‘Knock at the Cabin’ review: Dave Bautista is the true revelation of M. Night Shyamalan’s apocalypse
M. Night Shyamalan comes knocking with one of his signature thrillers, you never know what’s going to appear. Maybe it’s a kid who sees ghosts or a reluctant, unbreakable superhero, or a houseplant that wants to kill you.
But when there’s a “Knock at the Cabin,” definitely answer the door. Based on Paul Tremblay’s provocative 2018 horror novel “The Cabin at the End of the World,” the pre-apocalyptic film (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) is top-shelf Shyamalan. Centered on a family having to make the most dreadful of decisions, “Knock” is a well-crafted intimate thriller that plays with your expectations and immerses you in a disconcerting situation.
It also features a knockout dramatic performance from Dave Bautista, the massive – and massively talented – wrestler-turned-actor, who’s never been better.
Eight-year-old Wen (newcomer Kristen Cui) is vacationing at a remote Pennsylvania cabin with her adoptive dads, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) when a mountain of a man named Leonard (Bautista) approaches her in the woods. A gentle giant, Leonard disarms Wen by helping her catch grasshoppers and says he needs to talk with her parents.
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That’s when she sees the armed strangers with him carrying makeshift weapons. Soon enough, Leonard knocks on the cabin door and he and his group – Redmond (Rupert Grint), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) – take the family hostage, insisting they don’t want to hurt anybody. However, they arrive with a doomsday task: Leonard tells Eric and Andrew that the family must sacrifice one of its own for the sake of humanity – if they don’t, well, cue R.E.M. because it’s the end of the world as we know it.
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The filmmaker intersperses quite a few flashbacks, most of them unnecessary, and they often futz with the strong claustrophobic tension in the cabin. But he revels in absolutely chilling apocalyptic imagery, including enormous crushing tidal waves and airplanes falling from the sky, like the Book of Revelation taking pages from modern times.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” star brings a fearsome unpredictability to this mystery group as the tale unfolds: Are they members of some crazy cult, or are they actually on the level?
Saving the world vs. saving your family is an intriguingly rapturous concept to explore, and “Cabin” succeeds the same way Shyamalan’s best films do: by giving you something powerful to watch and something even deeper to think about later.