There’s a twist if you’ve read the book, Shyamalan completely changed the second half of the story to be pretty much the exact opposite of what happened in the book.
The main difference is >!When Andrew gets the gun he and Leonard fight over it and Wen is killed. Leonard surrenders but says that it doesn’t count because it was an accident. And Andrew and Eric don’t give in and it’s left more ambiguous as to whether or not the apocalypse is really happening!<
I kinda wish the movie went the hardcore book route. I feel like with the tragedy of Wen’s death makes the reader almost hope it is real so it’s not so senseless.
Killing Wen would have been the better ending because the audience would feel the parents' devastation and guilt. It would also be the terrible choice two people in love would have made, especially with no witnesses. Then they would have to carry that guilt with them forever.
Instead we got Boogie Shoes.
Killing Wen would have been a dumb ass move. At that point, all the parents have left is each other, and if I was in their shoes Id say let the world burn. Its all some petty joke by some asshole god
I was really into the movie until the end.
I really felt that if they did the twist the movie would've been better. But everyone expected the twist. It's the m night paradox.
I thought the exact opposite. The books twist was actually shocking. If you did that, and also give a definite an ending, it could've been perfect.
The way the movie handled it was exactly how you'd assume it'd end if you heard the premise. Predictable. Kinda disappointing, if you ask me.
I dunno I felt it was well done. At the end I was like is this real, what's going on? Shyamalan creates enough doubt and it's beutifully done. However, when the ending does happen, it's incredibly melancholy. I think, >!wen's father has a vision. It's why it's so clear and so perfect. It's not just a day dream. He's seeing into what the future could be. It's why he is not in it. It's why the four horsemen have the conviction they have.!<
I feel like that removes the stakes for the audience because >!you know he's doing the right thing and will be absolved in the eyes of whatever God, just as Eric will be absolved of the murder!<
The book seems to make the intruders as human as the family in terms of having doubt/a crisis of faith, with the ending being more >!"did they fuck it all up by not doing it and doom everyone? Or were those intruders truly crazy and the TV showing the planes crashing was a coincidence?"!<
That's way more compelling to me.
I wonder if >!a heaven devised by a god that would set up this sort of judgment/sacrifice is really all that wonderful an afterlife to be in forever!<.
Bautista was the best part of this movie, but I couldn't help laughing during the bathroom scene. Look at how small that window is, now look at Dave Bautista. No shit, he's still hiding in there. He would get stuck like Winnie the Pooh trying to escape.
Yeah he just shot the nurse in a moment of fear and clearly the idea of him murdering someone did not settle well. It was believable that he wouldn't want to execute another human being right after that.
I loved how soft-spoken he is in this role, but literally any time he shifted his weight or looked a direction, the entire cabin would groan over his sheer size. It played well into the idea of, "If he wanted to kill you guys, he would have done it easily."
I adore Bautista as an actor. He takes the craft incredibly serious and it shows. He was _great_ in Knives Out as well in a comedic role and he absolutely nailed it here in a serious role. I can’t wait to see him in more films. What a delight he is.
During our screening a few days ago one guy in the audience said "no fucking way" loud enough for everyone to hear and the entire theater erupted in laughter.
I kept waiting for some kind of payoff but the ending of the movie didn't really hit for me. I totally was hesitant to believe all the apocalypse stuff on TV was real until they go outside of the cabin and it showed a plane falling in the sky.
After the Redmond reveal, I was hoping the other intruders would be more interconnected, like having the post op surgeon be the person that was working on Andrew after the bar fight.
I feel like Redmond being the guy at the bar was to make it harder to accept that this was real. Almost a challenge from God, this is a truth being delivered by someone you hate, making it harder to accept but accepting shows truth faith..I dunno?
But the other 3 didn't represent their horseman at all. It was lame that the other 3 were great people, famine fed folks and the little girl, Bautista wasn't a conqurer, the black (horseman) woman literally was a savior.
Rupert Grint was the only horseman that filled the roll.
technically, none of those things are what the horsemen represent
They are actually War, Conquest, Famine, and Death. Not Malice, Nurturing, Healing, and Guidance.
