Natty Knocks is so stuffed with clichés it’s leaking at the seams. A girl-snatching weirdo on the prowl (wearing Halloween makeup and obviously harbouring some deep emotional issues); the urban legend, complete with accompanying rhyme (Natty Knocks nine times) à la A Nightmare on Elm Street (but nowhere near as unsettling), and tons of sinister stuff including a scary knocking at a door that turns out to be a cop knocking in a way no cop ever would. I have to say I was pleased to see Robert Englund as Mr. Meredith, the wise old elder with insight into the mysterious backstory. Whether this was conscious irony or not I’m not sure, but I like to think Englund would only have had anything to do with it if it was.

Oct 30th 1976. Natty (Joey Bothwell), apparently a ‘lady of the night’ with aspirations of being more than an actress in drive-in double features, is accused of being a witch. She’s hauled away from her latest john by her family, a bunch of puritanical types who look like something from the American Gothic painting, then chucked in a shed, which they torch after she refuses to give them her book of clients.

Oct 29th, 2022. Wyatt (Thomas Robie) and his little sister Jolie (Channah Zeitung) live with mum (Danielle Harris), who’s getting divorced from dad, so the family are struggling. When Wyatt, his mate, and Jolie are up to mischief one day, they witness a girl being beaten up by a tatty-looking guy in an old house, and before you know it her face is on missing person posters all over town, making them realise their anonymous phone call to the police hasn’t been taken seriously. The band of youngsters, all with personal issues of their own, decide they’ll have to take matters into their own hands and go all Scooby-Doo (‘Lil tip; if you’re gonna chuck a baseball with a note saying ‘we know what you did’ wrapped around it through a psycho’s window, best make sure your name’s not written on the baseball first).

Things from here on out become more confused with each passing moment; so much so that I found it difficult to follow what was actually going on. The subplot doesn’t help, and before I knew it I was not only thoroughly befuddled, but also monumentally bored; a combination I didn’t think was possible. It’s not my style to give much more away. Suffice it to say that cheesy acting and a convoluted sub-plot that goes in a dozen different directions are hard to keep up with, and as the movie progresses you find yourself wondering more and more if it’s worth doing so.

Natty Knocks tries very hard to be something it’s never going to be, and frankly left me with a headache and my mind wandering off as to whether I should go for a shower and what I should make for dinner rather than hanging ten on the edge of the sofa. I rarely say this, but I really would have rather spared myself this, and would recommend anyone else to do the same.