When a devoted husband and father is left home alone for the weekend, two stranded young women unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a kind gesture results in a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
The term ‘guilty pleasure’ is something that you will see in a lot of my reviews, basically because the movie is essentially rubbish and won’t be picking up any Oscars, but I can’t help but like it. Anyway, who doesn’t want to see Keanu Reeves made a prisoner in his own home after taking delivery of some ‘free pizza’?.
A few of you will probably stop reading in a few words time…this movie is directed by he of Hostel fame Eli Roth (have you stopped yet?) and his new wife Lorenza Izzo plays one of the lead roles (you’ve definitely stopped now righ?)
If you are still with me, you’ll be intrigued to hear that Roth does genuinely good job of directing this and you’ll be even more surprised to hear that there is a distinct lack of blood and gore, something I felt was a masterstroke – instead, Roth goes for the slightly strange tone of two lovely young girls who just turn really bad – so bad they are willing to rape, murder and destroy anything that gets in their way of making their point, which is quite simply, don’t cheat on your wife and family!
The two girls in question, Genesis (Izzo) and Bell (Ana De Armas) turn up, soaking wet from the rain, wearing next to nothing claiming they are en route to a party and are lost, plus due to said rain, their phone is broken, already I’d be sceptical – but of course Evan (Reeves) invites them in, lends them some towels and orders a new cab – now, I would have stopped being so kind there, however instead, slightly naively, Evan offers to dry their clothes for them, the alarm bells should have been ringing now as they are just in robes and getting flirtier by the minute (I did chuckle at the amount of times Evan moved seats as they kept sitting worryingly close to him) but Evan, then goes even further, disclosing he was in a former life, a DJ and after a few compliments about how young he looks, he is spinning discs while Bell dances in a way a girl would do if they wanted to request more than their favourite tune.
Where’s the cab was my thought at this point and in fact, it was literally on the doorstep, but…… at this point, the girls decide they are taking a bathroom break and before you know it, Evan finds himself in said bathroom, enjoying himself and having some of that ‘free pizza’.
Well, as you can guess, that would prove to be a major mistake as the next morning, the girls are in no rush to leave and have changed persona completely, trashing Evan’s kitchen and displaying an ‘attitude’ of a different kind.
Evan manages to get rid of them, but not until he is threatened that any calls he makes to the police will result in him being sent down, as the girls reveal they are both 15 – they are so obviously not, but I guess he couldn’t risk it!
Where do we go from here? Well, the next evening, the girls break back in and basically hold him hostage, subjecting him to involuntary sex, trash his house, attack him with a fork, murder a family friend and make him play the toughest quiz in history with the penalty being torture at the hands of his headphones – in essence, they make him endure a night of hell as very harsh punishment for what he has done.
I love these odd films and I can see why others will think it’s sh*t – as my wife did – she told me a few times and was even concerned for my own mental status, which I think was a bit over the top. Still, as I say, this is about what I think and I would highly recommend watching this, it is directed well and the De Armas and Izzo, do a great job as the chief antagonists – enjoy the ‘free pizza’.