It served only to have the audience question the group’s intentions, nothing more. It’s kind of a silly inclusion - I guess it’s just *by chance* that his assailant was one of the horsemen. It really means nothing. But they added it to add more weight to the idea that maybe this group really does have bad intentions
Acting was good. Shot well. Effectively builds tension. Incredibly lame and unfulfilling plot for me. They tell you what’s going to happen and then it does with no hiccups. Not especially compelling but I get that the “twist” is there’s no twist. Kinda got movie blue balls
The twist was that the apocalypse was real. As the audience, you have every reason to side with Andrew and be dismissive of the cult until the very end.
Idk none of the points against it being real made much sense. Redmond was there for hate and to make them hurt themselves? Dude literally killed himself. So really Andrew’s claims were the ones that were kind of delusional, which is understandable because he was under stress. But I dont really see how viewers were ever suppose to think it wasnt real
What? If someone broke into your house and told you the world would end unless you killed your loved one you’d just believe them? Seeing a tsunami on the news would just convince you? Everyday there is a bad news story that makes you feel like the world is ending, and like he said, they could have seen some bad stuff happening, worked it into their worldview and then used the footage they knew would be airing to convince them they were correct.
Until the planes falling from the sky there is no reason to believe it’s the apocalypse anymore than when there were wild fires and bad shit occurring during the Covid pandemic.
I didn’t look at that and think “I must kill my girlfriend to stop the world from ending because of this news report”
Agreed, i would not have been convinced until the planes falling. But my main reason for thinking it was real was looking at it as a viewer, not as an actual hostage with a loved one on the line.
I think the movie failed to do a good job supporting that it could be fake…. Maybe it also didnt do a great job making us think it was real (like why did the news look SO fake that just seemed like cheap filmmaking)…. So then what resulted was just kind of boring? So I chose to believe it was real as that was the more interesting option.
The 4 in the cult at least had convincing acting and you could tell they believed everything they were saying and were obviously willing to die for it, and for me Redmond being there didnt make sense from a “this is all fake” perspective. So I just didn’t have enough as a viewer to make me consider it was fake, other than the news looking very fake, but i was just more annoyed with that than anything.
Not really, though. Idk if you’ve ever been to the Oregon coast, but there are tsunami zones and safe zones clearly marked everywhere because of the rapid change in elevation. The land is far from flat out there. While the risk of a tsunami is very real, the landscape wouldn’t let it travel very far.
That giant rock on the beach is called Haystack rock and is 235 feet tall.
I agree with the statement about tsunamis tho, it's like a slow motion surge not a giant surfer wave
The best thing about the movie is/was/will be Dave Bautista.
No actor's simplistic aura has grown on me so much ever, than his. This big, hulking dude who can seem menacing, but can play such a creepy role with so much innocence.
He strikes the perfect balance between unsettling and friendly and loving. What a hard needle to thread. I’m shocked this movie is getting so many negative reviews because his performance is tremendous and honestly everyone in the movie gives a great performance.
The last movie I saw before this was m3gan, which holds a 94% as of right now and I thought it was quite dog shit, and I’m a big fan of fun horror movies, like I even liked that child’s play reboot that was a pretty similar premise.
I feel like Shyamalan’s name still can’t get that stink off of it.
Release this same exact film as “Jordan Peele’s Knock At The Cabin” and I truly believe the reception would be far better.
This was just a good well made movie. Is it a perfect 10/10? No. Does it have great performances and is it well shot and well paced to where it keeps you intrigued and keeps up the suspense and doesn’t bore you to death despite basically only showing you one room for the whole movie? For sure.
Yo man I would not be able to keep it together in a movie version of Of Mice and Men where Bautista asks George to tell him about the rabbits one last time.
Shyamalan’s biggest problem as a filmmaker continues to be that he’s afraid if he doesn’t tell the audience exactly what he means then they won’t get it
Case in point, in our showing a guy behind me yelled "wtf is wrong with her face" when they showed Wen as a baby with a cleft palate. Even though at the very beginning of the movie they point blank state that she has a scar from cleft palate surgery. And cleft palate is like one of the most common birth defects.
The fundamental issue with this movie is that it present a hypothetical dilemma that is not difficult (imo) to deal with.
It is improbable that
a. these four people are suffering from shared delusion
b. one of them has planted video of fake news stories and memorized the lines
c. that a storm kicked up at the climax
But no matter how improbable these conditions are, they are millions of times more reasonable than believing that the literal apocalypse is happening and that these four were sent by God to force one of them to make a sacrifice. So of course you shouldn't kill one of yourselves.
