aggrieved? If so, why is there no connective tissue to explicate such? This may be academic as well because even if a sensible explanation were given, the elements of the movie meant to scare viewers simply fall flat. Outside of one startling shot of a ghoul emerging from the dark in the background, nothing new is provided in terms of the creatures in the film or the ways in which they inflict terror.
All told, THEY COME KNOCKING is neither scary enough for a horror film, nor well-conceived enough to satisfy as a twisty psychological thriller. Where the movie does succeed is in its performances from actors willing to give their all to a script that certainly calls for it, but hardly earns it. Granted, the movie is a bit more forgivable when viewed through the lens of a Father’s Day themed horror flick, given Clayne’s commanding central turn, but only marginally. In the end, THEY COME KNOCKING can’t quite answer the bell!