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Knock at the Cabin

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Although it's often less than scary and parts of the story don't bear scrutiny, Knock at the Cabin is a thought-provoking chiller and upper-tier Shyamalan.

The plot might be a little underwhelming, but solid acting and plenty of suspense make Knock at the Cabin a decently entertaining watch.

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M. Night Shyamalan

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Ben Aldridge

Nikki Amuka-Bird

Kristen Cui

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M. Night Shyamalan should probably just stay away from the apocalypse. Who could forget the baffling events of his global warming horror “The Happening,” aptly represented by a scene in which a character just lays down in front of a moving lawn mower? Or what about “ After Earth ,” which made a box office bomb out of a sci-fi movie starring Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith ? There’s something about the end of the world that fascinates Shyamalan—as a sentimental moralist, an overzealous twister, and a button-pusher—there’s also something that always foils him. His latest, “Knock at the Cabin,” uses the question of human behavior during the threat of end times to create a morality study that progressively hollows itself out. It’s another minor work from a director whose films, especially after “After Earth,” have been mostly major.

It’s a shame that the story isn’t so good, because the film has a rich and earthy Kodak-shot presentation from co-cinematographers Jarin Blaschke (“ The Lighthouse ”) and Lowell A. Meyer (“ Thunder Road ”), who turn many scenes of characters standing in mostly the same living room into striking studies of pleading faces in close-up. It looks about as realized as a movie like this could be. And the performances have enough uniform intensity, even when the writing is only playing games. It’s a striking ensemble piece by design, and creates some promise early on, but Shyamalan’s larger intent doesn’t give “Knock at the Cabin” nearly enough resonance.

The standout performance comes from Dave Bautista , in his most tatted-up teddy bear mode possible, wearing glasses like he did in “ Blade Runner 2049 ” to suggest the gentle boy inside his grizzly physique. For a movie about how humans choose to interact with one another, his acting is incredibly disarming here and sometimes moving in how he chooses to speak so gently while enacting a plan filled with the unthinkable. His character Leonard is a second-grade teacher from Chicago who has united with three other people (played by Rupert Grint , Abby Quinn , and Nikki Amuka-Bird ) who have also had life-changing visions of the apocalypse. They approach a cabin in the woods with sharp weapons in hand, and they do not want to hurt the people inside. But they will enact the violence that they feel they must.

The targeted family is that of young Wen ( Kristen Cui ) and her two dads, Eric ( Jonathan Groff ) and Andrew ( Ben Aldridge ). They do not know why they have been chosen, but it does not matter. Tied up in chairs before their weapon-wielding captors, they must decide to kill one of their family of three to stop an impending apocalypse. They cannot kill themselves, and if they reject their captors’ prospect, something awful will happen in the cabin, and a plague will be unleashed. The first time Eric and Andrew effusively say no, towering tsunamis are conjured, and deadly earthquakes ensue.

Are Leonard and his friends onto something, or is this all a coincidence? Is it manipulation? There may be no force more powerful on this earth than belief. It can be a tool that builds communities or a weapon that destroys lives; a movie like “Knock at the Cabin” needs to wriggle in that magnanimous uncertainty of belief, and instead, it only sits and admires it. It’s like presenting QAnon devotees and people who think the Earth is flat as possibly being right, for the sake of both sides-ism. Shyamalan isn't nudging about a divided people (like Jordan Peele's “ Us ,” which echoes through the woods of this movie), but lazily stirring the fear of conspiracy.

Cut back to us, well aware that our collective brains are broken, waiting for a larger point: we are stuck with a frustrating and self-serious movie that kneels before its zealousness but also continually emphasizes why Leonard and the others would sow skepticism. The script carefully doles out information about everyone to toy with coincidence and happenstance, but it's more stirring, less building. Shyamalan does not have the nuance to handle this idea, as confirmed when his expected twist comes minutes before the end.

Even with these sharp weapons, bizarre motivations, and that whole apocalypse thing, “Knock at the Cabin” lacks a key squeamish element. Not that the movie needs gore, but the threat of violence in this immediate scenario is specifically numbed by cutaways; for a story pitched in the human capacity to recognize another’s life value, there just isn’t the terror that could create some of its emotional stakes. The lack of it is deeply felt once it becomes apparent what monsters this movie is and isn’t dealing with, while showing how these people are driven by something that forces them to do awful things. Instead, “Knock at the Cabin” creates one anticlimax after another.

The script, co-written by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond , and Michael Sherman (adapting Paul Tremblay's book The Cabin at the End of the World ), does better in making us worry for the targeted family. During this present-day stress, "Knock at the Cabin" cuts back and forth between the love story of Eric and Andrew, and their life with adopted daughter Wen. Groff and Aldridge are heartbreaking as they slowly become opposites: Aldridge embodies one’s tough exterior against a threatening world, while Groff gradually depicts the journey of seeing the light. Together, they show the pain of possibly making The Choice, and how Eric and Andrew don’t want to in part because of their deep love for each other. They also help provide more substance to the film’s representation of a same-sex married couple, which on one hand, more of this please, but on the other hand, still feels like major studio productions have a lot more work to do.

“Knock at the Cabin” has glimmers of interest as a parable about people trying to preserve all of humanity: not just the population, but the concept. The work of Leonard and co. is something like a promotion of empathy, though as is often said about faith: it's the messengers who need work. By trying to make a grand statement to a post-lockdown theatergoing audience about what they are willing to believe—but also about how far they are willing to go for others—Shyamalan trips over himself and neglects to give them much of a movie.

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Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Rated R for violence and language.

100 minutes

Jonathan Groff as Eric

Ben Aldridge as Andrew

Kristen Cui as Wen

Dave Bautista as Leonard

Rupert Grint as Redmond

Nikki Amuka-Bird as Sabrina

Abby Quinn as Adriane

M. Night Shyamalan

Writer (based on the book "The Cabin at the End of the World" by)

Paul Tremblay
Steve Desmond
Michael Sherman

Cinematographer

Jarin Blaschke
Lowell A. Meyer
Noemi Preiswerk
Herdís Stefánsdóttir

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Knock at the Cabin review – M Night Shyamalan does it again, in the worst way

The Sixth Sense director’s apocalyptic mystery horror is short on both mystery and horror and the ambiguous finale is deeply ridiculous

I n the most heart-sinking possible way, M Night Shyamalan has done it again. As so often in the past, he teases us with a great come-on, a great ultra-high-concept initial premise, a great opening scene. And then …? Well, it isn’t long before the film is revealed to be (and, really, only this technical term of criticism will do) complete bollocks.

It is a supposed apocalyptic nightmare (adapted from the 2018 horror bestseller The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay) which turns out to be a silly shaggy dog story whose big reveal is bizarrely anti-climactic, unscary and unimpressive: it is at once madly overblown and entirely negligible, exasperatingly deficient in ingenuity or genuine thrills with characters whose motivation is sketchy even on the drama’s own terms.

And yet like Shyamalan’s other preposterous apocalyptic clunker, The Happening from 2008 , there is a real frisson from that opening: a great dialogue scene between Dave Bautista and newcomer Kristen Cui, playing an eight-year-old Chinese-American girl called Wen. This child is playing alone in an idyllic woodland just by a cabin, behind which her two gay dads are hanging out: gentle, sweet-natured Eric (Jonathan Groff) and the more fierce-tempered Andrew (Ben Aldridge). Wen suddenly notices a sinister man-mountain lumbering towards her: Leonard, played by Bautista, who befriends her and is perhaps a gentle giant. But what does he want?

Leonard is soon joined by his three friends: Redmond (Rupert Grint), Ardiane (Abby Quinn) and Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), all carrying strange-looking weapons, and they patiently explain to this little girl that they are in receipt of information about the universe’s destiny. The imminent end of the world can only be averted by her family making some tough decisions. Wen, Eric and Andrew will have to decide which of them will voluntarily die to prevent the planet immolating. Terrifyingly, they take the family prisoner and their cultish fanaticism has a hypnotic, almost persuasive effect – and yet … could it be that one of these people is strangely familiar to the two men?

Well, yes it could be. That is one of many things in this story that is not satisfactorily resolved – or satisfactorily left mysteriously unresolved. The rational/irrational explanations for what appears to be happening are juxtaposed pretty predictably and the ambiguous finale is deeply ridiculous. Shyamalan’s previous film, the excellent horror-thriller Old , showed that he is certainly capable of maintaining a good idea to the finish line. Sadly, though, not this time.

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'Knock at the Cabin' Review: M. Night Shyamalan Delivers B-Movie Thrills to Your Door

Dave Bautista is a complex villain in a micro-horror movie in theaters now that asks how you can stop the end of the world.

A family in peril in Knock at the Cabin.

Knock, knock! Who's there? Why, it's M. Night Shyamalan with Knock at the Cabin -- another nerve-jangling good time at the movies.

Ever since Shyamalan's breakthrough feature The Sixth Sense gave us the unforgettable line "I see dead people," the writer-director has specialized in telling stories with a brutally simple hook, designed to unsettle you and stick around long after viewing. His latest film, Knock at the Cabin, in theaters now, is based on Paul G. Tremblay's novel The Cabin at the End of the World, and comes with a troubling premise: What would you sacrifice to save the world?

Opening in a quiet January still ruled by box office-conquering Avatar: The Way of Water , Knock at the Cabin is a small movie with some big ideas. It takes the hugest of dangers -- the end of the world -- but explores that in a savagely intimate microcosm.

Young child Wen (Kristen Cui) is enjoying a vacation in an isolated cabin when a huge man in sinister shirtsleeves (Dave Bautista) walks out of the woods and hints at a horrifying proposal. Wen and her adoptive parents, Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge), find themselves trapped with a group of fanatics who are driven by nightmarish visions.

Four disturbed-looking people line up in a still from horror movie Knock at the Cabin.

Somebody's knockin' at the door...

Some movies would use this setup as a springboard for a survival horror in which the family is forced to defend themselves against strange interlopers in thrilling action sequences. But the story goes in a different, more character-driven and unsettling direction. The bad guys are both apologetic and apocalyptic, presenting their challenge in unnerving politeness.

Dave Bautista is excellent as the leader of the gang of shamefaced sociopaths. He's a looming monolith, a frame-filling physical nightmare whose implacability is made all the more terrifying by his sensitivity. He's much scarier here than he was as the one-dimensional muscle-bound Bond villain in Spectre , and he builds on the scene-stealing, hushed vulnerability we saw in Blade Runner 2049 .

Rupert Grint (the former Harry Potter star from Shyamalan's recent Apple TV Plus series Servant) is also superb as a twitchy, simmering redneck, adding a dose of violent volatility to the mix. Nikki Amuka-Bird and Abby Quinn have less substantial roles, but they provide some heart and even a couple of chuckles amid the mounting horror.

On the surface, Knock at the Cabin is an oppressive horror story that puts you in the shoes of a kidnapped family. From the cabin's flimsy and wide-open French doors to the moment where the dad is caught in a nightgown, the family is achingly vulnerable. Most of all, the presence of a young child will have parents wincing throughout (especially if they've read the book).

The threatening aspect of the story is agonizing, but there's a feeling that Shyamalan is pulling his punches. As in Shyamalan's other recent work, the unnerving atmosphere is reminiscent of movies like Hereditary and Get Out. But he doesn't commit to the nastiness that gives those films their shocking bite.