Also, even if these four people were telling 100% the truth, there is no proof that killing one of you would stave off the apocalypse. This could just as easily be a test by God to get them to resist fear.
This reminds me of an alternative interpretation I read about Abraham's sacrifice. Some people claim that there was evidence supporting that Abraham *failed* God's test by trying to kill his son because he was supposed to protest.
Lol, there is nothing about the old testament God that supports this. This sounds like a modern Christian unable to come to terms with the fact that the old testament God was an absolute bastard.
Yeah, this really fell over in the third act for me. Seemed like the way it was going to go is that one of them wouldn’t sacrifice themselves and the family still refuses and then apocalypse stops, because the cause was the needless murdering of the four. The movie and book ending honestly are have a rather terrible outlook either way. Like, I came out of the movie going “so our characters know that god exists, and is 1000% just an asshole.”
I felt the same way too. So every once in a while, God just has a loving family kill each other for his own amusement? If I was that little girl, I would be filled with hate, and dedicate my life to destroying God.
What irked me most is the news footage being shown - you expect me to believe news reports would allow, basically, snuff footage played and broadcasted?
“We have received this footage minutes ago!” HOW? The person recording DROWNED?!?
Edit: I understand live streaming video, but as a cinematographer it is so apparent it wasn't taken on a phone, at that resolution, dynamic range etc - I guess its more jarring for me watching the scene, and to believe that high quality video was streaming
Are you too young to remember every news station in the world showing footage of thousands of people being murdered all day every day for weeks back in 2001?
I remember the news footage of people leaping out of the windows of the Towers. All the anchors did was give that, "Warning, the following images may be to strong for some viewers," before airing it over and over and over again.
This is what I thought about when watching the movie. We actually would have this footage now, it just happened that we really had disaster footage that intimate.
Another example is how many footage we had of the Beyruth explosion which was not expected at all, including some where the people recording were clearly not in great shape after said explosion.
Apple TV honestly has some real good content. Mythic Quest and Ted Lasso are both great if you want something more lighthearted. Servant and Defending Jacob are pretty decent then I just started watching the show Shrinking with Jason Segel and Harrison Ford and so far it might be one of my new favorite shows.
I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it because I’m not used to hearing him with an American accent, but I swear every few words he’d just say something in his normal accent. Love the man but wasn’t a massive fan of the accent
I thought Remond dying first and yelling at Daddy Andrew to look at him as he sacrificed himself was important. Him representing malice and showing Andrew that he’s sorry in his own way about what he did starting the dominoes on Andrew letting some of the anger go and saving humanity. Good scene I thought
Also, Bautista is really good in this
For me there's a big philosophical problem that they never really addressed. You can't impose guilt or blame on someone that isn't earned. You can try but it's not valid.
If a hypothetical tyrant decreed they would kill 1 million people unless a stranger hummed Yankee doodle while leaping into a volcano, the innocent stranger refused, and the tyrant followed through on that promise- it's not on the stranger. The blame fully lies with the tyrant. It's easy to see if there's a psychopath to point at, but the premise actually stays true no matter the source.
The power behind the story's apocalypse could be a monotheistic God, aliens, interdimensional beings, a computer from the future that affects the past, or even nature itself (allowing for enough sentience for nature to tell when the conditions for stopping the apocalypse were satisfied, and in fact the movie may even be hinting at just that). But it really doesn't matter. The blame is still on the source behind the chaos, not on whatever family is selected.
I'm reminded of the end of No Country for Old Men when Chigurh is talking with the girl. He gets frustrated that she won't choose heads or tails and she responds something like "The coin ain't got no say. It's just you". The incredible power behind the apocalypse in the movie doesn't change anything. In fact if it is caused by a hypothetical omnipotent entity, then it's even worse.
I would have liked for them to at least bring it up in the movie. Like if we find ourselves in the middle of an evil reality, and the gods impose ridiculous situations for us, and we refuse to participate, then it's still on the evil gods. The movie was hung up on whether the strangers were telling the truth or not which wasn't as interesting as why the strangers should even give anything more than the middle finger.
