Like all Shyamalan films, the tension in “Knock at the Cabin,” co-written by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman (and adapted from Paul Tremblay’s novel “The Cabin at the End of the World”), begins with its coyly interesting though very recognizable premise. A couple of intimidating strangers (led by Dave Bautista’s weapon-toting schoolteacher) darken the doorstep of a happy family trying in vain to enjoy their vacation.
After getting in good with the happy family’s adorable daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), by helping her collect a few grasshoppers outside, Leonard (Bautista), as we quickly learn, has a seemingly sinister ulterior motive.
But wait, Leonard and his crew’s attempt to persuade these innocent fathers is by breaking into their home with old-timey weapons (something resembling what is seen in literally any Edgar Allan Poe screen adaptation) and brutalizing them. They’re good people with good intentions, though, they promise. They don’t want to hurt them.
Jordan Peele’s “Nope,” despite its many faults, did at least a more interesting job of building, marginally speaking, images and themes that are spiritual in nature, though without follow-through. “Knock at the Cabin” urges both its audience and its protagonists to believe that humanity has a higher purpose and that violence is the way to achieve it.
This is actually answered in the film, but it’s so inane that you really do start to wonder whether anyone else actually exists inside the world Shyamalan, Desmond and Sherman create here. Because this family really is just your average folks who made a big mistake leaving the city for some fresh air at this particular moment in time.
Still, the filmmakers try to supplement that flimsy response by leaning into the fundamental horrors of queer existence through flashbacks of the couple: a homophobic assault at a bar, with their prejudiced parents and the biased barriers in the adoption process. And, as off-subject as ever and an exasperatingly unchallenged revelation, Andrew had a temper issue.
These scenes all seem like they’re from completely unrelated movies. They don’t inform the present story, and when accusations of bigotry do enter the current narrative, they sound totally out of place. Despite anything they’ve actually said, the intruders are ultimately sacrificing themselves, not targeting this family.
That is until Andrew and Eric also start acting in ways that do not match any actual human response, out of absolutely nowhere. “Knock at the Cabin” doesn’t make a case about either the believers (the trespassers) or the ones who apparently need to believe (Wen, Andrew and Eric — and/or maybe the audience?).
So the idea that any disbeliever, like these protagonists, would be converted by the end of the movie by sheer intimidation and no real provocation is maddening. Their most imminent danger is in human form and weakening by the minute.
This content was originally published here.
