KNOCK AT THE CABIN
(director/writer: M. Night Shyamalan; screenwriters: Michael Sherman/Steve Desmond/based on the novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay; cinematographers: Jarin Blaschke/Lowell A. Meyer; editor: Noemi Katharina Preiswerk; music: Herdis Stefansdottir; cast: David Bautista (Leonard), Jonathan Groff (Eric), Abby Quinn (Adriane), Rupert Grint (Redmond), Ben Aldrich (Andrew), Kristen Cui (Wen), Nikki Amuka- Bird (Sabrina); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: R; producers: M. Night Shyamalan/Marc Bienstock/Ashwin Rajan; Universal Pictures; 2023)
“Another lousy ‘end of the world’ film from M. Night Shyamalan.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Another lousy ‘end of the world’ film from M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”/”Glass”) that he co-writes with Michael Sherman and Steve Desmond that they adapted to the screen from the inane 2018 best-seller novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” by Paul Tremblay. The gloomy tale uses the OT Bible as source material for a morality play. The uninspiring story leads to an unconvincing climax, with its ‘big reveal’, too absurd to take as serious.
It’s a nightmare Doomsday tale whereby a gay couple, in the Pennsylvania woods, receive a knock on their cabin door from a gentle heavily tattooed giant named Leonard (David Bautista), sporting a hip looking pair of shades, who is greeted outside by the couple’s Chinese-American 8-year-old adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), playing in the field with grasshoppers, as Leonard asks to speak to her parents. They are Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), who are spending a quiet week-end in the country in a rental cabin. The big dude is accompanied by three homemade weapon-carrying sidekicks (played by Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint), who take the couple in the cabin prisoners. The couple is asked by him to sacrifice either themselves or their 8-year-old daughter Wen to save the Earth. They are told the longer they take to decide who wil be sacrificed, the more the Earth will experience bad things like earthquakes.
Using flashbacks, the four intruders each tell their story, which leads to the need of human sacrifices.
That the pic made no sense, was emotionally flat and left me not caring what happened, made me think how pointless it was.
REVIEWED ON 2/7/2023 GRADE: C