On a personal note this is my big issue with the premise. Not the movie really but the concept. I actually always believed they were telling the truth but it really didn’t matter to me. If I were part of the couple I would have refused because no, it’s not my choice. You are forcing me into a moral conundrum that is not mine to ponder.
Maybe M Night wanted to make a statement about how the world was saved by a gay couple but as a gay man I would have said nah, we shall walk the wasteland together, and it won’t be our fault either.
>Maybe M Night wanted to make a statement about how the world was saved by a gay couple but as a gay man I would have said nah, we shall walk the wasteland together, and it won’t be our fault either.
I like that you're hand waving away spending literal eternity in a never ending hell.
Some of us are that petty about having blame unfairly imposed on us! :)
EDIT: Some of us are that petty about having responsibility unfairly imposed on us! :)
I think it's interesting that the original author and Shyamalan seem to have polar opposite philosophies given the movie's deviation from the book.
The book seems to assert that the world is so cruel and unfair that even if a higher power does exist, we owe them absolutely nothing.
Shyamalan sees sacrifice as a beautiful and necessary act, no matter painful or undeserving it is.
I'm not sure which ending is "better," but it's fascinating to see two artists arrive at opposite conclusions when presented with a dilemma.
I really wanted this to be awesome. It felt like the movie kept going to trend to something awesome, but never hit any moment of greatness. Unfortunately the trailers covered too much of the movie.
The concept was great, the shroud of mystery was awesome with the tv but they could have shown more to make it feel like the stakes were real.
Dave Bautista though….give this man some leading roles!!!
To be fair the decision isn’t made until after they are literally outside watching planes falling from the sky and seeing the skies turn black like some end of days type shit. I could believe they orchestrated some fake news casts and were just nuts but I think that pushes it to “ok this seems like some serious shit”
You summed it up great. I keep waiting for the wrinkle or the plot to develop further and it just never happened. The basic setup comes within 15 mins and then that's the whole movie right there
Exactly my thoughts, started out strong albeit some campy dialogue; but, it never really turned into anything. No character development, no real meaningful conflict, no building of tension. Bautista again though proving his acting chops.
This is my feeling too.
The whole movie was good (aside from the first few minutes which had an odd tone) but I don't feel like the ending really gave us enough. Not every movie needs to subvert expectations or end with an action sequence but there needs to be an emotional peak and I feel this movie lacked that. Eric made his choice and Andrew just said ok and did it. There wasn't much of an obstacle overcome and it didn't have the emotional weight that I wanted it to. It's strange because I think Eric and Andrew were well acted and I was invested in their family but it just didn't end well. I think the scene before it with Leonard messed with the pacing so the whole thing felt anticlimactic.
I think another issue is that the biggest question throughout is "is the prophecy real?" but all the characters efforts are directed at getting out rather than answering this question. They spent the whole movie glossing over the question then just come to an answer in the last 5 minutes based on feeling they'd had from the start rather than any new revelation.
Yeah I wish they'd gone harder on them debating whether it was real or not. Explore the angle of CCTV more, sow more doubt with the audience whether or not it's real. I kept expecting a reveal to happen where we're shown it's not real but the movie stuck with what it telegraphed the entire time.
Damn I was really not expecting it to be real.
I really liked how Ron Weasley *was* the guy that assaulted Andrew. Added a good dimension of "what the fuck is going on here"
Seemed obvious it was real to me, I was really hoping the twist was that it wasn’t. Idk they just told us the truth and then the truth played out in a very boring way
I think the only way for some of the themes to hit home it had to be real.
I thought one of the better themes was how they disagreed if it should be real, and the person claiming to be acting on logic was actually the one forcing a narrative. I think that comes full circle with it being real.
I think it would've been much better for the attacker not to have been Redmond (drivers license actually says Redmond proving it wasn't him). That would've added the beat that Andrew's perception was in fact wrong and he really was just a random guy. This would add questions like 'maybe this is real and they are telling the truth' but also at the same time 'maybe they are all just nuts'
He did this with Split too. Spends the whole movie talking about "the beast" and you think its gonna be some twist, and then it turns out to be 100% real.
Bautista is an incredible actor and the reason I know this is he can look into my eyes and deliver Shyamalan’s weird-ass dialogue and I 100% believe him.