Equally, the taut simplicity of the setup isn't going to fill an entire movie's runtime. We get a bunch of flashbacks to the relationship between Eric and Andrew, which fleshes out their characters and helps you to identify with them. But the flashbacks are probably the most awkward part of the film. Though watching two people fall in love and support each other through their problems is heartwarming, it's not always interesting (or at least not as interesting as trying to escape some implacable weirdos in a cabin). That background throws in an intriguing and complicated twist, but it's never allowed to develop because the characters in question disappear from the story too early.

Knock at the Cabin is sparse and economically narrated, giving us plenty of space to ponder the deeper global themes thrown up by its desperate dilemma. It confronts the reality of a world going to hell and our power to stop it. And unlike the preachy tone of Adam McKay's apocalyptic satire Don't Look Up , Shyamalan's film is more subtle in conveying the responsibility we each take for the future of our planet. Ultimately, that's the predicament we're left with: What kind of sacrifices must our generation make to ensure that our children have a world to live in?

And of course, ever since The Sixth Sense, we're conditioned to expect a twist ending. Shyamalan's last film, the beach-based shocker Old , undid some of this genre with an overly literal ending that explained everything. Wisely, Knock at the Cabin leaves things more ambiguous.

You have to admire the way M. Night Shyamalan consistently delivers taut and disquieting B-movies with big ideas. Knock at the Cabin may not stretch the nerves as much as similar horror stories, but a Shyamalan film is always welcome when it comes knocking.

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'Knock at the Cabin' review: Dave Bautista is the true revelation of M. Night Shyamalan's apocalypse

When director M. Night Shyamalan comes knocking with one of his signature thrillers, you never know what’s going to appear. Maybe it's a kid who sees ghosts or a reluctant, unbreakable superhero, or a houseplant that wants to kill you.

But when there's a “ Knock at the Cabin ,” definitely answer the door. Based on Paul Tremblay’s provocative 2018 horror novel “The Cabin at the End of the World,” the pre-apocalyptic film (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters now) is top-shelf Shyamalan. Centered on a family having to make the most dreadful of decisions, “Knock” is a well-crafted intimate thriller that plays with your expectations and immerses you in a disconcerting situation.

'Knock at the Cabin': Dave Bautista talks crying on cue and seeking the 'elusive' rom-com

It also features a knockout dramatic performance from Dave Bautista , the massive – and massively talented – wrestler-turned-actor, who’s never been better.

Eight-year-old Wen (newcomer Kristen Cui) is vacationing at a remote Pennsylvania cabin with her adoptive dads, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) when a mountain of a man named Leonard (Bautista) approaches her in the woods. A gentle giant, Leonard disarms Wen by helping her catch grasshoppers and says he needs to talk with her parents.

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That’s when she sees the armed strangers with him carrying makeshift weapons. Soon enough, Leonard knocks on the cabin door and he and his group – Redmond (Rupert Grint), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) – take the family hostage, insisting they don’t want to hurt anybody. However, they arrive with a doomsday task: Leonard tells Eric and Andrew that the family must sacrifice one of its own for the sake of humanity – if they don’t, well, cue R.E.M. because it's the end of the world as we know it.

The two dads are naturally skeptical: They figure this is more about them being gay than any actual final-days scenario, especially when Andrew recognizes one of the invaders. But as the story plays out and freaky stuff begins to happen outside their walls, some characters on both sides begin to change their views about the situation.

Narratively, it’s a big swing with heady themes that Shyamalan mostly pulls off, even leaning into hope with a story that could veer super-duper bleak. Like his last film, “Old,” “Cabin” is an adaptation of existing material rather than one of his earlier original stories. That said, it still compares well with his twisty greatest hits, like “Unbreakable” and “Signs.”

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The filmmaker intersperses quite a few flashbacks, most of them unnecessary, and they often futz with the strong claustrophobic tension in the cabin. But he revels in absolutely chilling apocalyptic imagery, including enormous crushing tidal waves and airplanes falling from the sky, like the Book of Revelation taking pages from modern times.

While the small cast is good all around, Bautista is quietly spectacular in the film’s most important role. Like the others in his party, Leonard is a seemingly ordinary dude given an extraordinarily difficult task, and his gentle tortured soul belies his intimidating presence. At the same time, the “Guardians of the Galaxy” star brings a fearsome unpredictability to this mystery group as the tale unfolds: Are they members of some crazy cult, or are they actually on the level?

Saving the world vs. saving your family is an intriguingly rapturous concept to explore, and “Cabin” succeeds the same way Shyamalan’s best films do: by giving you something powerful to watch and something even deeper to think about later.

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“Knock at the Cabin,” Reviewed: Be Nice to the QAnoners, or They’ll Do an Apocalypse

By Richard Brody

A hefty and tall bald man holds a scaredlooking child on one arm and a huge pitchfork in the other another figure ...

Spoiler alert: the climactic event of “Knock at the Cabin” is a book burning. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that, lest anyone deem Hollywood a solid front of liberal messaging, this new film by M. Night Shyamalan provides yet another hefty counterexample. In a year that has delivered such models of illiberal retrenchment as “ Top Gun: Maverick ,” “ Tár ,” and “ Avatar: The Way of Water ,” “Knock at the Cabin” has the virtue of being the most daring, brazen, imaginative, and radical of them. It’s starkly posed as a conflict of faith against reason—and it presents a faith-based order that’s ready and willing to use violence in pursuit of its redemptive vision. So far, so apt. What’s jolting about Shyamalan’s film is its call to capitulation. The director puts the onus on the liberal and progressive element of American society to meet violent religious radicals more than halfway, lest they yield to even worse rages, lest they unleash an apocalypse.

Or, rather, the Apocalypse. The premise of the movie is the visitation, upon an ordinary American family, of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who aren’t all men and who show up not on horseback but by truck, and who turn a seemingly run-of-the-mill home-invasion thriller into a cosmic spectacle of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. It’s also a suspense film, in which just about nothing but the plot matters, and therefore any discussion risks being spoiler-y; I’ll be careful, but be forewarned. The family that’s vacationing in the titular cabin, isolated in deep woods and far beyond cell-phone signals, comprises Andrew (Ben Aldridge), a human-rights lawyer; Eric (Jonathan Groff), whose job is unspecified; and their daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), who discloses at the start that she’s nearly eight, and whom they adopted from China. The foursome of intruders is led by one Leonard (Dave Bautista), a soft-spoken hulk and second-grade teacher from Chicago; his companions are Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a nurse from Southern California; Adriane (Abby Quinn), a line cook at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.; and Redmond (Rupert Grint), who works for a gas company in Medford, Massachusetts.

The first contact is made, in the woods, by Leonard, who espies Wen catching grasshoppers and gently tries to convince her that he’s a nice guy, not a creep, explaining that he needs to meet her parents and that it’s a matter of his job—“maybe the most important job in the history of the world.” (For a second, I thought he might be a film critic.) The foursome indeed knocks, and, when they’re denied entry, they break in by means of the weapons that they call tools: neo-medieval, seemingly homemade devices (such as a pickaxe and a mallet at the end of a thick broomstick). Then they make the demand that already went viral, long before the movie’s opening, by way of its trailers. The four intruders claim to have foreknowledge of impending disasters that will extinguish human life—unless this family chooses one member to sacrifice and then carries out the killing, and not by suicide. One trailer put the choice starkly—“save your family or save humanity”—but, of course, there’s no choice; they need to do both, and the movie’s main suspense is how they’ll manage to pull it off.

There’s no discussing “Knock at the Cabin” without disclosing another pair of salient details: first, the quartet is endowed with powers stronger than mere clairvoyance. They’re able to cause apocalyptic, high-body-count plagues and, in the course of the action, they don’t shrink from doing so in the name of a higher justice, or, as they say, “judgment.” (It’s never clear that the apocalypse that they foresee is anything more than the one that they themselves control.) Second, out of all the cabins and all the families that the apocalyptos could have picked, they landed on a place inhabited by a couple with whom they had history—one of the quartet happens to have been a gay-basher who attacked Andrew and left him with serious injuries as well as some non-Christian thoughts about aggressive self-defense. (That the basher’s real name is revealed to be O’Bannon, an unambiguously political wink, suggests the extent to which Shyamalan expects an L.G.B.T.Q. human-rights attorney to turn the other cheek, forgive, defer, and, yes, even obey.)

The action is punctuated by brief flashbacks to Eric and Andrew, in earlier days, that thinly and superficially sketch their backstory. It’s a notable effort—that suggests how misguided and wrongheaded Shyamalan’s approach to his own subject is. By striking contrast, the backstory of the four bearers of doom is delivered verbally. They tell their own stories, in a couple of superficial sentences, that have this in common: each of them was possessed of visions of apocalyptic destruction—horrific visions that caused them to give up their livelihoods and, at great personal cost, find each other and then find the one and only family that would match their vision and could redeem the world.

That backstory is the unseen, undeveloped essence of “Knock at the Cabin,” the story of four visionaries whose possession leads to a cross-country odyssey and a death-besotted showdown. Whom do they leave behind and how, how do they find each other, and what do they do when they unite? How do they find the family with the power of deliverance? What do they talk about, how do they plan, what persuades them of the actuality of their powers? (Did they practice their apocalyptic skills on a small scale, by zapping weeds or making a pond overflow?) How do they distinguish (if at all) their own ability to make worldwide mischief and their vision of the mischief that’s made independent of them by a higher power? What’s their sense of the morality of their quest? Why don’t they decide instead to cure cancer or end hunger?

The story of religious experience, of prophetic visionaries who go to seemingly mad lengths to prove the authenticity of their wild imaginings—this is the premise of some great movies that already exist, such as Carl Theodor Dreyer’s “ Ordet ” and Michael Tolkin’s “ The Rapture. ” The theme is so rich that there’s room for more, and a director standing in the line of these and other filmmakers can use it to prove their own art of imagination, imaginative sympathy, and spiritual curiosity (as many filmmakers have done, for instance, with the character of Joan of Arc, ranging from Dreyer and Robert Bresson to Jacques Rivette and Bruno Dumont ).

Shyamalan betrays no such curiosity; he doesn’t appear to take such visionary experience seriously, but only its effect, as sheer power—essentially, as supernatural Hitlerians exterminating hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people by means of their own death cult. The drama that Shyamalan pursues is how reasonable and well-intentioned people can and should respond to possessed destroyers who hold them hostage. The movie’s answer is a sickening one.

“Knock at the Cabin” is an adaptation—or rather an extreme transformation—of the novel “ The Cabin at the End of the World ,” by Paul Tremblay. The setup and the characters are essentially the same, as are the themes of faith versus reason, resistance versus compromise. But the action itself, once the quartet penetrates the cabin, is drastically different. That’s not a reproach to Shyamalan (on the contrary, many of the best adaptations are similarly extreme); rather, it’s the specifics of his own vision that border on the outrageous. The script (which the director wrote with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman) makes the foursome’s wrath, their willful bent toward destruction, all the more conspicuous. The film’s attitude toward resistance and moral responsibility, too, is altogether different from the book, in ways that conflate the intruders’ metaphysical and temporal power.

