During a Family’s Getaway, Some Unwelcome Visitors Arrive

Abby Quinn, Nikki Amuka-Bird,
Dave Bautista, and Rupert Grint in
"Knock at the Cabin"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Paul Tremblay has become a reliable author over the years when it comes to the horror genre.  Between his novels like “The Cabin at the End of the World” and “Survivor’s Song,” and his short-story collections like the superb “Growing Things,” he’s developed chilling narratives that impact you with their themes every bit as much as they entertain.  He has a talent for crafting scenarios that pull you right in and have you wanting to turn page after page.

His novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” now gets the film treatment from M. Night Shyamalan with “Knock at the Cabin.”  Equipped with terrific performances and a strong adherence to the source material, Shyamalan brings us one of his best movies yet.

Seven-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) is vacationing with her adoptive parents Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) at a remote cabin.  One day, four strangers named Leonard (Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint) break into the cabin and take the family hostage.  Leonard and his group tell their captives that the family must sacrifice one of their own in order to prevent the apocalypse.

Cui, Groff, Aldridge, and exemplify their characters’ unbreakable love for each other as their lives become tested in a most unimaginable way.  We see the care and trust that they’ve built amongst themselves over the years, showing a family that displays an unwavering strength during this momentous period.  They do whatever they can to protect each other, offering an effective emotional core to the film.  This is an engaging trio of performances as we see their characters’ fear give way to their resilience.

While Bautista has had many opportunities to show his comedic talents in movies like the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films and the recent “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” he’s also succeeded in darker roles like his superb one-scene appearance in “Blade Runner 2049” and his chilling, villainous supporting turn in “Dune.”  So, it’s great to see him in a role where he’s able to exercise this side of his talent even more.  Here, this is a performance that begins with a friendly side to Leonard as he tries to gains Wyn’s trust in the opening scene, with Bautista then exhibiting his character’s deep sense of regret at what he has to do, while also showing Leonard’s acknowledgement of this being the only way to do it.  This is a magnetic performance that shows someone who’s trying to keep calm under pressure after being given an unfathomably momentous task that he must see carried out.  There’s a sense of heartbreak in him, showing that he has some care for the family and what happens to them, while also trying to guide their decision in a direction that would spare the world.

Aside from Bautista, the other three members of Leonard’s group are given a chance to show their talents.  Like Bautista’s character, Amuka-Bird, Quinn, and Grint all express their characters’ pain in knowing what they have to do.  There’s an intensity to all of them as they attempt to reason with the family to have them make the sacrifice, showing them trying to contain their panic as time runs out. 

While the screenplay by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond, and Michael Sherman may falter a bit near the beginning with some awkward dialogue, the rest of the script creates an adaptation that takes what was impactful about the book and translates it to the screen in an accomplished way.  The writers know what they had to omit while still keeping all of the novel’s biggest moments for a lean, thought-provoking 100-minute movie.  It follows the same flow as the book, with Leonard and Wyn meeting each other in the opening minutes, and then having the main scenario unfold.  Just like in the book, we get flashbacks peppered throughout the main story that build on the relationship between Eric, Andrew, and Wyn, showing how much of a bond they have and investing us in their ordeal.  While this is an adaptation that’s mostly faithful to Tremblay’s novel, Shyamalan, Desmond, and Sherman make a couple of changes that don’t feel unnecessary in the least, but instead let us see the themes of the story from a new angle.

The cinematography by Jarin Blaschke Lowell A. Meyer utilizes the claustrophobic setting of the cabin, just as the former did with the enclosed environment of Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse.”  With most of the film taking place inside the cabin, Blaschke and Meyer do a fine job in capturing the tightness of the cabin, despite the main area feeling rather spacious.  And, as is typical with Shyamalan’s films, Blaschke and Meyer use long takes that capture memorable character moments and let them play out uninterrupted to have us experience their full impact, particularly a pivotal scene with Leonard near the film’s end.

 

One of the highlights from Blaschke and Meyer’s work comes at the beginning with the scene between Leonard and Wen, with the characters building their trust in each other during the buildup of apprehension that something terrible is about to take place.  With out-of-focus backgrounds that help us focus more on the characters, close-ups that get tighter and tighter, and a transition to titled angles, Blaschke and Meyer’s camerawork captures the unsettling prelude to the eventual meeting of the family and these strangers.

While Shyamalan went through a rocky period with his filmography for several years, he’s slowly been getting back into the groove that made him a distinctive voice when it came to the horror and thriller genres.  As with his best movies, “Knock at the Cabin” displays his talents for getting an abundance of creepiness out of the scenarios that he films, while also evoking committed, emotional performances out of his cast to have us feel the weight of what’s happening to their characters.  Between his penchant for creating an unsettling atmosphere and the way in which he frames everything, Shyamalan exhibits his grasp on the sense of dread that permeates Tremblay’s novel, having a tight hold on us as we watch the family traverse an unthinkable situation.

With his latest film, Shyamalan reminds us that he can be a great filmmaker when he doesn’t let his bad instincts get in the way, and that he still has the ability to have us come knocking to see what he has in store.

Grade: A-