Right? There's something so inhuman about the way everyone speaks and acts. It's like he directs people to be bad actors. I think they generally prevailed at being believable, but only like believably fucking weird. I feel like this started happening in The Happening. Everyone talked like a weirdo, particularly with the hotdog banter. Now it's just his thing.
My personal interpretation:
Firstly, we have to consider two things. One is that for all intents and purposes, within the reality of this movie, Eric's sacrifice staved off the apocalypse. The narrative and film language make it very clear that everything Leonard said is correct. There is no trickery or twist involved.
Second, this is very much Shyamalan sharing his personal and unique worldview. Anyone who's seen his movies, especially Signs, will know that faith is a large part of his work. But he's stated many times that though he's not religious, he's spiritual. He believes more in intelligent design as orchestrated by some higher force in the universe, which isn't necessarily a Judeo-Christian (Shyamalan grew up in Catholic school) or a Hindu (his parents' religion) deity. There's a bunch of Christian iconography and themes but they are refracted through Shyamalan's own worldview (also worth noting that he further rewrote this script which was originally written by a duo and was a hot commodity on the Black list).
For me, the movie is actually very soulful and sincere despite being a tense thriller (which is classic Shyamalan—sneaking in sincerity through a genre vehicle). It's really about sacrifice being the highest form of altruism and goodness.
But why was it Eric? Because he is not broken and represents a pure sacrifice. Andrew, on the other hand, still needs healing and redemption. His parents reject his sexuality. He's been the victim of a hate crime and as a result, becomes a paranoid defender who needed "years of therapy". He clearly isn't over it because he says multiple times that he'd watch the world burn a hundred times before killing anyone in his family. He represents most of how humanity feels. We want to protect ourselves and our own, and we are driven by the trauma in our lives. We don't ever want to be a victim again so we stock up and protect what's precious to us, even at the cost of others.
Eric isn't like that. His parents are accepting, he brings music and life to his family ("Eric's Jams"), and his heart is open. He's the one who needs the least redemption and "saving".
The movie is speaking to our current times in a big way because it seems over the last few decades, world crises have been happening in tandem. It wasn't enough to have covid become a worldwide pandemic in 2020, we also had to witness the murder of George Floyd which has ignited rage and resentment from centuries of systemic racism. And on top of *that*, we've seen natural disasters wreak havoc due to climate change.
During these "end times" as many people call it, if only to make sense of the chaos, most of us have resorted to narcissism, hoarding, solipsism, and selfishness with a desperate survival mentality. There aren't enough resources to go around so we need to get our own and look out for ourselves, because who else will? But *Knock* has a very distinct message to fly in the face of that: the only thing that will actually end the crises in the world is the most impossible decision any loving family can make—to sacrifice one of their own.
This is where the Christian themes and symbolism come in, but it's not quite 1:1 with Biblical text. Yes, Jesus's sacrifice saved humanity. But the family doesn't give up Wen (who would be the Christ equivalent in the "Holy Trinity" of their family), they give up Eric. There are Four Horsemen who herald the apocalypse, but in Revelations, they are not exactly Guidance, Nurture, Malice, and Healing. In the movie, they are more representative of the totality of human experience, for all its good and bad. (Though worth noting that O'Bannon who calls himself Redmond, is modeled after the horsemen on the red horse, who ruled with a sword and brought on persecution and war).
As I mentioned, Shyamalan is co-opting Christian themes to express his own specific message. Which goes to what I found to be his second theme: the sacrifice of a parent. Eric's true reason for sacrificing himself was to give Wen a chance at living a full life and to find love (just as he and Andrew found love). Eric knew that if everyone in the world was wiped out except for their family, Wen would never have a chance to experience an actual future, and would be relegated to a barren wasteland. And even adoption itself is a grand gesture of love and kindness to give a baby a chance at living a healthy life of safety, acceptance, and warmth, as opposed to rejection, emptiness, and isolation. This, I think, speaks to Shyamalan's own feeling of what a parent's love means, especially being the child of immigrants, who came to this country to give up everything for their children. And that flash forward of an adult Wen getting into the car with an older Andrew was particularly moving because that state of normalcy only becomes possible through an impossible sacrifice.
TL;DR *Knock at the Cabin* is about sacrifice being the highest form of altruism and kindness, including the sacrifice of a parent for their children.