Whether it’s delusions of voter fraud and rigged elections, delusions of “ woke” bigotry , delusions of Pizzagate-like conspiracies , delusions about the “ deep state ,” or delusions about the tyrannies of vaccines, American politics and American lives are filled with faith-like visions of absolute certitude about absolute bullshit. These visions are backed with the power of guns and money . In one sense, “Knock at the Cabin” is a warning about the knock at the door that may come for any of us under a regime of religious fascism—perhaps for having the wrong books in the wrong places. In another, Shyamalan is pummelling his viewers’ mental immune system, softening America up to accept and comply with even the outrageous and devastating demands of the religious right, lest its operatives and acolytes do even worse things. It’s a movie that takes the fight out of its viewers even as it takes the books out of their hands; it’s a work of anti-resistance cinema. ♦

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Knock at the Cabin

While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse. While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse. While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse.

M. Night Shyamalan
Paul Tremblay
Steve Desmond
Dave Bautista
Jonathan Groff
Ben Aldridge
817 User reviews
316 Critic reviews
63 Metascore
10 nominations

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Trivia In a 2023 interview with Screen Rant, M. Night Shyamalan explained how he came to cast Dave Bautista : "I thought, 'This is an impossible role. A GIANT who can emote and do 30 pages of monologues. This doesn't exist, this person doesn't exist!' And then I was like, 'Wait a minute, what about that guy in Blade Runner 2049 (2017) ?' I don't know much about wrestling, so it wasn't like I had that in my head, and probably if I did I might've been blinded to the fact that this person was an amazing actor... They said his name was Dave Bautista and so I reached out, and then Dave reached out, and then we met. And when I spoke to him, I found a human being who was ready to start over again, take away all the success that he had and unlearn it and then start over... He just wanted to be proud of himself and I was like, 'I'm down, brother. Let's do it the right way from beginning to end' and he's like, 'I don't know if I can do this' and I go, 'But I do'."
Goofs At 01:05:15, Sabrina strikes the SUV window and the window cracks. At 01:05:18, Sabrina strikes the SUV window for a second time (and it shatters), but the cracks from the first strike are missing.

Leonard : The four of us are here to prevent the apocalypse. We - and when I say, "we", I mean everyone in this cabin, can stop it from happening, but only with your help. Ultimately, whether the world ends or not is completely up to you three.

Andrew : You are having a psychological break of some kind.

Leonard : Your family must choose to willingly sacrifice one of the three of you in order to prevent the apocalypse. After you make what I know is an impossible decision, you must then kill the one you choose. If you fail to choose, of if you fail to follow through with the sacrifice, the world will end. You three will live, but the rest of humanity, seven billion plus... will perish.

Eric : They're lunatics.

Leonard : And you will all live long enough to witness the horror of the end of everything. And you will be left to wander the devastated planet alone. Permanently and cosmically... alone.

Andrew : Leonard. We haven't done anything wrong.

Leonard : I agree with you. You haven't. You haven't done anything wrong to... to deserve this burden. You're just the family chosen to decide for us in this time.

Crazy credits At the very end of the credits, you hear the knocking on the cabin door.
Connections Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Claire Foy/Sarah Michelle Gellar/M. Night Shyamalan/Rob Beckett/Sam Smith (2023)
Soundtracks Distance Written by Emily King and Jeremy Most Performed by Emily King Courtesy of Making Music Records

User reviews 817

Sleepin_Dragon
Sep 20, 2023
How long is Knock at the Cabin? Powered by Alexa
February 3, 2023 (United States)
United States
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Tiếng Gõ Ở Căn Nhà Gỗ
Tabernacle, New Jersey, USA (Farmland)
Universal Pictures
Blinding Edge Pictures
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$20,000,000 (estimated)
$35,397,980
$14,127,170
Feb 5, 2023
$54,760,947

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes
Dolby Digital
Dolby Atmos
Dolby Surround 7.1

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Review: 'Knock at the Cabin' is peak-form Shyamalan, a suspense master

Astonish us! That seems to be the demand we make on India-born filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan every time he unleashes a new horrorfest. We want that "Sixth Sense" twist again. The twist comes with all the suspense trimmings in "Knock at the Cabin," only in theaters since there's no place like the dark to gather audiences and fry their nerves to a frazzle.

Will this be the movie to finally knock "Avatar: The Way of Water" off the top of the box-office charts? Don't bet against it.

"Knock at the Cabin," directed and co-written by Shyamalan, is an adaptation of the 2018 novel "The Cabin at the End of the World" by Paul Tremblay. Don't grab the book to figure out the ending since Shyamalan modified it to suit his own brand of terror, which means creating an atmosphere of compelling claustrophobia that holds you in its grip.

The big twist this time comes at the start. A gay couple, Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff), are enjoying a weekend getaway at a remote lakeside cabin in the Pennsylvania woods with their 8-year-old daughter Wen (the supremely adorable Kristen Cui). Then a knock comes at the cabin door.

Right away we're thinking home invasion since a quartet of stranger-dangers, led by the hulking Leonard (Dave Bautista), is carrying scary homemade weapons. Will it be robbery, kidnapping, even murder? Or are they homophobes who don't approve of gay adoption?

MORE: Review: 'See How They Run' is a wicked fun whodunit that goes down easy

I'll never tell, though I will say that Leonard and his pals, Redmond (Rupert Grint), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), are on a mission to save the world from apocalypse. And to do it they need this family to voluntarily sacrifice one of its members.

Not gonna happen is the general response. But the TV is alive with images of jets falling out of the sky, not to mention tidal waves and plague. Plus the invaders seem sympathetic to the family's plight. Leonard may look like a human battering ram, but Bautista -- the former wrestler is all kinds of amazing in an expectations-defying performance -- brims over with empathy.

You feel the tension between the two daddies, both avid to protect their child. Aldridge ("Fleabag") finds the heat in Andrew that makes him want to strike out. Groff, so great as singer ("Spring Awakening," "Hamilton") and actor ("Mindhunter," "Looking"), is superb as Eric and speaks movingly to Shyamalan's theme about the necessity of faith in times of crisis.

MORE: Review: 'M3gan' is a miracle of modern horror cinema that leaves you reeling

There are flashbacks to suggest a connection between these men and the intruders who claim to be afflicted with visions that drive them forward. "Knock at the Cabin" is R-rated for scenes of violence. That's no joke. There are brutal images that will pull you up short.

Flesh and spirit have been part of Shyamalan's work from the start in fine films ("The Sixth Sense," "Signs," "Unbroken") and outright duds ("The Happening," "Old," "Glass").

"Knock at the Cabin" can be too fuzzy, too earnest and too full of itself for its own good. Like Wen collecting grasshoppers in a jar, Shyamalan is observing the world in microcosm with good and evil in an uneasy truce. The metaphors weigh a ton. Still, at its best, this is peak-form Shyamalan, a suspense master who knows how to fill the screen with tension and squeeze.

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‘Knock at the Cabin’ Review: Who’s There? The Apocalypse.

In M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thought experiment, Dave Bautista brings the end of the world to a peaceful country cottage.

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In a scene from the film, a muscular man with tattooed arms stands with two other people in a room in a wood cabin.

By A.O. Scott

A little girl, out collecting grasshoppers in the forest, meets someone who might be described — if this were a picture book — as a friendly giant. His huge arms are covered in tattoos, and his demeanor walks a fine line between gentle and fearsome.

His name is Leonard, and his new acquaintance, just about to turn 8, is called Wen. Since this is a movie by M. Night Shyamalan — and a pretty good one, all things considered — a sinister vibe creeps in around the edges of their first encounter. The colors are uncannily bright, the close-up shots unnervingly angled (Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer are responsible for the 35-millimeter cinematography). The music (by Herdis Stefansdottir) hums with menace. Something scary is about to happen.

What happens is a version of what former philosophy students and debate-happy internet smarties will recognize as the Trolley Problem , a chestnut of hypothetical ethical disputation. Would you, the classic version goes, run over one person with a trolley if doing so meant you could save five people on the other track? The variation that Leonard (Dave Bautista) proposes to Wen (Kristen Cui) and her family is at once grander and more intimate. Would you sacrifice yourself or someone you loved to prevent a global apocalypse?

Think fast! But don’t, maybe, think too hard about the premise and the narrative scaffolding of this itchy, claustrophobic, metaphysical thriller, which Shyamalan adapted (with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman) from a novel by Paul Tremblay . Leonard is accompanied by three other believers in his end-times scenario: Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint). Strangers until very recently, they received identical visions of flood, plague and darkness. They believe this cascade of catastrophes will come to pass unless Wen or one of her dads, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), volunteers to die.

Why them? Is it because Eric and Andrew are a gay couple, or because they happen to have rented an unlucky vacation property? Surely not the first thing: Sabrina insists on behalf of the group that “we don’t have a homophobic bone in our bodies.” Even if that doesn’t turn out to be true (Redmond has some ugliness in his back story), the real estate seems like a more plausible explanation. The movie is called “Knock at the Cabin” (the book is called “The Cabin at the End of the World”), and the house, with its remote location, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, dark wood paneling and deep cellar, looks like a perfect place to host a horror movie.

Is “Knock at the Cabin” one of those? That’s another topic for debate. Shyamalan is sometimes classified as a horror auteur, but the genre label doesn’t always fit with his themes and methods. While this movie is suspenseful and (discreetly) bloody, it is more interested in thoughts and tender sentiments than in fright or shock.

The story isn’t coiled around a clever, rug-pulling twist — a sometimes tiresome , sometimes bracing Shyamalan signature — so much as balanced on a series of simple binaries. Either Leonard and his pals are telling the truth or they’re out of their minds. Andrew and Eric will believe them or not. The film’s effectiveness depends on what occurs on the way to the answers, and in this respect Shyamalan’s wit and sincerity serve him and the audience well.

Granting the preposterousness of the whole idea, he is genuinely nonetheless curious about what it would be like to have this kind of experience. Whether Leonard is the kindly schoolteacher and reluctant prophet he claims to be or the leader of a small and lethal doomsday cult, he tries to be sensitive to the predicament of his captives. The rules of the vision forbid him or his colleagues from performing the sacrifice themselves, so they engage Eric and Andrew in a lengthy, sometimes brutal seminar, with occasional news broadcasts to emphasize their argument.

A handful of flashbacks of Andrew and Eric’s life as a couple — including their adoption of Wen — makes them seem like more than panicked, generic victims, while also opening up the occasionally stagy action. Aldridge and Groff do what they can to overcome the blandness of the characters, but the movie really belongs to Bautista and Cui, who provide the danger, charm, wit and grit that it needs to be even remotely credible.

I wish it were more than that. There is a grandiosity here that’s hard to swallow, and a final swell of emotion that isn’t quite earned. For all its skill and cunning, “Knock at the Cabin” is an overwrought quasi-theological melodrama that also manages to be a half-baked thought experiment. It’s a thrill ride in a toy trolley.

Knock at the Cabin Rated R. You see dead people. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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Knock at the Cabin First Reviews: Dave Bautista Shines in M. Night Shyamalan's Tense, Character-Driven Thriller

Critics say this is a return to form for shyamalan, who makes use of a chilling atmosphere and top-notch acting to bolster a somewhat understated story..

TAGGED AS: First Reviews , movies

When M. Night Shymalan comes knocking, fans of twisty thrillers answer. The writer and director’s latest, Knock at the Cabin , should be met by his usual crowd, given that its premise contains yet another suspenseful scenario. In the movie, four strangers show up at a family’s cabin claiming that the end of the world is near. Only one thing will keep the apocalypse from happening, but it’s a solution that brings a great moral dilemma. Initial reviews of Knock at the Cabin are mostly positive, and one thing is clear: Shyamalan is still great at creating a chilling atmosphere, and Dave Bautista’s performance is remarkable.

