Chloeis initially hostile to her family. Strange events unfold, beginning when Chloe finds a human molar in her carrot and coriander soup. Jess suffers from a nightmare about an old woman crying in her house. In her nightmare, the woman looks at Jess and says "Przepraszam" ("I'm sorry" in Polish), before slitting her own throat. Jess tells Chloe about her dream and, finding this description familiar, Chloe tells her about Mary Aminov, a supposed witch that used to live next door. After her death by suicide, an urban legend started that she would come and get you if you knocked twice on her door. While sculpting, Jess's model Tira is disturbed by Chloe's presence and leaves. Chloe believes to be haunted by Baba Yaga, a demonic witch from Slavic folklore.
Chloe slowly warms up to her mother. One day, Jess discovers her workshop in shambles with "She's mine" scrawled on the floor. That night, the two are terrorized by the witch. The next day, a portal opens and Chloe is almost dragged inside but is saved by Jess. They meet with Tira, who says that Mary was never a witch. Because Chloe helped spread the false rumor of witchcraft, Mary's spirit wants revenge. Chloe flees in panic, convinced that the disappearances were her fault. She is found and returned to the foster home. Jess goes to retrieve her and has an epiphany that the true culprit of the disappearances was not Mary but Detective Boardman. Chloe is taken by the witch.
Jess breaks into Mary's abandoned house, injuring her foot on an old nail. She is caught and sent to the police station, but not before knocking twice at the door. When she is alone in her prison cell, she is taken through the same portal. She wanders into a cave where she finds a cage with Chloe in it. Jess gets her out and Baba Yaga pursues them; meanwhile, Boardman arrives at the witch's home. The pair are able to escape through the front door, but Boardman is dragged inside by the witch.
Ben returns home and is confronted by a mysterious figure in their bedroom. Jess and Chloe arrive home but find Ben missing. Tira is shown leaving the property covered in blood with Ben's dead body in the trunk of her car. The "Slave of Baba Yaga" symbol is shown on her chest. Jess informs Chloe that Boardman was the culprit, but Chloe reveals that while in the other world she saw Michael, and that he was indeed taken by Mary and fed to Baba Yaga and that Boardman was innocent. It's then that Jess realizes that Tira lied and tricked her into offering Boardman's life to Baba Yaga in order to transfer the demon to Jess.
Jess is surprised by a sudden burning sensation from her necklace and realizes that she now has the mark of Baba Yaga. The room goes dark and there are two knocks at the door. As it opens, the figure of Baba Yaga reaching toward them is the last thing seen before the film ends.
Don't Knock Twice received mixed to negative reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave a 28% approval rating with a weighted average of 5.2/10.[1] Noel Murray of the LA Times called the film " a warmed-over hash of Candyman, Oculus, Insidious and a half-dozen other spook-shows."[2] Simon Abrams of
rogerebert.com noted how "the makers of Don't Knock Twice never successfully flesh out their characters as people, leaving viewers to roll their eyes whenever characters open the wrong door."[3]
Supernatural horror flick "Don't Knock Twice" is disappointing because its creators don't do anything interesting with a fairly novel theme: a mother's possessive love for her estranged daughter. In the film's most compelling scene, "Battlestar Galactica" star Katee Sackhoff tells her character Jess' daughter Chloe (Lucy Boynton) that she loved her "since the moment I saw you." It's an emotional moment, and the key to the film: Sackhoff can't bring herself to look at Boynton for long because Jess knows she is guilty of neglecting her daughter.
But wait, there's more: Jess rattles off a list of times when she knew she loved her daughter. This should be the moment where the conversation gets dark; it should say something substantial about Jess' needyiness, something that links the scene to a later moment where she screams that Chloe "belongs." Because really, if you look past the lame-o, sub-"The Grudge"-style ghosts and the unfortunate twist ending, you'll find that "Don't Knock Twice" is about a maternal monster, though it takes some time for that dynamic to become clear. Unfortunately, "Don't Knock Twice" never goes anywhere interesting because its creators don't really know what to do with their characters.
Let's step back a moment: why would you do this? Granted, there's more to this story than the initial set-up lets on, as we eventually learn that Chloe has a personal connection to the house's former inhabitant. But let's say you're watching this scene and trying to make sense of it as it happens, at a crucial moment when you're being dared to suspend your disbelief. Why wouldn't I throw my arms in the air when a pair of teens knock twice on a haunted house's door? It's right there in the title, which clearly indicates that knocking twice is forbidden! I mean, yes, by all means, kick the plot off as fast as you can, but come on! Sure enough, one scene later, a completely forgettable ghost who walks on all fours and communicates by croaking like a frog trapped in a vice invades Danny's apartment and abducts him.
So, Chloe runs screaming into her mother's arms. Apparently all it takes for a skeptical teenager to get over years of abandonment and neglect is a missing boyfriend and a not-so-spooky ghost. Anyway: Jess and Chloe bond somehow, and like everything else in "Don't Knock Twice," their strained relationship is rather unbelievable. The only thing holding this film together, apart from Sackhoff's characteristically thoughtful performance, is the insinuation that there's more going on with Jess than we know.
Unfortunately, this strategy of letting the film's characters slowly reveal their idiosyncrasies doesn't really work when the nuances and foibles in questions are insubstantial. Jess has a thing about owning other things. You'll note that she says that she owns half of her home with Ben, a qualification that stands out after Chloe insists that Ben probably owns their house. And you'll note that when Chloe insists that she's being haunted by a Baba Yaga, her version of the story involves a human familiar, identified as a "slave." It's that "slave" part that should lead "Don't Knock Twice" down a far more interesting route: Jess also thinks of her daughter as a thing, something she once had but has since lost. Regaining ownership of her daughter drives her, so by the moralistic standards of the horror genre, there should be repercussions to her actions.
Too bad the makers of "Don't Knock Twice" don't really know how to make Jess and Chloe's relationship strong enough to be inevitably worth tearing apart. There's nothing here that indicates that these two actresses, let alone the supernatural threat that their characters face, have a relationship that exists off-the-screen. Jess and Chloe make decisions that are consistently ludicrous and their secondary relationships are equally under-done. There's an interesting movie here, buried underneath a mountain of weak jump-scares and illogical twists. But the makers of "Don't Knock Twice" never successfully flesh out their characters as people, leaving viewers to roll their eyes whenever characters open the wrong door.
Why does the Baba Yaga move so efficiently to snatch up one kid on the night that he knocked twice, but takes its time to toy with the other kid for days, even though she knocked on the same night? Well, because in this movie, stuff just happens.
To find and save your daughter, you will explore all depths of a grand manor house, searching for hidden clues and wielding items to fight or escape the terror that surrounds you. One knock to wake her from her bed, twice to raise her from the dead.
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