‘Knock at the Cabin’ movie review: M. Night Shyamalan’s latest is mildly entertaining at best

A still from ‘Knock at the Cabin’
| Photo Credit: Universal Pictures

Knock! Knock!

Who’s there?

Happening

Happening who?

Happening at The Cabin at the End of the World.

Yes, I know it is silly but there is something about M. Night Shyamalan’s latest feature that makes me think facetiously. Based on Paul G. Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World (2018), which won the Bram Stoker Award, Knock at the Cabin opens in a sunny wilderness. A little girl, Wen (Kristen Cui), is studying grasshoppers, putting them in a big glass jar, naming them and writing down their dispositions in a notebook.

She meets Leonard (Dave Bautista) and talks to him even though she initially says she does not talk to strangers. Wen becomes suspicious when Leonard tells her that he and his companions have to do something they do not wish to do.

On seeing Leonard and his three companions: Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint) with their scary, makeshift weapons, Wen runs to warn her parents, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge).

After huffing and puffing and finally blowing part of the house in, Leonard explains the end of the world is nigh and Eric, Andrew, and Wen are the only ones who can stop it by a willing sacrifice. Leonard uses news reports of tsunamis, earthquakes, planes falling out of the sky, and mysterious viruses to prove his point.

Shot with 1990s lenses for an old-school thriller look, Knock at the Cabin is beautifully framed, with tight close-ups and elegant takes — that reflection of the setting (or was it rising?) sun and feet scurrying away from the sofa immediately come to mind. Despite the horror of the choice that must be made, and the general likeability of the cast, Knock at the Cabin, does not grab your eye and keep it. There are holes in the logic and a vaguely annoying preachiness that explains the digression into ‘knock, knock’ jokes.

The second movie after Old in Shyamalan’s two-picture deal with Universal Pictures, Knock at the Cabin is also the second of Shyamalan’s movies to get an ‘R’ rating — 2008’s The Happening was the first. Maybe the vanilla-isation of Tremblay’s novel for a conventional Hollywood ending diluted the overall effect, but Knock at the Cabin is one you do not need to answer. And if you do decide to open the door, be prepared to only be mildly entertained.

Knock at the Cabin is currently running in theatres