Here’s what critics are saying about Knock at the Cabin :

Is Shyamalan back in peak form?

With his latest film Knock at the Cabin , Shyamalan has delivered his best film in years. – Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture

Knock at the Cabin is close to a return to form for Shyamalan. If it’s not on the level of his very best, it shows that he’s still got it. – Joey Magidson, Awards Radar

It’s a well-crafted, suspenseful piece of filmmaking that shows off Shyamalan’s still formidable skills. – Cary Darling, Houston Chronicle

The film is Shyamalan at his most restrained and deliberate. – Sam Stone, CBR

It might be his most technically impressive film thus far, even if it’s not his most narratively exciting one. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

Shyamalan’s working somewhere near the height of his powers to remind us all that there’s more to him than twist endings. – Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge

Knock at the Cabin has already been hailed in some quarters as Shyamalan’s return to form. That said, those filmgoers previously irritated by his propensity for mystical woo will probably still come away disappointed. – Jason Best, What to Watch

Dave Bautista in Knock at the Cabin (2023)

(Photo by ©Universal Pictures)

How does Knock at the Cabin compare to his other movies?

With his latest, Knock at the Cabin , he may have finally made a film that ranks with his best work. – Cary Darling, Houston Chronicle

Shyamalan’s latest cinematic confrontation with mortality and meaning, Knock at the Cabin , is among his best work. – Chase Hutchinson, Seattle Times

I don’t think Knock at the Cabin is one of M. Night Shyamalan’s best films to date, but it’s firmly in the category right below that. It’s solid. – Germain Lussier, io9.com

Knock At The Cabin , while a relatively minor feature, is Shyamalan’s most effective effort since The Village . – Kyle Pinion, Screen Rex

There are elements of greatness, such as Shyamalan’s ability to tell a scary global phenomenon from the perspective of one family (much like he did in Signs). – Jonathan Sim, ComingSoon.net

What works best in the movie?

You can tell [Shyamalan] is getting back to basics though with Knock at the Cabin , stripping down spectacle to lean into an impossible premise. – Joey Magidson, Awards Radar

The empathy it displays toward all of its characters marks it as one of the few apocalyptic dramas to earn its enduring faith in humanity. – Jake Cole, Slant Magazine

One of Shyamalan’s touchstones as a horror storyteller is his sincerity… Shyamalan’s adoration for the dads and their sweetly introverted daughter is evidenced by scenes of genuine tenderness. – David Sims, The Atlantic

Shyamalan lets loose a little… As a showcase for Shyamalan’s evolving abilities as a filmmaker, it does a great job. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

The direction is taut, the action attractively lensed, yet it’s the unusual ensemble of actors that really wins you over. – Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, metro.co.uk

Knock At The Cabin does not waste any time getting into the nitty-gritty of it all. Within minutes, Dave Bautista is already tromping through the woods to get to the cabin, and things only get more intense from there. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird in Knock at the Cabin (2023)

(Photo by Phobymo/©Universal Pictures)

Is it scary?

Shyamalan has found his groove again, popping off one squirm-in-your-seat, bite-your-nails moment after another. – Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture

The film itself never gets scary. It is more a thriller that will have you wondering what is and isn’t real. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

[It] becomes less of a thriller than an unorthodox character study, especially as the film’s expertly deployed use of flashback slowly forms the emotional core of the story. – Jake Cole, Slant Magazine

The filmmaker prefers to cut away or frame deaths off-screen, a move that winds up minimizing the impact of the stakes when the film rarely leaves the cabin or its handful of characters. – Megan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting

It’s ultimately satisfactory entertainment for horror fans who don’t want to see anything too disturbing on screen. – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

How is the cast?

While all the cast give strong performances, it is Bautista who shines and shows his range in some key monologues. – Chase Hutchinson, Seattle Times

Bautista is the stand-out, granting Leonard a sense of calm that is at once friendly and deeply unsettling. – Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture

Bautista walks away with the film, giving incredible pathos to what could have felt like a villainous character. – Joey Magidson, Awards Radar

The role of Leonard is perfectly suited to the wrestler-turned-actor. As a fundamentally sympathetic antagonist, Bautista digs deeper into the timid sincerity and striking naivete already present in his Guardians of the Galaxy role. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Bautista is fantastic… You believe that he believes what he says, which makes some moments all the more terrifying. – Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Grint especially, as the jittery, hotheaded wild card, nearly steals the scenes from Bautista a few times. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

Kristen Cui is the standout here. She is absolutely phenomenal… She is going places. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

Kristen Cui in Knock at the Cabin (2023)

How does it compare to the book?

It’s purer now, whittled down to its ideological bones. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

If you have read the book, we can all but guarantee you will like that ending better, so don’t expect this changed version of the story to blow your minds. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

[Shyamalan] has changed one plot point from the novel that changes the tone of the story’s ending in a way that… the film’s climax doesn’t feel entirely as earned. – Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture

It’s easy to see why the filmmakers chose to make these changes because there are many things in the book that would not be as “crowd-pleasing” to movie audiences. – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

Should we expect a twist?

Shyamalan hasn’t added one, allowing the whole film to play as straightforwardly as possible, much to the film’s credit. – Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture

The most suspenseful and intense moments come when we feel that the twist is about to be revealed — and then there isn’t one. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

It wants to keep you guessing, but once the truth is revealed there’s little left to actually hold it up, and the film crumbles under its own weight. – Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Those seeking a twisty-turny set of cinematic surprises should get the requisite shocks they seek. – Eddie Harrison, film-authority.com

The prolific filmmaker has delivered one of his biggest surprises of all by telling a relatively straightforward thriller that places its characters in a fight for survival with wide-reaching implications. – Sam Stone, CBR

M. Night Shyamalan on the set of Knock at the Cabin (2023)

What are its biggest flaws?

While Knock at the Cabin works well in almost every way, it’s missing a spark of energy and intrigue that truly would’ve really knocked it out of the park. – Germain Lussier, io9.com

Knock is so emotionally flat that I found it impossible to care about. For a film in which the stakes couldn’t be higher, that’s a fatal failing. – Roger Moore, Roger’s Movie Nation

The scale never becomes as massive as it should… [It’s] a quickly paced but single-note and ineffectual apocalyptic tale. – Megan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting

The story is solid, but the filmmaking is not… [Shyamalan’s] directorial choices feel as amateurish and contrived as ever. – Louisa Moore, Screen Zealots

There is a hollow ending that wants you to think the story and these characters have some kind of redemption, but it’s a thinly-veiled insult to its audience. – Tom Santilli, Movie Show Plus

Will it make us look forward to the next Shyamalan movie?

After middling returns with Old and Glass , Knock at the Cabin doesn’t quite mark a complete return to form for Shyamalan, but it is a big step in the right direction. – Sam Stone, CBR

Old fans and Servant -heads alike know that M. Night Shyamalan never really left, but Knock at the Cabin feels like it just might convince those not in the know that he’s back. – Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge

Knock at the Cabin will serve as a reminder that Shyamalan should be celebrated as much for his craftsmanship as he is for his shock tactics. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Here’s hoping he’s back for good. – Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture

Knock at the Cabin opens everywhere on February 3, 2023.

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In Knock at the Cabin, a Terrific Dave Bautista Saves M. Night Shyamalan From Himself

Dave Bautista gives a career-best performance as a messenger of the apocalypse.

M. Night Shyamalan movies live or die by their twists.

At least, that’s the accepted thinking, based on the filmmaker’s famous (or infamous) inclination to include a jaw-dropping twist in most of his movies. The twist can shock, or baffle, or turn the movie’s entire narrative on its head — but if it’s unsatisfying, the entire film is written off . It’s a reputation that’s overshadowed Shyamalan’s whole career , and one that he’ll probably never fully escape. But refreshingly, with Knock at the Cabin , it seems that Shyamalan has outgrown the plot twist.

Based on Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World , Knock at the Cabin follows the story of a loving family — Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) — whose vacation at a remote cabin is interrupted by four strangers arriving at their door. Led by the hulking Leonard (Dave Bautista), the strangers Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint) insist that they are there to avert the apocalypse. But they need Eric, Andrew, and Wen’s help with a terrible decision: the three must decide which of them must be sacrificed to save all of humanity from dying in a series of world-destroying plagues.

And that’s it, there’s no twist. Instead, Knock at the Cabin is a straightforward exercise in nail-biting suspense, steered by a filmmaker at the height of his confidence in his craft, and powered by a tremendous antagonistic turn from Bautista, who gives the best performance of his career yet.

It’s clear this is Bautista’s movie from the opening moments, when he emerges from the woods to approach Wen, who’s collecting grasshoppers outside the cabin. Bautista’s Leonard first appears as just a blurry figure in the distance, before we cut to his feet, his boots stomping on the worn-down path like some ominous death knell, each heavy thump reverberating through the screen until it settles in your bones. Shot from afar, Bautista’s large physique feels inherently threatening, but Shyamalan chooses to mostly show him in extreme close-up, Bautista’s gentle, open face putting the audience — and Wen — at ease as he asks her about her grasshoppers and her family.

But then, things start to feel a little off . As Leonard and Wen’s conversation continues, each cut becomes a deeper Dutch angle. A wide shot of the woods distorts with a dolly zoom, and soon, three other people emerge from the woods, each carrying a strange, primitive weapon. Leonard apologizes to Wen “with all of my broken heart,” and she flees to the cabin, pulling her dads inside and insisting they lock the doors. And the unrelenting barrage of dread and suspense begins.

Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) fend off strangers in Knock at the Cabin .

Shyamalan might have found his perfect collaborator in Bautista, who nails the tricky balance of earnest tone and stilted dialogue typical of the filmmaker’s movies, all while radiating a terrifying, unreadable fanaticism that feels equal turns compassionate and menacing. He’s a gentle giant who apologizes to his would-be victims and puts cartoons on for Wen, but he believes in his task with a religious fervor that makes his every action incomprehensible to everyone but him.

Shyamalan’s signature quirk of awkward dialogue, which is less pronounced here thanks to co-writers Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, feels somehow natural coming from Bautista’s lips — Leonard’s words feel rehearsed because they are, his actions are practiced because he did. And despite the limitations of the character, Bautista manages to convey deep empathy and sadness with every word he utters; it feels like his short, heartbreaking scene in Blade Runner 2049 turned up to 11. This is a man given a terrible burden he wouldn’t wish on anyone, and Bautista sells that.

But Knock at the Cabin is not just Bautista’s movie. Amuka-Bird, Quinn, and Grint are all standouts as Bautista’s uncertain fellow horsemen of the apocalypse, with all of them a little apologetic, all of them scared. Grint especially, as the jittery, hotheaded wild card, nearly steals the scenes from Bautista a few times.

But if there’s anyone to hold a candle to Bautista, it’s Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge as Eric and Andrew, whose stubborn resistance to the strangers’ awful demands is only superseded by their unflagging loyalty to each other and Wen. Unlike the four strangers, Eric and Andrew are given the benefit of a character arc, with flashbacks to their lives together interwoven throughout the movie. It helps the two feel like the most fleshed-out and intensely human of Shyamalan characters, an achievement aided by the fact that Groff and Aldridge seem to have sidestepped the “awkward dialogue” requirements of his films.

Leonard (Dave Bautista), (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint) in Knock at the Cabin .

