I’m an M. Night Shyamalan fan. I know he gets a lot of hate from certain horror critics but, in my view, he’s on par with James Wan and Guillermo del Toro. And he’s easily better than Jordan Peele and Andy Muschietti. I absolutely love The Sixth Sense, The Village, and The Happening. The Unbreakable movies are pretty good, and so is Signs, despite its obvious flaws. Only his 2021 film Old did I find somewhat disappointing. (I’m actually surprised I didn’t do review on it, because I know I watched it within the last year.)
Well, Knock at the Cabin might be Shyamalan’s greatest film to date. But he can’t take all the credit. This movie is based on the novel by Paul Tremblay, titled The Cabin at the End of the World, which is actually a lot better title, in my opinion. The idea here is simply awesome.
As usual with newer flicks, I’m not going to give too much away, but here’s the basic plot: Four people show up to a remote cabin in the woods where a gay couple and their adopted daughter are staying on vacation. The four strangers inform the family that they must choose one of them (the family members) to kill, otherwise the world will come to an end.
Isn’t that a badass idea?!
Part of what makes the movie so great is that you can tell the four strangers don’t want to be there. You can tell they don’t want to hurt anyone or tie anyone up; rather, they feel as if they have no choice. So, in a sense, there is no bad guy in this movie. Even though one of the strangers the audience is clearly meant to dislike because of his earlier behavior, that’s used as a plot device to increase tension and uncertainty, rather than make him an outright villain.
The acting is spot-on from everyone, especially Dave Bautista. Dude has come a long way from Guardians of the Galaxy. And the suspense just builds and builds in this film. My wife and I were constantly discussing what we would do in the same situation. We were both on the edges of our seats throughout.
But it wasn’t without flaws. I didn’t think the flashbacks were necessary. That seemed to cause hiccups in the pacing. I know Shyamalan isn’t one to do gore, but he could have used it more effectively in this movie, instead of panning away in those scenes. It has an R rating anyway. And the ending is predictable. But, really, there were only two possible endings based on the premise.
PC3’s Horror and Exploitation Movie Scale of Awesomeness!
Gore - 3
Special Effects - 6
Nudity/Sexuality - 0
Wow Factor - 6
Acting - 8
Fear Factor - 9
Story/Plot/Originality - 7
Cinematography/Atmosphere - 7
Sound/Music - 7 (Shyamalan has a weird way of using quietness to make movies creepier)
Fun Factor - 6
That’s a total of 59 on the PHEMSA for Knock at the Cabin. It’s pretty damn good. We rented it on Prime. I’m not aware that you can watch it anywhere for free at the time of this writing.