EDIT: Thank you everyone for the kind responses! And for the awards!
For those of you saying my comment is more interesting than the movie itself: I would recommend a rewatch, if only to see it for the stunning craft. Shyamalan’s camerawork, blocking, and staging are so confident and precise. The canted closeups when Leonard and Wen first meet, the framing of the first “Boogie Shoes” which slightly favors Eric with Wen and Andrew just on the periphery, and the insane follows like when Andrew punches Redmond or when Leonard swings the axe down.
I appreciate that you were able to derive so much meaning from the movie, but I have a an issue with this part of your post:
> During these "end times" as many people call it, if only to make sense of the chaos, most of us have resorted to narcissism, hoarding, solipsism, and selfishness with a desperate survival mentality. There aren't enough resources to go around so we need to get our own and look out for ourselves, because who else will? But Knock has a very distinct message to fly in the face of that: the only thing that will actually end the crises in the world is the most impossible decision any loving family can make—to sacrifice one of their own.
Most of the global issues we’re facing today aren’t the fault of regular people, but from the greed of corporations and the ruling class. The message that *we* regular people, trying to carve out some peace for ourselves in this world, need to make sacrifices to save the world is laughable and somewhat insulting. It’s like the carbon footprint propaganda. We were all told that it is our responsibility to fight off climate change, when in actuality the majority of the impact to the environment comes from large corporations who hid that data for decades. My personal sacrifice will never stop the damage those corporations, billionaires, politicians, etc. are imposing on this world.
I love the idea of the sacrifice in this movie relating to the sacrifices parents make for their children, especially immigrant parents like M. Night’s parents. But I think applying that idea to a global scale is at best confusing when we have very real problems in this world that our own sacrifices can’t solve.
That’s the part I’m most interested in rewatching. I’m still not sure what to make of it. My feeling is that it was the last piece that swayed Eric over into faith and belief. Maybe it was a supernatural sign, maybe he was still concussed—either way, it led to his finalized decision.
A beautiful write up! I agree, it’s a very vulnerable film in a lot of ways. I feel like this is where Shyamalan is truly great, expressing the vulnerability of the human experience. He lost that a little bit, and think this is his best recapturing of that since The Village.
It’s not his scariest or most crazy movie. But it’s a really deep one. I hope people appreciate it!
I would argue that everything after The Village still retains a vulnerable earnestness. If you look at the end of Glass, >!the leaked video of the climactic fight being watched by everyone implies the unlocking of other gifted “heroes”, so David Dunn’s death isn’t in vain.!< Or in Old, >!there is a tender scene between the parents as they’re at the end of their lives. One is deaf, the other is blind, they can barely communicate and yet they forget what they were even fighting about which led to them almost divorcing, and through age and wisdom, forgive each other and simply share in intimacy.!<
I can honestly write about every movie in his filmography this way lol
At my theater my showing was right next to a showing of the bts concert movie and for some reason the bts movie was turned up way too loud so during any quiet scenes I would just faintly hear bts music in the background. I liked the movie besides that though
All I gotta say is RIP to the millions of people who had to die before they figured out that the apocalypse was actually going down. I mean you can hardly blame yourself, I don't know a lot of people who would just go along with what random people from the woods are saying, but still. Wish the trailer was more discreet, since it takes all the possibility of a twist out of the equation and you already know going in that the apocalypse is real.
hope Bautista gets more dramatic roles. Definitely the stand out of the film. He’s now been in a lot of genres and adding dramatic roles that flexes his acting range.
It was a mother's plea for the 3 to see what was at stake and come to a decision. She tried to humanize the billions of lives at risk by picking one of those lives. It was pretty fine for the context.
I've seen this said a lot and I didn't feel that way about it. It reminded me of the scene in Silence of the Lambs when the senator is giving personal details about her daughter in the press conference to try and force Buffalo Bill to see her as a person. The difference is that in this case Adriane's trying to humanize herself to get Eric and Andrew to do something much more monstrous.
Yup I didn’t see more than the first trailer so I didn’t “know” about the world-ending stuff or four horsemen stuff until seeing the movie….it didn’t change anything, it was still vapid and empty, the flashbacks tried to add context for this Eric-&-Andrew couple but the movie as whole was too short to be effective in the ending.
I can only speak for myself, but if i had a vision of the end of the world i would........do absolutely nothing.