Shyamalan hasn’t quashed all of his worst instincts — Knock at the Cabin feels almost unbearably earnest at times, and its messages are spelled out a little too obviously — but it does feel like he’s reached a new level of confidence as a filmmaker that he was just starting to gain with Old . Given a straightforward thriller like this, Shyamalan lets loose a little with his filmmaking style, the aforementioned Dutch angles and dolly zooms being only a few of the directorial tricks he uses to amp up the dread. It might be his most technically impressive film thus far, even if it’s not his most narratively exciting one.

Knock at the Cabin is a rock-solid thriller, but not an amazing one. Its Biblical apocalypse prevents it from playing as anything more than a parable, and limits it from reaching for any deeper meaning beneath the surface-level suspense. The latter makes some readings of the film’s ending as potentially insidious feel thin. But as a showcase for Shyamalan’s evolving abilities as a filmmaker, it does a great job. And even if Knock at the Cabin doesn’t live or die by a twist, it gets all the life it needs from a terrific, terrifying Bautista.

Knock at the Cabin opens in theaters on February 3.

This article was originally published on Feb. 1, 2023

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How <em>Knock at the Cabin</em> Is Different From the Book It’s Based on

How Knock at the Cabin Is Different From the Book It’s Based on

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Knock at the Cabin .

In writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie Knock at the Cabin , one family is faced with a grievous choice: willingly sacrifice one of their own or, as the four armed strangers holding them hostage claim, the world will end.

The apocalyptic horror film, in theaters Feb. 3, is based on Paul Tremblay’s award-winning 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World and, like the book, is intended to make viewers second-guess what they believe to be true numerous times throughout the story—is all of humanity really at risk, or are these people just deranged Internet-conspiracy theorists?

At the center of the action is devoted married couple Eric ( Jonathan Groff ) and Andrew ( Ben Aldridge ) and their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), who find themselves at the mercy of teacher Leonard (Dave Bautista), nurse Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), diner cook Adriane (Abby Quinn), and ex-con Redmond (Rupert Grint) while vacationing at a remote cabin. “We were called and are united by a common vision, which has now become a command that we cannot ignore,” Leonard tells them. “If you fail to choose, the world will end.”

Over the next 90 minutes, the increasingly desperate group shows the family news reports of extreme weather, plague, and planes falling out of the sky, and even begins sacrificing themselves in front of them to try to convince them to make a choice.

However, Shyamalan and Tremblay have very different takes on how the story ultimately plays out. Here’s how Knock at the Cabin’s ending differs from the book on which it’s based.

Read more: How Knock at the Cabin Convinced M. Night Shyamalan to Face the Apocalypse

How Knock at the Cabin diverges from the book

Just like in The Cabin at the End of the World , Redmond is the first one to sacrifice himself and be killed by his fellow captors in Knock at the Cabin —an act they claim is the impetus behind a string of tsunamis striking the West Coast of the U.S. A concussed Eric sees what he believes to be a figure of light at the moment Redmond dies. But it’s at this point that the movie diverges from its source material.

Following Redmond’s death in the novel, Andrew escapes from the chair he’s tied to and is able to retrieve his gun from the car. He shoots and kills Adriane and then, in the book’s most heartbreaking moment, gets into a scuffle with Leonard that results in a stray bullet killing Wen. A downtrodden Leonard informs Eric and Andrew that Wen’s death will not stop the apocalypse, as it was accidental and Wen was not a willing sacrifice, before allowing them to tie him to a chair. Meanwhile, reports of new disasters continue to roll in on the TV.

Eventually, Sabrina kills Leonard and offers to lead Eric and Andrew to Redmond’s car and allow them to escape. Taking Wen’s body with them, the group heads to the car and Sabrina tells them there is still time to stop the apocalypse before shooting herself in the head. Eric, who has come to believe that the strangers may have been telling the truth, considers sacrificing himself, but Andrew won’t allow it. He tells Eric that he’s unwilling to cave to the demands of a god who wouldn’t accept Wen’s death as enough of a sacrifice and the two drive away together. The novel’s ending is ambiguous, leaving readers to decide whether the apocalypse was real or the reported disasters were simply coincidental.

The film’s more conclusive ending

In Knock at the Cabin , Shyamalan presents a much more straightforward interpretation of the events at hand. After Redmond and Adriane both willingly sacrifice themselves, Andrew gets free from his bonds, retrieves his gun, and shoots and kills Sabrina. A scuffle with Leonard does ensue, but Wen is not killed. Instead, Leonard kills himself and the family is left to decide what to do next.

Convinced that the four invaders were actually the four horsemen of the apocalypse and that the world will soon come to an end if they don’t act, Eric persuades Andrew to shoot him so that Wen can grow up to have the life they always dreamed of for her. A heartbroken Andrew pulls the trigger, retrieves Wen, and the two drive away from the cabin. At a diner in the first town they come to, they watch a news report decreeing that the disasters have stopped, implying that Eric’s death did in fact put a stop to humanity’s impending doom.

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Knock at the cabin, common sense media reviewers.

Strange, gruesome, but effective thriller about compassion.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The big question addressed is whether humanity is

Eric and Andrew are examples of good parents -- at

Main characters are a White gay couple (Jonathan G

Killings and death. Blood seeps through white clot

Several uses of "f--k" or "f---ing." Also "bulls--

In flashback, characters have drinks in a bar (som

Positive Messages

The big question addressed is whether humanity is worth saving. Movie argues that while humans do terrible things and there are lies and deceptions and evil cults, there's also great beauty, great hope, and the power of love.

Positive Role Models

Eric and Andrew are examples of good parents -- at least for a little while, until their lives are interrupted.

Diverse Representations

Main characters are a White gay couple (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) who have a young adopted daughter (Chinese American actor Kristen Cui) with a facial difference (her scar suggests a repaired cleft lip). The four intruders are played by Dave Bautista (who's half Filipino), Nikki Amuka-Bird (who's Black), and Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint (who are White). TV news commentators include many characters of color and women. Director/co-writer Shyamalan, who appears in one of his usual cameos, is Indian American. Leonard (Bautista) counters stereotypes often associated with large, muscular people by turning out to be gentle, thoughtful, and compassionate.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Killings and death. Blood seeps through white cloth. Bloody wounds. Character slits own neck, blood seeping through clothing. Guns and shooting. Menacing homemade weapons. Fighting, swinging weapons, punching. Character with bloody face. Character crashes to floor, has concussion. Hate crime: A man in a bar smashes a bottle over a gay man's head; bloody wounds. Person clubbed in knee. Man throws pebbles in woman's face. Scary news footage includes planes crashing, viruses, tsunami, flooding, etc. Building on fire. Dialogue: "My father used to beat the s--t out of me." Creepy, unsettling drawings during opening titles.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k" or "f---ing." Also "bulls--t," "horses--t," "bitch," "bastard," "ass," "goddamn," "oh Jesus God," "d--k," "crap."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

In flashback, characters have drinks in a bar (some have too many). A character says "I like beer."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Knock at the Cabin is a horror-thriller from director M. Night Shyamalan about two dads ( Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge ) and their young daughter (Kristen Cui) who are asked by four intruders to execute one member of their family in order to save humanity. Based on a novel by Paul Tremblay, it's a suspenseful, economical, and even intimate film that wrestles with the question of what aspects of humanity are actually worth saving. Violence is intense: There are killings, bloody wounds, blood seeping through clothing, guns and shooting, a character slicing their own neck, fighting, bludgeoning with weapons, a hate crime, terrifying news footage, a concussion, and more. Language includes "f--k" and "f---ing," "bulls--t," "bitch," "bastard," "ass," and "goddamn." A flashback takes place in a bar, with some drinking and drunkenness. Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint co-star. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 8 parent reviews

On the edge of my seat!

What's the story.

In KNOCK AT THE CABIN, Eric ( Jonathan Groff ), Andrew ( Ben Aldridge ), and their daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), are vacationing in a quiet cabin. While Wen is out collecting grasshoppers, she's approached by Leonard ( Dave Bautista ), who tells her that he wants to be her friend. Before long, three other people -- Sabrina ( Nikki Amuka-Bird ), Ardiane ( Abby Quinn ), and Redmond ( Rupert Grint ) -- approach, all carrying strange-looking weapons. Wen and her dads lock themselves in the cabin, but soon, Leonard and the others force their way inside. Once Eric and Andrew are subdued and tied up, Leonard makes an unexpected request: The family must decide to kill one among them in order to save all of humanity. If not, the apocalypse is coming.

Is It Any Good?

M. Night Shyamalan 's horror-thriller makes terrific use of its intimate scale and level-headed approach, generating suspense through suggestion and surprising empathy for the characters. Shyamalan doesn't usually do adaptations, but here he lets Paul Tremblay's novel The Cabin at the End of the World do all the heavy lifting. As a result, Knock at the Cabin showcases the director's singular, spatial visual style without crumbling under the lackluster writing that sometimes sabotages his work. That said, the movie does lose some of its suspense as it ramps up and reveals more information in the final act. But Knock at the Cabin starts economically and emotionally and rarely falters. Bautista sets the tone with his Leonard character, countering stereotypes often associated with large, muscular people by turning out to be gentle, thoughtful, and compassionate (he seems genuinely hurt at the suggestion that he might be lying about this apocalyptic scenario). For all of the threat and death on the line, the characters' tense, back-and-forth conversations are mainly about love and hope. And the fight between the worst of humanity and the best of humanity keeps viewers constantly guessing.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Knock at the Cabin 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

What do you think you might do in this situation? Is humanity worth such an extraordinary sacrifice? Why, or why not?

What positive representations did you notice in the film? Are stereotypes used?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of horror movies ? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?

If you've read the book the movie is based on, how does the film compare?

Movie Details

In theaters : February 3, 2023
On DVD or streaming : May 9, 2023
Cast : Dave Bautista , Jonathan Groff , Rupert Grint
Director : M. Night Shyamalan
Inclusion Information : Asian actors, Gay actors
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Thriller
Topics : Book Characters
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : violence and language
Last updated : May 10, 2024

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Knock at the Cabin review: M. Night Shyamalan goes dystopian in the woods

The man behind Old, Split, and The Sixth Sense returns with an intriguing but underbaked end-of-the-world thriller.

What fresh apocalypse is this? In a world already acutely attuned to end-times, it's increasingly hard to keep track of all the fictional dystopias that books and movies and TV shows seem so eager to throw at us like Mardi Gras beads. ( You get a plague! You get a plague!)

But Armageddon, of course, is a bell that filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has famously been ringing for more than two decades now. Which puts a certain burden of expectation on his latest, Knock at the Cabin — a story already based on a bestselling novel by Paul Tremblay, a writer whom Stephen King once cheerfully declared "scared the living hell" out of him.

And so the stark and spooky premise of Knock feels like a promise: a happy family having a bucolic weekend in the woods; four strangers at the door. Surely Shyamalan, notorious twist-lord of the modern multiplex, has a deeper plan for this. And he does mark the spot, at least, with casting: The loving parents are Eric ( Jonathan Groff ) and Andrew ( Fleabag 's Ben Aldridge), and their pigtailed daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), we see in tender flashbacks, is adopted from China, with a bright pink scar slashed beneath her nose.

When a hulking meat slab of a man who introduces himself as Leonard ( Dave Bautista ) approaches Wen while she's playing in the forest, she answers his careful questions about her scar and her two dads warily; she knows she's not supposed to talk to strangers. But Leonard is gentle and persistent, and he brought three friends with heavy artillery: Redmond ( Rupert Grint ), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), and Ardiane (Abby Quinn).

