Susan Granger’s review of “Knock at the Cabin” (Universal Pictures)
For better or worse, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan built his reputation on psychological horror films with twist endings, beginning with “I see dead people” from “The Sixth Sense” (1999). But it hasn’t always paid off – i.e.: “Lady in the Water,” “The Happening,“ “Signs,” “Old.”
Now with “Knock at the Cabin,” Shyamalan introduces a family held hostage by four home-invaders who firmly believe that an apocalypse is coming that will envelop all of humanity.
It begins with little, seven-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) catching grasshoppers and trapping them in a jar. As she crouches in the woods, she’s approached by a gentle, bespectacled stranger who politely introduces himself as Leonard (Dave Bautista), a second-grade schoolteacher from Chicago, noting, “My heart is broken because of what I have to do today.”
Wen is on vacation in rural Pennsylvania with her two adoptive fathers – Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge). When she runs inside to warn them that their peaceful idyll may be over, they try to barricade the cabin – to no avail. Plus, the phone lines have been cut and there’s no cell-service.
Along with creepy Leonard, there’s Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a nurse from Southern California; Adrienne (Abby Quinn), a cook at Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.; and Raymond (Rupert Grint), an ex-con who works for a gas company in Medford, Massachusetts.
Wielding weird, homemade weapons, they’ve all experienced portentous ‘visions’ of impending doom and firmly believe that the only way to stop horrific world-wide destruction is for two of the hostages to choose to sacrifice the third.
Adapting Paul G. Tremblay’s novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” (2018) with lots of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, Shyamalan and co-writers Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman dawdle with the consequences of extreme religious fanaticism embodied by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
FYI: Do you recognize now-grown Rupert Grint as Daniel Radcliffe’s pal Ron Weasley in the “Harry Potter’ franchise?
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Knock at the Cabin” is an ominous 6, streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