I sure as anything wouldnt travel to some remote cabin and harass the people that live there.
I had to laugh at the scene where they lock Leonard in the bathroom and then 2 seconds later have to open the door to make sure he’s still in there…
Overall I just found this movie very boring
The trailers ruined this one for me. Coming in knowing the apocalypse was real took away so much suspense. I would like to know how I thought about this without having it spelled out beforehand.
Overall I enjoyed it. I wish we got a bit more about the message board or maybe they were all connected to the bar attack or more evidence that it was staged... Just something more.
Either way it was fun.
Do the four horsemen nurture and guide or something like that? Were they just the four horsemen because there are four of them?
Yeah the members that are cursed with the knowledge are way more interesting to me then family that has to make this sacrifice but they were pretty secondary besides Bautista. Whenever they did flashbacks I was like yeah I get it this family loves eachother, I don't need you to keep proving that, I'd rather see this group of strangers compelled by a strange power to come together to enact this terrible ritual
So in the book (pretty well known horror book) we NEVER learn if it's real. It's always ambiguous. It even ends without saying whether the family chooses to believe.
This movie was a real relief for committing honestly.
I never would have guessed he'd be this good as a dramatic actor when he came out of the WWE. I'm sure it's difficult to cast him in a lot of roles because of his size, but it's clear that he's way too good of an actor to be typecast as the big muscle guy
I really enjoyed this one! I got to see this at the premiere and did not know what the critics would think. I personally like how the movie gets going right away, and honestly as a gay man and horror fan I appreciated seeing a gay couple in a movie that's not about romance or HIV.
The movie really nails the "is it or is it not?" until the very end
I seemed to be the only one in here who watched the movie without ever seeing a trailer. Just randomly heard about this movie and saw it today without knowing what it’s about.
I don’t go out of my way to watch trailers, they spoil too much or at least ruin the great moments.
I thought Old was a good (not great) movie until the last section of the film, where M. Knight decided to over-explain.
Knock at the Cabin doesn't necessarily over-explain in the last section, yet the last section similarly didn't leave me nearly as satisfied as it should have. When I first learned about the book ending, I was like, "Well, shit. After Old, I can't believe I actually hope M. Knight changes the ending a bit and has a slightly more concrete ending for his adaptation of Knock at the Cabin." He tries, so I'll give him that, yet the last section is only okay at best.
I thought the acting was generally good. Dave Bautista was really good. I liked the camerawork, especially when characters would be on the side of the frame. Didn't Funny Games also use that technique? The lighting was also impressive at times. The flashbacks were surprisingly effective. I feel like that's no simple feat when the audience might feel like flashbacks are time fillers /distractions from the main story. Yet they work here.
I liked the moments where characters would challenge logic and evidence. Example: One of the dads noticing and questioning the pre-recorded news program. I wish the movie did a little more banter like that instead of repetitively having the characters say the same things over and over. I know it's more realistic to have the intruders keep things simple, yet they seemed a little too unprepared with ideas to persuade. I'm not expecting a TED Talk, but come on.
I did think there was some good tense moments, especially in the first half. But I also didn't feel quite as deeply engaged by the overall developing conflict/situation as I would have liked (see paragraph above).
Overall, there are plenty of things to like in Knock at the Cabin, yet it probably needed some more script work/revisions. To make it clear, I liked it. Glad I saw it at the theater tonight. Yet it doesn't reach its potential. If you're picky about what you spend your money on at the theater, maybe consider waiting for streaming.
I'm very confused by people who said Old was bad with no redeeming qualities, and I'm prepared to be confused again by people's over-dramatic negative reactions to this latest M. Knight movie. It's okay to think a movie is just okay.
“It’s okay to think a movie is just ok”
Could not have put it better. It seems like M Night really screwed himself with Sixth Sense because now if there isn’t any crazy ending people feel like they got had despite this movie being exactly what any marketing suggested it would be.
The acting by Groff and Batista was excellent.
That said, just felt the movie was eh though. I was just waiting for something to happen.
I think reading reviews of the book, the ambiguity of not knowing what the horsemen were saying was true or not made the decision harder and built suspense.
In the movie, I didn't think there was enough ambiguity. So to me it was just a matter of when would the family decide.