Their homemade weapons look like something out of Mad Max arts and crafts, and their message is frantic but firm: If one of the three baffled hostages standing before them isn't sacrificed voluntarily, the world will end — specifically, seas will rise, God's fingers will scorch the earth, and pestilence and carnage will bring everlasting darkness. Eric and Andrew, understandably, object to this plan. What proof do these wild-eyed weirdos who claim to be ordinary teachers and line cooks and nurses have, other than their own insistence on shared visions of Biblical annihilation?

That's where Knock begins to cleave away from the novel and perhaps the Black-Listed screenplay , which Shyamalan reportedly rewrote. It's also where he loses a lot of story momentum, maintaining a terrible tension in the room — per the visions, for every refusal another person must die — that his script often fails to make any real sense of. Huge questions go unasked and explanations unoffered as a cabin full of terrified people whisper-yell at each other, then say the same things again when they don't feel heard the first time.

That panic and repetition might be true to life — who, faced with abject terror, becomes both a brilliant negotiator and an action hero? — but it makes for frustratingly obtuse filmmaking when so many integral plot points are left by the wayside. So do Shyamalan's significant changes to the latter half of the story, which recasts his entire narrative in a kind of beatific, quasi-religious light. (The original ending was far too bleak and open-ended, no doubt, for mainstream horror, though that may be exactly why it should have gone to a less-established name.)

What's left is a handful of earnest, affecting performances — Bautista as the gentle giant, Groff as an essentially good man grappling with incomprehensible choices — and a tensile dread that dissipates with the too-tidy ending. Shyamalan may be saying something meaningful about faith or environmental destruction or the corrosive fraying of the social contract (could this vigilante crew really be motivated by pure homophobia, as Andrew believes?). But the message is mostly lost in sentiment, and a lingering sense of the better, messier movie that might have been. Grade: C+

Review: ‘Knock at the Cabin’ twists the home invasion horror

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Dave Bautista, from left, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird in a scene from “Knock at the Cabin.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Ben Aldridge, from left, Kristen Cui, and Jonathan Groff in a scene from “Knock at the Cabin.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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Knock. Knock.

It being mid-winter (typically a doldrums in movie theaters), it’s a cozy relief to be able to throw open the door and find M. Night Shyamalan standing there with his near-annual helping of high-concept thriller. His last one, “Old,” about vacationers trapped on a private beach where aging is accelerated — a kind of high-speed “White Lotus” — fittingly arrived in the summer. But this quieter, gloomier time of year seems perfectly designed for Shyamalan to burst in with his signature brand of big-screen bonkers and some new twists to the age-old question of “Who’s there?”

“Knock at the Cabin,” which opens in theaters Friday, is at once like every previous Shyamalan film and a thrilling departure. Gimmicky set-up? Check. Queasy spiritualism? You bet. But as a self-contained, handsomely staged thriller — after the knocking, the film takes place almost entirely within a remote cabin — Shyamalan’s latest finds the filmmaker working in an appealingly straightforward and stripped-down fashion.

We have our cabin, our small cast of characters and, above all, our preposterous premise. Though Shyamalan’s films often flirt with higher powers and existential conundrums, nothing reigns in his movie universe more than The Concept. And in the gripping “Knock at the Cabin,” he carefully teases it, exploits it and dutifully follows it to its ultimate conclusion with the command of a seasoned professional.

Just outside a cabin in a wooded forest, 7-year-old Gwen (Kristen Cui) is collecting grasshoppers in a glass jar. “I’m just going to learn about you for a while,” she tells one as she slides it into the jar. Shyamalan, too, is gathering specimens into a hermetically sealed vessel for inquiry. One calmly walks right out of the woods. A hulking, bespectacled man (Dave Bautista) strides up to Gwen, politely introduces himself as Leonard and makes kindly chit chat while occasionally glancing back over his shoulder. Then he says the reason he’s there makes him heartbroken. He describes it as “maybe the most important job in the history of the world.”

Before you exclaim “Podiatry!” Leonard’s job turns out to be a tad more sinister. He and three others, who soon also emerge from the forest, are there, as Leonard patiently lays out, to give Gwen’s parents a choice that will dictate the fate of the world. After forcing their way into the cabin, Leonard — flanked by Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Redmond (Rupert Grint) and Adriane (Abby Quinn) — informs Gwen’s two dads, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) — that they must make a sacrifice to stave off global apocalypse. Each has come to the cabin after all-consuming visions — like warped versions of those that preoccupy the characters in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” — of the doom that awaits if the family in this random cabin doesn’t, within hours, kill one of themselves.

This isn’t, like last year’s “Barbarian,” another chastening example of the dangers that lurk within the poorly chosen Airbnb, (though I, for one, will henceforth not be clicking “Shyamalanian allegory” in all future bookings). This is, like most of Shyamalan’s schemes, a sincere metaphorical proposition. What’s more important: Preserving one’s family or the larger world?

There are, of course, reasons to be dubious of strangers who turn up in your vacation rental asking for blood to spare humanity. Are they delusional? Has this gay couple been targeted? Do their demands not sound a little like the nuttery of some of today’s real-world attackers? Eric and Andrew sense the same kind of brutality that they’ve experienced all their lives as gay men. Flashbacks to their past, including moments of bliss and pain, suggest this lurid episode is part of a larger narrative of a loving family forged against a harsh world. “Always together” is the couple’s mantra.

But the way the four intruders speak is at odds with that possibility. They seem genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of the family. They identify themselves as regular people, some with families of their own, who are reluctantly but necessarily carrying out a duty. They are making their own sacrifice, too. Bautista, in one of his finest performances, is more sweet than menacing, even while wielding a heavy weapon. Amuka-Bird, too, is an affectingly sensitive presence.

The performances, all around, are convincing, and Shyamalan arrestingly stages the intense standoff as blood begins to spill and calamities, seen on television, mount. The tale, adapted from Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” with a notable tweak to the ending, cleverly inverts the home invasion thriller.

There are, undoubtedly, deeper avenues of exploration left unexamined. But there are also B-movie pleasures that deviate from horror convention, and even some of the director’s own trademark sensibilities. Shyamalan doesn’t pump up the violence, nor does he rely on plot twists to carry “Knock at the Cabin” along. Instead, the film works as a brutal, neatly distilled kind of morality play that toys with fatalism, family and climate change allegory. What most distinguishes Shyamalan’s film is how it dares to consider whether some things are more important than family. In apocalyptic big screen spectacles, family is almost always the last and most abiding refuge. Here, it may be an impediment.

“Knock at the Cabin,” a Universal Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for violence and language. Running time: 100 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

'Knock at The Cabin': Release Date, Cast, Trailer, and Everything We Know So Far

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller features an existential threat.

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What’s knock at the cabin about (and what's the rating), is there a trailer for knock at the cabin, who’s in the cast of knock at the cabin, when does knock at the cabin come out.

Originally teased last October in a tweet from M. Night Shyamalan showcasing the film’s title paired with ominous knocking sounds, Knock at the Cabin is nearly here. The movie is the second out of a two-film partnership between Universal Pictures and Shyamalan’s production company, Blinding Edge Pictures. The first film from this pairing was Old , released in 2021. Knock at the Cabin is actually based on a 2018 novel written by horror author Paul G. Tremblay called The Cabin at the End of the World , which earned Tremblay his second Bram Stoker Award. Tremblay has several other horror novels, such as A Head Full of Ghosts , but this will be the first film adaptation of any of his stories.

After his first film, The Sixth Sense became a sensational hit in 1999, M. Night Shyamalan struggled to satisfy some of his fans with subsequent releases. His style of storytelling became known for the trademark commonly referred to as a “Shyamalan Twist,” which has been referenced countless times within pop culture. In 2015, his career started to stabilize and he regained the trust of his fanbase back with the success of The Visit .

Since then, Shyamalan has continued to impress with Split and Glass as sequels to his 2000 superhero origin story film, Unbreakable . Before going on to make Old , he teamed up with Apple TV+ to create a suspense-thriller television show called Servant , which currently has three seasons and awaits a January premiere for the fourth and final installment.

Shyamalan has a tendency to be a one-man show, consistently writing, producing, and directing his own films. Knock at the Cabin proves to be no different, with Shyamalan adapting the screenplay from the original novel by Tremblay. This article will tell you everything you need to know about the latest addition to Shyamalan’s increasingly impressive portfolio.

Editor's Note: This article was last updated on January 1 with the latest trailer.

Related: M. Night Shyamalan on the Climatic Twists and Turns of 'Knock at the Cabin'

Knock at the Cabin follows a couple, Andrew and Eric, and their young adopted daughter as they are settling into a cabin in the woods for a relaxing getaway. Their recreational reclusiveness doesn’t last long, however, as they are soon approached by a man and three other strangers. He introduces himself as “Leonard” to the daughter as she is out collecting bugs by herself. She tells him that her name is Wen and asks why he’s there. His response is that he’s supposed to make friends with her and her fathers, but that he’s “heartbroken” because of something he and his friends have to do. As he tells her this, three other people emerge from the surrounding woods, all carrying ominous types of weaponry. We see Wen hurriedly making her way back to the cabin and her fathers, as she grows uncomfortable with Leonard and his companions. After he speaks with Andrew and Eric through the locked doors of the cabin, the four strangers force entry into the home. With both fathers subdued, Leonard explains to the family that he and his group have a “very important job to do,” that might be the most important job “in the history of the world.” In short, he tells the terrified family that they will have to make a choice, and if they don’t, it would bring about the apocalypse.

With four strangers breaking in and bringing this news, it’s difficult not to envision them as the biblical “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Will little Wen become the metaphorical lamb? Another interesting Shyamalan trait to keep in mind is that he has tendencies to embed religion into some of his stories, such as in Signs where the main character is a Catholic priest who struggles with his beliefs after the death of his wife. The details about what kind of choice this will be are left unknown for now, but you can be sure that it will not be an easy decision. If you’re a person who enjoys and actively seeks out spoilers, you’re just going to have to read the book if you don’t want to wait to find out.

As for the movie's rating, while Shyamalan has had his fair share of PG-13 fare, Knock at the Cabin has received a solid R-rating for “Violence and Language.” So this is definitely a movie you'll want to leave the kids at home for.

Yes! The first trailer was released on September 22. It creates a great juxtaposition between a seemingly cheerful getaway with the potential end of the world and gives us a good look at the characters. The second trailer for the movie was released on Christmas Day, which you can see below:

A behind-the-scenes featurette for the film was released online by Universal on January 23, 2023, featuring Shyamalan and some of the cast talking about what drew them to the project and what makes it so unique from other home-invasion films and apocalyptic stories, especially when merging those two subgenres together.

Related: M. Night Shyamalan Reveals "Old Film Noir" Poster for 'Knock at the Cabin'

As mentioned earlier, the cast list is very intimate for this film, with seven main players. Who are they, and what are their roles in the movie? Let’s break it down.

Leonard will be played by Dave Bautista . Because of his impressive stature and background in wrestling, he is often cast in a physically intimidating role, such as Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy . M. Night Shyamalan was so impressed by Bautista’s performance in the 2017 film, Blade Runner 2049 , that he cites it as one of the major deciding factors to offer the lead role to the actor.

Eric and Andrew will be played by Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff , respectively. Aldridge is best known for his television shows, Fleabag, and Our Girl . Groff has a broader background with iconic performances on both screen and stage. He played the hilariously sassy King George in Lin Manuel Miranda ’s hit broadway musical, Hamilton , as well as the cunning FBI agent Holden Ford in the drama series, Mindhunter .

