Don't knock this 'Cabin': M. Night Shyamalan returns in apocalyptic form
“Knock at the Cabin” - ★ ★ ★
Leave it to M. Night Shyamalan to turn a simple, creepy home invasion thriller into an apocalyptic tale steeped in the biblical Book of Revelations.
Or, it might be just a simple, creepy home invasion thriller driven by imaginative homophobic psychopaths who've concocted a diabolically cruel way to punish same-sex couples for daring to raise a child.
Either way, “Knock at the Cabin” reasserts Shyamalan's standing as the Rod Serling of the silver screen, combining three of the inconsistent filmmaker's favorite topics: horror, Christian theology and jack-in-the-box surprises.
It begins with a looming stranger (“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Dave Bautista) approaching a little girl (Kristen Cui) in the woods outside of the cabin rented by her fathers Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) on a vacation.
The stranger says his name is Leonard. He talks to adorable little Wen in a soothing, calming manner that instantly wins her trust. (We find out later how he has mastered this skill.)
He begins to say disturbing things, frightening Wen, who rushes to her dads and demands they lock the doors and windows.
They do.
But that doesn't stop Leonard and three seemingly disturbed cohorts - Redmond (Rupert Grint), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Adriane (Abby Quinn) - from smashing into the cabin, tying the dads to chairs, then apologetically demanding they make a jaw-dropping “Sophie's Choice” decision because of the visions they have shared.
The family of three must choose one of them to be sacrificed, and the other two must then kill that person, otherwise the world will end in a biblical, global conflagration of plagues, famine, skies falling like glass shards, earthquakes and tsunamis.
The dads react with predictable solidarity: No way will they make such a choice.
Led by an unusually emotive Bautista, these invaders do not resemble the typical, sadistic horror film intruders from “The Strangers” and “Us.” They seem inordinately sincere, and desperate, especially Quinn's Adriane, whose anguished plea to save her son's life resonates with the dads.
Leonard turns on the TV news to show the dads how the end of the world has already begun with quakes and floods. He hopes that will persuade them to make their horrific choice.
Andrew then notices small print on the screen that says “prerecorded.”
He also says that he recognizes Redmond as the homophobic attacker who smashed a bottle over his head in a bar.
“We're targets!” he says to Eric. “We've always been targets!”
“Knock at the Cabin” - based on Paul Tremblay's 2018 novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” - keeps us in a constant state of disequilibrium as the two dads struggle to sort fact from what can't possibly be true.
Aided by a well-detailed sound design (creaking floorboards never sounded this good) and Herdís Stefánsdóttir's jittery score, the movie also benefits from an “old school thriller” look accomplished by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke's use of 1990s camera lenses.
Oddly, Shyamalan blunts the movie's violent acts, despite that “Cabin” has been rated R (his second R-rated work after his silly killer-trees tale “The Happening”) and could have easily upped the edgy horror quotient by going more graphic.
“Just watch!” Leonard tells the dads as TV news reports seem to confirm his dire predictions.
With this provocative thriller, we have no choice.
Starring: Dave Bautista, Kristen Cui, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Rupert Grint
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Other: A Universal Pictures release. Rated R for language, violence. 100 minutes