*No twists spoiled here, but still…

IMDB Synopsis

While vacationing at a remote cabin in the woods, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand they make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. Confused, scared and with limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.

“My heart is broken because of what I have to do today”

M. Night Shyamalan has always been a divisive figure, but there has never been any doubt that he knows how to direct a movie. Sure he has made some clunkers, but even some of the bad ones still look good and have interesting ideas in them. His new movie KNOCK AT THE CABIN is no different that is has an amazing premise, that asks hard hitting questions, but like some of his stories before, leaves you wanting a little more at the end.

This movie basically asks the question, if you had to choose one of your family members to kill or the apocalypse will happen, what will you do? Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and Wen (Kristen Cui), encounter this question when they are taken hostage by Leonard (Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint). These four people say they have seen visions of an apocalypse and only if Eric, Andrew, and Wen choose to kill one of themselves it will stop.

What I like about the movie is that it is a super tight script, that does not linger on any one plot line. It also is super tense because of the nature of the story and the fact that each step you never really know what is going to happen next. What I did not like though was the end, which happens in Shyamalan movies because he tends to rely on twists. This one for me was fine, but it did not feel like it added that much to the overall story. I do not know what would make it better but I know this is not how I expected this to go.

On the technical side, M. Night continues to show why he is one of the best directors of camerawork out there. He used Robert Eggers normal Cinematographer this time and it makes sense because all of Eggers movies have incredible visual storytelling. So to utilize the camera movements to increase the tension was the perfect way to keep pushing this movie forward. I am excited to keep watching him push the boundaries of what a camera can do on screen.

Stock Watch

Stock Up – Dave Bautista

Bautista has made quite a career for himself post WWE. He works with great directors like Master Denis, Rian Johnson, and Zach Snyder. He also has been great for years as Drax in the Guardians movies. This was a very different role for him, and he absolutely nailed it. What he was doing was horrifying, but his sensitivity and calmness the whole time was incredible. I do think he has a future as a leading man.

*A couple other tidbits

• Rupert Grint was great, I am happy to see him continuing to make cool choices in projects.
• Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge really made for a great couple and felt completely real.
• Justice for Wen, she has been through enough.

M. Night continues to surprise and entertain and that is really all you can ask for after all of these years. I thought this was a very tense and spine tingling movie, like I said though you may leave the theater feeling like you just wanted a little bit more. I still recommend it though because of the incredible technical brilliance.

Juice Rating:

*You can find my 2023 Movie Rankings here.

*You can find my M. Night Shyamalan Rankings here.

*You can find all of my Movie Ratings here.

*You can follow my Letterboxd account here.