Kristen Cui will be playing the adorable Wen, the adoptive daughter of Eric and Andrew. Cui is new to the game and this will be her first acting debut.

Rupert Grint and Nikki Amuka-Bird are both Shyamalan veterans, with Grint starring in Servant and Amuka-Bird playing a large role in Old . They will be playing the characters Redmund and Adriane, respectively, and are joined by Abby Quinn ( Landline ) as Sabrina. These three make up the troupe that joins Bautista’s Leonard in breaking into the cabin to hold the family hostage.

As the trailer states, the film will premiere on February 3, 2023. The movie was originally supposed to be released on February 17th, but the release date was pushed up by two weeks. Shyamalan stated that this was the fastest turnover for any script he has ever written, and that production and filming went by in a flash between April 19th and June 10th, of this year.

With the new release date of February 3rd, Knock at the Cabin currently has no box office competition. That is likely to change as we get closer to the date, but if it had kept the original February 17th release, it would have been stacked up against Disney’s upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania .

February 3rd can’t come soon enough for some, but until then, you can have a Shyamalan marathon (or a “Shyamalarathon,” as some might say) and watch some of his previous films on a variety of streaming services. The Visit might be a good place to start if you want to see how Shyamalan can take a seemingly harmless situation and transform it into something very uncomfortable.

‘Knock at the Cabin’ Review: It’s Not Worth Answering the Door for M. Night Shyamalan’s Latest

It’s a film with violence but no edge, just a disturbing idea which plays out to a grim and unsatisfying conclusion

At the heart of M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller “Knock at the Cabin” there is a disturbing question that has only two terrible answers. Unfortunately, the answers aren’t just terrible for the characters, they’re terrible for the audience as well. Because whichever direction this film goes in it’s running headlong into a brick wall, with no brakes.

Based on the novel “Cabin at the End of the World” by Paul G. Tremblay, “Knock at the Cabin” stars Jonathan Groff (“The Matrix Resurrections”) and Ben Aldridge (“Spoiler Alert”) as Eric and Andrew, two gay dads on vacation at a cabin in the woods — always a mistake — with their adopted daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui). All is well. All is loving. Nothing bad could possibly happen.

Suddenly, they are visited by four mysterious strangers, led by the gigantic yet soft-voiced Leonard (Dave Bautista, “Glass Onion”), who are ever so kind and thoughtful. Except they’ve brought handmade medieval weaponry with them and they demand to be let inside. Before long, Eric and Andrew are tied to their chairs, Eric is concussed, and Leonard lays out the premise for the day.

It turns out that Leonard and his associates, Redmond (Rupert Grint, “Servant”), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird, “Persuasion”) and Adriane (Abby Quinn, “Torn Hearts”) have had a shared vision of the end of the world, and they believe the only way to stop it is if Eric, Andrew and Wen make a decision to kill one member of their family. They can’t kill themselves and nobody else can commit the murder for them. And every time Leonard asks, if they refuse, something very traumatic will happen to the world.

“Knock at the Cabin” has a premise that demands ambiguity to work in the slightest, because once Shyamalan tips his hat the story is functionally over. On the surface, it’s a film about religious doubt and personal sacrifice, and it’s not a very interesting one because it’s not about Eric and Andrew’s personal religion. Their sacrifice is being demanded by zealots who literally knocked on their door, uninvited.

Indeed, Andrew is quick to point out that what we are witnessing — regardless of context — is a violent crime committed against a queer family, which Leonard insists is merely a coincidence. That’s easy for Leonard to say, he didn’t write the story. The people who wrote the story don’t have that excuse. Every choice is intentional and reaps consequences.

So what this means, without giving away the ending, is that “Knock at the Cabin” is a film about one of two things: either it’s a film about religious extremists attacking a queer mixed race family and we’re supposed to be entertained by that, or it’s a film about how the only way to save the world is if religious extremists can convince gay people to admit the Old Testament is right and the world would be better off without one of them.

That’s an extremely dismal fork in the road and it’s frustrating to discover that nobody’s looking for another path. Shyamalan has no interest in keeping the mystery alive through the end credits, and none of the characters are clever enough to find a solution to their problems outside the binary they were presented with. Eventually, the film simply reveals that it’s a thoughtless, ugly piece of work, wherever it lands.

Which isn’t to say it’s an ugly-looking film or that the actors within it are doing poor jobs. The film’s two directors of photography, Jarin Blaschke (“The Northman”) and Lowell A. Meyer (“It Ain’t Over”) find exciting connective tissue between dappled sunlight and harsh shadows and make this cabin — for all the horrors that take place inside — look pretty darned appealing. There’s a bookshelf in there that’d be the envy of any bibliophile. It’s so omnipresent and distracting it’s practically its own character, and it’s one of the better ones.

Dave Bautista functionally steals this movie, his imposing frame providing a sharp contrast to his tender side. “Knock at the Cabin” really wants you to know that the zealots who are forcing this queer family to kill each other have a tender side. For a movie about quasi-religious violence the film seems genuinely terrified to say anything harsh about organized religion, specifically or in general, and its actual history of violence.

It’s bizarre that a horror movie as quiet and conversational as “Knock at the Cabin” could come across as so much less mature and intelligent as Drew Goddard’s “Cabin in the Woods,” a schlocky piece of fan fiction which does, at the very least, have something to say about violence, unjust sacrifice, and a world which demands it. And for what? To preserve the status quo? A status quo of violence and unjust sacrifice?

It took Shyamalan and two other screenwriters, Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, to make this simple story seem incredibly simplistic. It’s a film with violence but no edge, just a disturbing idea which plays out to a grim and unsatisfying conclusion, unexplored and uninteresting. And it sadly takes the rest of us along with it, rolling our eyes and wishing we’d gone anywhere else instead of this lousy “Cabin.” Even the Airbnb from “Barbarian” would’ve been better than this.

A Knock On The Door Review: A Gut-Punch Of A Film Driven By Courage And Clarity

A knock on the door review: it draws its strength from the writing as well as stupendous performances from adil hussain and amrita chattopadhyay..

A still from A Knock On The Door .

Cast: Adil Hussain, Amrita Chattopadhyay, Nandita Das, Imaad Shah, Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah

Director: Ranjan Palit

Rating: Four stars (out of 5)

In A Knock on the Door , his second narrative feature as director, cinematographer-filmmaker Ranjan Palit juxtaposes the abject with the absurd in a portrayal of the plight of a Kolkata couple subjected to political repression.

The film goes for the jugular but does so not with gnashed teeth but with a pained smirk on the face. Combining bemusement with belligerence, it takes aim at and lands stinging punches on the abuse of power by forces that dread debate, dissent and democracy.

The English-Bangla-Hindi film, which Palit wrote with Ritwik Sinha and shot in Kolkata, is a psycho-political drama that darts between the polemical and the spoofy, the surreal and the stark, the hard-hitting and the quizzical without ever going off-balance.

A Knock on the Door draws its strength from the writing as well as stupendous performances from Adil Hussain and Amrita Chattopadhyay (both of whom had substantial roles in Palit's first film, Lord of the Orphans, an inimitably structured history of the director's family).

Besides Nandita Das and Imaad Shah in key and impactful supporting roles, the cast includes Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah in significant cameos. Among other things, the two seasoned actors deliver Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..." soliloquy in a manner that is as much theatre of the absurd as it is Shakespeare. The resultant dissonance aptly sums up the Sisyphean struggles of the tormented protagonists.

The plot of A Knock on the Door is, however, firmly rooted in reality. It incorporates the aftermath of the recent Covid-19 pandemic and the continued harassment of unyielding activists and academics who dare to defy an ideology being sought to be rammed down the throats of people.

A Knock on the Door premiered on Monday at the 52nd International Film Festival of Rotterdam (January 25-February 5, 2023) as part of a special 19-film package titled Focus: The Shape of Things to Come?, a curation aimed at understanding what the future holds for the world's largest democracy.

The film centres on a late-night raid on the home of Professor Hari Chowdhury (Adil Hussain) and his one-time student and now wife Ramona Bose (Amrita Chattopadhyay), also a college lecturer. The principal target of the invasion is the former because of his political and social beliefs.

What Hari reads and writes, the books he has in his collection, the ideas he propagates, and the protest meetings he leads put him in the line of fire of the establishment. The raid leaves scars on both Hari and Ramona, who stands by her husband like a rock. But panic and paranoia begin to get the better of them.

When the film opens, the pandemic has just ended and Hari is cooking a lamb curry to celebrate the third anniversary of his and Ramona's marriage. A power outage scuttles the quiet dinner. Worse follows. Five people with weird three-faced masks barge into the house and take away Hari's laptop, hard drive and other stuff. Among other things, the raiding party wants to know what meat the couple is about to eat.

Lord of the Orphans was defiantly form-breaking and marked by a staggeringly inventive visual design. A Knock on the Door resorts to more conventional methods to portray the plight of a rebel haunted by the repercussions of his resistance. It has elements of a dark thriller, but it is anything but a genre film.

It is accessible and has suspense and intrigue, but the director-cinematographer stirs the pot with vigour and transcends the limits of form. Provocative and playful in equal parts, A Knock on the Door pushes the boundaries of the political film, too.

The film moves between the personal and the public, the psychological and the physical and the nightmarish and the tangible to depict the deleterious effect surveillance has on the human psyche.

Official power is vested in the police department and the dean of Prof. Hari Chowdhury's university. A deputy commissioner of police played by film conservationist and filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and the officer-in-charge of a police station, a role essayed by actor-director Ashoke Viswanathan do nothing to ease matters for the tyrannised.

Naseeruddin Shah dons the garb of the university dean who misses no opportunity to chastise Hari for his refusal to fall in line. He appropriates Bob Dylan to warn Hari of troubles up ahead. "There is a battle outside and it is ragin'," he says. The irony isn't lost on Hari because he knows "it is like the Emergency all over again".

Many such moments highlight the disconnect between the two married professors and Aman (Imaad Shah), a student writing a thesis under Hari's guidance, and the world around them that is swarming with pliable men and women out to prove that Ramona and Hari are going insane.

One person in their circle who Ramona and Hari have no reason to suspect (although there is palpable tension between her and the former at an emotional level) is Reena (Nandita Das), Hari's lawyer and ex (it isn't specified if she was a girlfriend or a wife).

Also on their side, at least on the face of it, is a psychiatrist (Anupriya Goenka), who seeks to soothe the nerves of her client. In an environment where truth and trust are at a premium, Ramona and Hari are, however, never rid of their reservations and trepidations.

A local politician contemptuous of the likes of Hari, an ice-cream vendor who also sells mask, a drunk caretaker whose memory is hard to rely on, a fishmonger's assistant who is too inquisitive for comfort, a biker who seems to be on Ramona's trail and law-enforcers who do everything other than what they are supposed to exacerbate matters for the victimised couple.

Palit's camera captures the characters and the settings in relationship, and in opposition, with each other. It also rustles up a veritable dance of light and shade, choreographed with an eye on reflecting the tension and trauma of two people holed up in their homes.

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The eclectic soundtrack (the background score is by filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee) is studded with mostly diegetic numbers and singing voices. They range from Goodnight Irene, an aria from a Handel opera and a Goalpara medley (sung by Adil Hussain) to a tribal protest song ( Gaon chorab nahi jungle chorab nahi ) and a Baul composition sung on-screen by Kanai Das Baul.

