Knock at the Cabin Review

Based on Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018, Knock at the Cabin continues M. Night Shyamalan’s trend to make tight, claustrophobic horror films.

Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) are a couple who go to a cabin in rural Pennsylvania with their seven-year-old daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui). Their peace gets shattered when they are attacked by a group of four strangers led by the hulking Leonard (Dave Bautista). Leonard tells the family that one of them must be killed to prevent the apocalypse. Eric and Andrew refuse to believe them but the news shows disasters happening around the world.

Shyamalan has had an interesting career. He was declared the next Spielberg after making The Sixth Sense, became a laughingstock because of films like Lady in the Water, The Happening, and The Last Airbender, and had a resurgence in the mid-2010s. Shyamalan had a comeback with the one-two punch of The Visit and Split. Since those films, Shyamalan has found his niche, making high-concept films made in restrictive locations. Knock at the Cabin filled that bill.

Knock at the Cabin felt a lot like 10 Cloverfield Lane, since both were claustrophobic, locked-room films with an apocalyptic edge. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, a young woman gets rescued after a car chase by a survivalist and wakes in his bunker just as the apocalypse happens. Knock at the Cabin was set in a small location just as the catastrophic events happen on the news.

In Knock at the Cabin Eric and Andrew refuse to believe their attackers. The thrust of the film was two-fold. The first thrust the question of what were the attackers’ motives. Were there genuine, homophobes or being manipulated in some form? The other was the moral dilemma since Eric and Andrew’s refusal to make a sacrifice which could lead to millions dying. It had great dramatic tension throughout the film.

Shyamalan plays to his strengths with Knock at the Cabin. He knows how to make creepy, tense films, and Knock at the Cabin was creepy and unsettling. It had an atmosphere of dread, both on personal and global levels. It was chilling when death and violence happened because the film cut away when the deadly acts happened

Knock at the Cabin had a lot of character drama. Andrew was shown to be the more cynical member of the couple. Flashback scenes revealed why Andrew was more aggressive than Eric. The flashbacks in this film were similar to the ones in Split. Eric seemed more receptive to the home invaders as more news reports get shown.

Three of the four home invaders were shown to be more complicated than they first appeared. Leonard seemed like a big scary guy due to his muscles and tattoos but he was softly spoken and an elementary school teacher. He was calm throughout everything. He was not a raging maniac. Bautista shows once again why he’s one of the best wrestlers-turned-actors.

The women in the group, Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Adriane (Abby Quinn) were likable characters. Adriane was especially likable because she was a cook and nurturing towards Wen. Sabrina was a nurse who had to use her training. They seemed like decent people before the events of the film and the question was what were their motivations?

As a writer, Shyamalan has a knack for making dialogue sound unnatural. His previous film, Old was ruined by the characters speaking like robots trying to figure out how humans speak. Knock at the Cabin was a massive improvement since the conversations felt more natural and real. There was still some chunky dialogue but it was still better than some of Shyamalan’s films. It probably helped that Shyamalan was working from someone else’s source material, and he worked with two other writers when adapting the novel.

Knock at the Cabin shows that Shyamalan can still be capable of intriguing and unsettling films. It fitted the model of his latest films and one of his post-resurgences.