Knock at the Cabin (2023)
“Are you willing to make a sacrifice?”
As a cinema loving birthday present I decided to treat both myself and my horror film loving son to the fifteenth all time feature length directed film from the master of suspense, M Night Shyamalan. Oh the allure of that cavernous, darkened room and the biggest of cinema screens! Popcorn? Birthday cake? A bag or two of illicit sweets sneaked into the auditorium under the cover of cinematic darkness? And how about a twisted tale of the four horseman of the apocalypse, in the guise of a softly spoken, soothsaying teacher, a cook, an ex convict and a kindly empathetic nurse, knocking at a remote cabin door and spoiling the would be holiday makers lives and dreams whilst asking for the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the world from earth destroying tsunamis, earthquakes, a deadly virus or aeroplanes simply dropping from the sky? Sure!
Sounds like my kind of birthday!
I’ve enjoyed a roller coaster cinematic life with the films of the Indian born filmmaker. M Night Shyamalan will forever be to me that fresh faced kid who tricked and astounded the world of film in 1999 with The Sixth Sense before following this incredible film with a hat-trick of films (Unbreakable, Signs, The Village) that are deep personal favourites if largely critically unloved and underappreciated within the film community. From The Village in 2004 over a decade would pass in which I would completely tune out from the films of M Night Shyamalan, completely avoiding The Lady in the Water or The Last Airbender but with the aforementioned horror film loving son now of an appropriate age we saw Split (2016) and Glass (2019) from the confines of our local cinema and have recently completed a another hat-trick of fantastic and highly recommended films with Old in 2021.
So where does Knock at the Cabin feature on this cinematic roller coaster I hear you whisper in soft soothing tones amid tales of the end of the world?
Based upon the 2018 book “The Cabin at the End of the World” by Paul Tremblay, firstly they should have used this title for the film and secondly, M Night Shyamalan’s latest cinematic creation features toward the higher arc of my cinematic roller coaster for his films, yet I initially love it the least of his four most recent releases. That’s a little unsurprising as I adore Split, Glass and Old but my son and I were repeatedly looking at each other in a gruelling and suspense dripping opening, but I found this drained away completely once our four horsemen (and women) of an apocalyptic future had not only knocked at the cabin but eventually forced their way in.
Between this and a somewhat tame ending is a brilliantly constructed and shot film from M Night Shyamalan where the soft spoken and disarmingly quiet candour of Dave Bautista as the invading group’s spokesman is seemingly always shot from below with Bautista in close up, crouching over or peering down at a frightened family thrown into a sacrificial end of the world dilemma. “My heart is broken with what I have to do today” he intones quietly and without any malice or aggression. He and his apocalyptic cult have all been drawn together today, for this moment and for this family, by “visions” of a future that can be only be averted with the ultimate sacrifice of all.
“Are you willing to make a sacrifice?”
With only 24 credited roles, 7 are paramount, headed by Dave Bautista and brilliantly scored in the horrific reality of a confusing unreality by Kristen Cui as the youngest cast member “Wen”. Protected by adoptive parents “Eric” and “Redmond” (Jonathan Groff and Rupert Grint) from Bautista’s gently intoned proclamations of the end of the world, Cui excels from beginning to end of an end of the world apocalyptic tale that almost works but which continues my fandom of its creator and director and a perfect way to spend a birthday trip to the beautifully dark confines of a cinema.
“Knock at the Cabin” can also be found within my 7 volumes of “Essential Film Reviews Collection” on Amazon with each and every volume free to read should you have a Kindle “Unlimited” package. All 9 of my self-published books can also be read for free on Kindle (but go on, treat yourself to a paperback or hardback version!) and should you watch my short Youtube video linked in the middle of this article you’ll also find links to my Patreon and Buy Me A Coffee and other ways of supporting my work as an independent writer.
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection VOL.1" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.