A gut-punch of a film driven by courage and clarity, A Knock on the Door is made all the more potent by its fine synthesis of heart and craft. An absolute triumph.

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Knock at the Cabin Is M. Night Shyamalan’s Best Film Since The Village

An enormous hulk of a man offering a flower to a young girl in the woods. It recalls one of the most enduring and chilling images in all of horror, from James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). That’s just one reason why we sense such dread in the opening scene of M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, as Dave Bautista’s Leonard murmurs to 7-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui), “I’m not from around here, but I’m looking to make some new friends. Can I talk to you?” Shyamalan makes sure to shoot Bautista from all the right angles, for maximum hugeness. And the actor plays it perfectly, his voice gentle, his eyes troubled, candor and reticence clashing beneath those unreal shoulders. We have no idea where this is going, even as we realize it can’t go anywhere good.

If you’ve seen the trailers for Knock at the Cabin , you probably already know that Leonard and a trio of strangers will soon present Wen and her parents, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), with an impossible choice: They must willingly sacrifice one member of their family in order to avert the apocalypse. Not an apocalypse but the apocalypse. “First, the cities will drown,” Leonard intones. “The oceans will rise up … A terrible plague will descend … The skies will fall and crash to the earth like pieces of glass.” Is he for real, or have our heroes been waylaid by a quartet of psychos? Again, Bautista’s performance stirs the uncertainty: The quaver in Leonard’s voice tells us that he believes what he’s saying but that he can’t believe that he’s saying what he’s saying — which in turn helps us believe what he’s saying.

Among the qualities that make Shyamalan such an effective director of thrillers is his fluency in the many languages of genre. The film smoothly moves from the textures of one type of chiller to another, even as the mood remains eerily consistent. That Frankenstein opening soon gives way to a home-invasion picture. Then, as Leonard’s cohorts try to convince Eric and Andrew of the reality of their cause, they speak about their families and their jobs and all they’ve given up to come out here to talk to these good people, and we recognize the fervency: It’s what we hear from deranged cult followers in movies. Finally, when we do catch glimpses of the chaos that Leonard foretells, we may realize that we’ve been inside a disaster flick all along.

In his best work, Shyamalan has also infused such genre theatrics with a decidedly earnest (and audience-friendly) form of humanity. It’s what defined his early films and his early success. But he seemed to wean himself off this tendency in later hits such as The Visit (2015) and Split (2016), which were a lot more ruthless and severe than pictures like The Village (2004), Signs (2002), and Unbreakable (2000). (That might have been because the director’s most emotionally naked film, 2006’s Lady in the Water , almost brought his career crashing down around him.) In Knock at the Cabin , that sincerity comes roaring back, not just in its flashbacks to Eric and Andrew’s early years and their adoption of Wen, but also in the snatches of information we get about the home invaders themselves. Leonard is an elementary-school teacher and bartender; Adriane (Abby Quinn) is a chef and a single mother; Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is a post-op nurse; Redmond (Rupert Grint, unrecognizable) is a shithead from Boston. Such moments make these people sadder, but also more dangerous; we learn just enough to start wondering about their lives, and a real person onscreen is always more menacing than a one-dimensional monster.

Knock at the Cabin is based on Paul Tremblay’s 2018 novel, The Cabin at the End of the World , and the script follows the book pretty closely for the first two-thirds, before delivering a dramatically different final act. There are deeper, spiritual differences between the two as well. Both are works of the apocalyptic imagination, but Tremblay’s tale is more insular, working the ambiguity of the situation to explore the characters’ faith and emotional perseverance; he keeps us mostly (and purposefully) in the dark about whether the terrible things Leonard is prophesying are in fact coming to pass. Shyamalan, however, understands that there is usually little ambiguity around such horrors in cinema, at least in today’s cinema. For him, uncertainty is merely a grace note to help build suspense (and to give the characters dimension), but there’s little doubt as to what’s going on. In 2023, when someone in a movie says the world is ending, it usually is.

That might be because of the way we make movies nowadays, but it might also be because of the way we think nowadays. Look at the TV and read the news; it seems like our world is always ending, and we are always helpless to change it. Earthquakes and tsunamis; pandemics run amok; planes falling from the sky. These ideas are all in Tremblay’s novel, but Shyamalan runs with the imagery, activating our sense memory of the horrors we’ve already lived through in the 21st century, as well as what we imagine will be the horrors to come. (And, depending on who we are, the horrors we imagine, or at least their causes, might be radically different.)

Grief often lies at the heart of Shyamalan’s work. Usually, that grief is in the past — traumatic losses, lives left unlived, bodies left broken. This time, however, it seems to lie in the future. In that opening scene, Leonard looks at the slight dent on Wen’s mouth where she once had a cleft lip. “I don’t have a scar like you, but if you look inside, you’ll see that my heart is broken,” he says. He’s talking specifically about the grisly deed he’s about to undertake. But in the grim quiet of the forest, Shyamalan and Bautista let the man’s sadness linger and expand. In his mournful silence, his heart breaks for the whole world.

At the same time, Knock at the Cabin reverses that aforementioned helplessness. What if , it asks, you could change things with just one act? Indeed, it makes a fine analog — and even maybe a counterpoint — to the common superhero movie, in which beings of great power come together over and over again to save the Earth. Here, a group of ordinary people come together to do the same, but, in a rather biblical twist, they can only do so in the most awful, gruesome, terrifying way. The result is the most exhilarating and wounding film M. Night Shyamalan has made in many, many years.

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IMAGES

The Knock At The Door Featured, Reviews Film Threat
NYCHFF 2016 Movie Review: A Knock At The Door
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A Knock at the Door (2010)
A Knock at the Door (2016)
Film Review: The Knock at the Door (short film) (2018)

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COMMENTS

Knock at the Cabin
Lorrie K A great movie. The stars did not disappoint. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/25/23 Full Review Adam D. Visceral and intense. All the characters were genuine and relatable.
Knock at the Cabin movie review (2023)
His latest, "Knock at the Cabin," uses the question of human behavior during the threat of end times to create a morality study that progressively hollows itself out. It's another minor work from a director whose films, especially after "After Earth," have been mostly major. It's a shame that the story isn't so good, because the ...
Knock at the Cabin review
Leonard is soon joined by his three friends: Redmond (Rupert Grint), Ardiane (Abby Quinn) and Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), all carrying strange-looking weapons, and they patiently explain to this ...
'Knock at the Cabin' Review: M. Night Shyamalan Delivers B-Movie ...
Opening in a quiet January still ruled by box office-conquering Avatar: The Way of Water, Knock at the Cabin is a small movie with some big ideas.It takes the hugest of dangers -- the end of the ...
'Knock at the Cabin' review: M. Night Shyamalan film gets apocalyptic
But when there's a "Knock at the Cabin," definitely answer the door. Based on Paul Tremblay's provocative 2018 horror novel "The Cabin at the End of the World," the pre-apocalyptic film ...
"Knock at the Cabin," Reviewed: Be Nice to the QAnoners, or They'll Do
The movie's answer is a sickening one. "Knock at the Cabin" is an adaptation—or rather an extreme transformation—of the novel "The Cabin at the End of the World," by Paul Tremblay ...
'Knock at the Cabin' opens a suspenseful door to what might ...
Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn and Nikki Amuka-Bird in director M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation "Knock at the Cabin." Sharing script credit with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, Shyamalan opens up ...
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
Knock at the Cabin: Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. With Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird. While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse.
Review: 'Knock at the Cabin' is peak-form Shyamalan, a suspense master
Don't bet against it. "Knock at the Cabin," directed and co-written by Shyamalan, is an adaptation of the 2018 novel "The Cabin at the End of the World" by Paul Tremblay. Don't grab the book to figure out the ending since Shyamalan modified it to suit his own brand of terror, which means creating an atmosphere of compelling claustrophobia that ...
Knock at the Cabin
Knock at the Cabin is a 2023 American apocalyptic psychological horror film written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote the screenplay from an initial draft by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman.It is based on the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay, the first adaptation of one of his works.The film stars Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben ...
Knock at the Cabin ending explained: How M. Night Shyamalan twist
The outcome of this sequence is completely left out of the movie. There are also some cosmetic changes. For instance, Andrew kills Adriane with the gun from his car in the book, while he ends up ...
'Knock at the Cabin' Review: Who's There? The Apocalypse
Feb. 2, 2023. Knock at the Cabin. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Horror, Mystery, Thriller. R. 1h 40m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site ...
Knock at the Cabin First Reviews: Dave Bautista Shines in M. Night
When M. Night Shymalan comes knocking, fans of twisty thrillers answer. The writer and director's latest, Knock at the Cabin, should be met by his usual crowd, given that its premise contains yet another suspenseful scenario. In the movie, four strangers show up at a family's cabin claiming that the end of the world is near.
'Knock at the Cabin' Review: Dave Bautista Saves M. Night Shyamalan
In. Knock at the Cabin, a Terrific Dave Bautista Saves M. Night Shyamalan From Himself. Dave Bautista gives a career-best performance as a messenger of the apocalypse. M. Night Shyamalan movies ...
How 'Knock at the Cabin' Is Different From the Book
February 3, 2023 3:45 PM EST. Warning: This post contains spoilers for Knock at the Cabin. In writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's new movie Knock at the Cabin, one family is faced with a ...
Knock at the Cabin Movie Review
Parents need to know that Knock at the Cabin is a horror-thriller from director M. Night Shyamalan about two dads (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) and their young daughter (Kristen Cui) who are asked by four intruders to execute one member of their family in order to save humanity.Based on a novel by Paul Tremblay, it's a suspenseful, economical, and even intimate film that wrestles with the ...
Knock at the Cabin review: underbaked thriller from M. Night Shyamalan
And so the stark and spooky premise of Knock feels like a promise: a happy family having a bucolic weekend in the woods; four strangers at the door. Surely Shyamalan, notorious twist-lord of the ...
Review: 'Knock at the Cabin' twists the home invasion horror
The tale, adapted from Paul G. Tremblay's 2018 novel "The Cabin at the End of the World" with a notable tweak to the ending, cleverly inverts the home invasion thriller. There are, undoubtedly, deeper avenues of exploration left unexamined. But there are also B-movie pleasures that deviate from horror convention, and even some of the ...
Knock at The Cabin: Everything We Know So Far
Originally teased last October in a tweet from M. Night Shyamalan showcasing the film's title paired with ominous knocking sounds, Knock at the Cabin is nearly here. The movie is the second out ...
'Knock at the Cabin' Review: It's Not Worth Answering the Door for M
For a movie about quasi-religious violence the film seems genuinely terrified to say anything harsh about organized religion, specifically or in general, and its actual history of violence.
A Knock On The Door Review: A Gut-Punch Of A Film Driven By ...
A still from A Knock On The Door. Cast: Adil Hussain, Amrita Chattopadhyay, Nandita Das, Imaad Shah, Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah. Director: Ranjan Palit. Rating: Four stars (out of 5) In A ...
Official Discussion
Summary: While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse. Director: M. Night Shyamalan. Writers: M. Night Shyamalan, Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman. Cast: Dave Bautista as Leonard.
Movie Review: 'Knock at the Cabin,' From M. Night Shyamalan
Knock at the Cabin is based on Paul Tremblay's 2018 novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, and the script follows the book pretty closely for the first two-thirds, before delivering a ...

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