Knock at the Cabin review

KNOCK AT THE CABIN: 

SHYAMALAN CHAOS AT ITS FINEST! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

A family will make the ultimate choice in Knock at the Cabin

 

            M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable trilogy, Signs) brings his madness and twists to a cabin…in the…woods in Knock at the Cabin, his latest thriller film and the second movie in his filmography to receive an R rating after 2008’s The Happening. The film is based on the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay and marks the very first film adaptation of one of his works. 

            I have not read the book, so I don’t know how faithful it is to the source material, I just came into it as a Shyamalan enthusiast eagerly anticipating the type of insanity he had in store for me whether it turned out good or bad. With the only exceptions being The Last Airbender and After Earth, all his films had serious entertainment values to me either as a great movie (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, Split), so bad it’s good (Lady in the Water, The Happening, Devil (Though he only wrote and produced the latter)), somewhere in the middle (The Village, Glass, Old), or whatever the hell The Visit was. 

            Given that criteria, I didn’t know what to expect with Knock at the Cabin because of the mystery surrounding the director himself and the constant ups and downs of his films’ quality. Well, I am happy to report that this is a very well-crafted and exhilarating Shyamalan film that stands among some of the director’s best work.

            The film follows a family of three consisting of Eric (Jonathan Groff-Taking Woodstock, Frozen 1 and 2, The Matrix Resurrections), Andrew (Ben Aldridge-The Railway Man, Pennyworth, Spoiler Alert), and their daughter Wen (Newcomer, Kristen Cui) vacationing at a remote cabin. But when a mysterious group of strangers led by a man named Leonard (Dave Bautista-Marvel Cinematic Universe, Dune (2021), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) arrive at the cabin and hold the family hostage, they’re forced to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to prevent the apocalypse. 

            The film also stars Nikki Amuka-Bird (The Personal History of David Copperfield, Old, The Outfit) as Sabrina, Abby Quinn (The Sisterhood of Night, Little Women (2019), Mad About You (2019)) as Adriane, and Rupert Grint (Harry Potter franchise, Wild Target, Into the White) as Redmond. 

            Overall, Knock at the Cabin continues Shyamalan’s unexpected renaissance in recent years and once again proves that the man is more than capable of crafting a thoroughly engaging and bone-chilling experience. Throughout the majority of this movie, I was invested in the story and characters and on the edge of my seat wondering where it was going. 

            The film does a great job at building up the mystery and maintaining the illusion of whether an apocalypse actually is coming or if these random intruders are just out of their minds. But then it becomes perfectly clear that something is indeed happening and that the strangers and the family have to act quick in order to stop it. 

            Surprisingly, it doesn’t have as many of Shyamalan’s signature directing tropes compared to his other projects. There’s hardly any stilted acting or exposition dumps delivered via whispers, and it doesn’t really have a twist which I was very caught off-guard by as if Shyamalan was actively trolling his audience and if that’s the case then bravo.

            The acting is excellent especially from Dave Bautista who gives this very genuine performance that’s both unsettling and surprisingly tragic, it’s honestly some of the best acting I’ve ever seen from him. Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge as the two husbands raising Wen play their roles quite well and make for good straight-men (As in the straight-men reacting to the current circumstances), Kristen Cui as Wen is the most innocent of the performances and her reactions add more to the terror of the situation, and even the actors with little screen-time take full advantage of the time given to them and churn out some of the most memorable scenes of the entire film. 

            However, the last third of the movie does start to creep into traditional Shyamalan territory for me. That doesn’t mean it suddenly becomes bad, but Shyamalan’s directing did feel very noticeable during the climax as some of the line deliveries felt very off and I guess it does get somewhat pretentious with its themes. 

            Even with that slightly inferior final act, I was intrigued and on the edge of my seat with Knock at the Cabin. It has just about everything I look for in a good Shyamalan film and I eagerly await what he does next whether it turns out good, bad, or somewhere in-between.