Knock at the Cabin wastes little time. We open on seven-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) collecting and studying grasshoppers. It’s not long until she’s suddenly interrupted by a stranger — a big, strong man named Leonard (Dave Bautista), who claims to be on a special mission to befriend Wen and her parents, a gay couple named Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff), during vacation in their remote cabin in the woods. Wen, wise beyond her years, does what any reasonable child would do in this situation and runs straight back home to her dads. In these opening ten minutes, Shyamalan is fully in his element, laying down all the pieces with technical elegance and a surprising amount of restraint until his home invasion thriller makes a shift into something much more existential.
Director M. Night Shyamalan is one of Hollywood’s most divisive directors working today. To some, he is overly sentimental, tediously unsubtle, and hacky. To others, he’s a master of the horror/thriller and a king of subversion; his streak of mid-budget successes, The Sixth Sense and Signs, earned him an honored spot in pop culture in the 2000s that quickly faded into vitriol and backlash as he turned in blockbuster flops that ruined his reputation. Since The Visit, Shyamalan has entered a fascinating career revival that he forged for himself — self-funding his latest projects to achieve as much creative control and bargaining power as possible over his works. Despite the (sometimes racially motivated) backlash he’s experienced in his career, Shyamalan always swings for the fences. Even at his worst, there’s still some sort of logic or level of skill that most filmmakers under his caliber fail to display.
Enter Knock at the Cabin, which has to be the director’s most consistent outing since the early heights of his career. Adapted from the novel “The Cabin at the End of the World,” the film follows a family being trapped in their vacation home in the woods by a group of four strangers who wield makeshift weapons and have haunted looks in their eyes. Their leader, Leonard, explains that they have each received visions of the end of the world, and it is up to Andrew and Eric to make a difficult choice — according to their prophecy, they must sacrifice one of their own, or else all of humankind will perish. Andrew, the more cynical partner in the relationship, doesn’t believe a single word, writing them off as God-fearing homophobes who have lost their grip on reality. Perhaps it’s the concussion, but Eric, the slightly more optimistic of the couple, seems to think there might actually be something deeper going on.
As an auteur whose horror is defined by his existentialism and an occasionally saccharine melodrama, Knock at the Cabin proves to be a great fit for the director, who normally engages in purely original screenplays. Just like his previous film, Old, which explored the complexities of aging and losing precious time with loved ones, Knock at the Cabin is certainly born from the pain of living during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of social isolation, political unrest, and overwhelming tragedy. The film itself is not set during the pandemic, but the sociopolitical scars are all the same. There’s simply no other explanation, this is the end of times. The feature is shot on film with a single camera, emphasizing a mortifying sense of claustrophobia. The surreal, filmic look gives a sense of distortion and heightened reality.
Shyamalan and his incredible supporting cast make it unambiguously clear: the four strangers are not motivated by any religious or political beliefs, they are just united by the visions of the end times that haunt their dreams. One thing is certain, these four come from extremely different walks of life. Leonard is a 2nd grade school teacher, Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is a nurse, Redmond (Rupert Grint) works for a gas company, and Ardiane (Abby) is a line cook at a Mexican restaurant. Shyamalan has a lot of love for his characters, and it really helps that Knock at the Cabin is one of his most performance-driven films yet. Everybody here is simply at their best. Groff and Aldridge have great on-screen chemistry that sells the emotional core of the film authentically. Cui shows a remarkable amount of skill for such a young actress, giving one of the best child performances in a Shyamalan film to date. Of course, Dave Bautista, who’s already universally gained the title of the internet’s favorite wrestler-turned-actor, truly gets to show us why he’s earned it — imbuing Leonard with a unique kind of gentleness and determination. There’s still the trademark Shyamalan stiltedness, but it feels perfectly in service of the world and tone he’s expertly crafted.
Knock at the Cabin is fascinating in that Shyamalan, burdened by the state of the world, is suffering through a crisis of faith. Despite it all, Shyamalan still has an enduring, sometimes embarrassing admiration for humanity. Call it foolish, but it’s something that keeps his work emotionally honest. The novel’s ending is drastically changed, and a lot of the original text’s rich ambiguity is swapped out in favor of Shyamalan’s own philosophies. I certainly don’t expect it to go over well with all audiences. There are some who might even walk out with a more uncharitable view of the director’s politics, due to the film’s too-close-to-home allegorical content. But I’ll admit, it’s hard not to be enamored by his sincerity. The situation is bleak, upsetting, and downright cruel, but in Shyamalan’s lens, there’s always a glimmer of hope.
Some artists spend their entire careers trying to successfully explore the questions Shyamalan is willing to boldly answer here in Knock at the Cabin in one sweep. Do we have the power to fix our ugly world? Is there still something worth saving in humanity? Perhaps it’s a bit naive, but with his latest feature film, Shyamalan boldly answers with an unconditional “yes.”
