Movie Review: 'A Knock at the Cabin' Trying to Trust M. Night Shyamalan

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan

Starring Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn, Jonathan Groff, Rupert Grint, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka Bird

Release Date February 3rd, 2023

Published February 3rd, 2023

A Knock at the Cabin stars Dave Bautista as Leonard, a schoolteacher who has been chosen to try and stop the apocalypse. Leonard arrives at a cabin somewhere in Pennsylvania where he meets 8-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) while she is catching grasshoppers for a science project. Leonard is kind but he's also sweaty and distracted. Eventually, Wen begins to suspect that Leonard has an ulterior motive. She runs back to her cabin just as Leonard's friends, Sabrina (Nikki Amuka Bird), Redmond (Rupert Grint), and Adriane (Abby Quinn) show up.

Wen runs to the cabin to warn her two dads, Daddy Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Daddy Andrew (Ben Aldridge). They come running into the cabin and find that the foursome, led by Leonard are indeed at the door and planning to come inside whether they are invited or not. After a brief scuffle, the four manage to subdue the loving couple and begin to explain why they are there. According to Leonard, the four experienced the same apocalyptic visions. Those visions brought them here where they hope to save the world.

As Leonard explains, the world will end unless Eric, Andrew and Wen make a horrifying decision, kill one member of their family, Eric, Andrew or Wen, and save the world. Naturally, the couple is skeptical. They assume that because they are gay and have an adopted child, they are being targeted by bigots eager to fight the culture war in person. From there, the four home invaders plead their case and as they do, they unleash biblical plagues that we see playing out on a national news broadcast. The cabin has no internet or phone service, but cable television still comes through in a pinch.

The supposed plagues have just enough of a rational explanation that Andrew and Eric are not convinced that the apocalypse is coming. Much of the second and third act of Knock at the Cabin plays on whether or not our four villains are really prophets of doom or if they are suffering from a hysteria fueled by the internet and a shared delusion about their importance to the universe. This back-and-forth debate over whether the world is ending or not fuels most of the drama and excitement of Knock at the Cabin.

It's a terrific premise and Writer-Director M. Night Shyamalan uses it to create a strong amount of tension. Knock at the Cabin reminded me of a really good episode of The Twilight Zone, and I truly mean that as a compliment. It's like a Twilight Zone episode that could take advantage of an R-Rating to add a little horror shock to the creeping dread premise. Knock at the Cabin proceeds efficiently and smartly through its premise, creating doubt in the story being told while keeping everything just believable enough to serve the story.

It's a terrific storytelling balance, aided greatly by passionate performances from Dave Bautista and Ben Aldridge who provide the voices of each side of the debate. Is there an apocalypse happening or are the four strangers who came to this cabin sharing a delusion? That conversation drives the plot of Knock at the Cabin quite effectively while Shyamalan makes smart choices in how to continue to build the tension of that conversation and the violent deaths that accompany that conversation.

Taken solely on its effective premise and Shyamalan's efficient direction, plus a straight-forward, non-twist payoff, Knock at the Cabin is undeniably effective. Knock at the Cabin is a movie that acts on your paranoia and fear in entertaining fashion. If I am held back by anything it's my suspicions regarding M. Night Shyamalan. I fear that I missed something that might invalidate the otherwise straight-forward horror thriller that I believe Knock at the Cabin is intended to be.

I keep waiting for some shoe to drop and reveal something about Knock at the Cabin that makes it yet another bizarre, ego-fueled experiment in the glorification of Shyamalan's self created legend. I simply don't trust M. Night Shyamalan as a filmmaker anymore. His last two films, Glass and Old, were masturbatory exercises in which Shyamalan basked in his own mythology as a master director. Old, though I may be the only one complaining about this, was Shyamalan's most ego-driven film. You can read why in my lengthy dissertation on that film linked here.

Glass, on the other hand, was a far more obvious burnishing of Shyamalan's ego as he married his hit films Unbreakable and Split to make a movie that ruins both of those terrific movies. Instead of celebrating a pair of terrifically thrilling movies being brought together, Glass was about M. Night Shyamalan patting himself on the back for making two terrific thrillers. Glass is an ego-driven love letter from Shyamalan to himself that fails to offer anything for the audience to enjoy. It's Shyamalan telling you he's a genius rather than showing you.

But, that has very little to do with Knock at the Cabin. Despite my lingering suspicion that Shyamalan is trying to make a fool of out his critics, I am willing to buy in that Knock at the Cabin is just a good thriller. I need to believe that Knock at the Cabin is just a good thriller. I am doing everything I can to keep to the surface level thrills of Knock at the Cabin and not look any deeper out of fear of finding that it is actually about the director once again polishing his self mythology.

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