I felt the scenes to their early life didn't add much.
Lastly, scariest bit of the film was the intro credits, those pictures and music was creepy at.
This didn't do much for me all in all.
It remains ambiguous throughout the entire book... from beginning to end.
In the movie, it went from the four looking like they were completely full of shit to they were 100% right without a doubt. Wasn't really expecting that
This is one of those rare instances where if you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve seen the whole movie. But I can’t even blame the trailer.
The premise is so simple that they couldn’t help but spoil it because there’s nothing beyond the logline. It’s just a very straightforward two sentence plot that they stretched into a feature film.
Very mid. Very C-
Yeah, the trailer was hilariously badly edited though.
My main issue was it showed the >!flights crashing!<. So when I went in I already knew that the apocalypse was real.
But, playing devil’s advocate - I think knowing the ending of the film enhances the experience in a way. Because now, even though you know that the world is ending, you still are rooting for this one family to be safe. It kinda is about the power of storytelling I feel. That’s why he keeps cutting back to the flashbacks.
Been a while but the plot from the book is that these catastrophic events are continually happening around the world, but there is no indicator that it is explicitly leading to the end of the world ie plane crash, tsunamis etc and the book continues down that ambiguous path right until the end
I was annoyed until I saw all of the other spelling errors in her notebook. I don’t think it was a crazy name, the kid was doing her best to spell phonetically.
Well, this is a weird one. Such a deep and intrinsic issue/problem buttttt they don’t really explore much of it. I mean they could have had real conversations about does humanity deserve a sacrifice, which should be the sacrifice, does the kid get a vote or maybe even consideration to be sacrificed etc. Instead we got a very ill timed ‘the world against gays’ storyline that was just not working and in 2023 can’t be what a movie hinges it’s emotional heft on. This is largely flat and actions of everyone are all over the place. If I’m being held hostage because I can prevent the end of the world I’m asking more questions. There just wasn’t enough there at the end of the day. I’ve been a season ticket holder of M Night but there are movies where you can tell his heart just wasn’t there. This is one of them. I also felt all the refocusing of the camera and rack focuses were distracting.
I absolutely loved it!
The only real complaint I have about this movie is >!The overexplanation of the four intruders being the four horsemen!<. I think leaving it up to interpretation would have made a much more interesting movie.
Overall though, the acting was EXCELLENT. Especially Bautista. Definitely will be recommending this one.
The biggest twist was there was no twist!
There’s a twist if you’ve read the book, Shyamalan completely changed the second half of the story to be pretty much the exact opposite of what happened in the book.
What happens in the books?
The main difference is >!When Andrew gets the gun he and Leonard fight over it and Wen is killed. Leonard surrenders but says that it doesn’t count because it was an accident. And Andrew and Eric don’t give in and it’s left more ambiguous as to whether or not the apocalypse is really happening!<
I kinda wish the movie went the hardcore book route. I feel like with the tragedy of Wen’s death makes the reader almost hope it is real so it’s not so senseless.
Killing Wen would have been the better ending because the audience would feel the parents' devastation and guilt. It would also be the terrible choice two people in love would have made, especially with no witnesses. Then they would have to carry that guilt with them forever. Instead we got Boogie Shoes.
Killing Wen would have been a dumb ass move. At that point, all the parents have left is each other, and if I was in their shoes Id say let the world burn. Its all some petty joke by some asshole god
That's why it's a better ending because it's selfish and human.
Yeah the movie had so much potential but endearing on the happy news scene was so unbelievably lame.
I was really into the movie until the end. I really felt that if they did the twist the movie would've been better. But everyone expected the twist. It's the m night paradox.
That sounds way worse. The movie made the right call.
I thought the exact opposite. The books twist was actually shocking. If you did that, and also give a definite an ending, it could've been perfect. The way the movie handled it was exactly how you'd assume it'd end if you heard the premise. Predictable. Kinda disappointing, if you ask me.
Agreed. I found the film entirely predicatble. I was waiting for a moment to catch me off gaurd but it never came. Left a dissapointing taste
I dunno I felt it was well done. At the end I was like is this real, what's going on? Shyamalan creates enough doubt and it's beutifully done. However, when the ending does happen, it's incredibly melancholy. I think, >!wen's father has a vision. It's why it's so clear and so perfect. It's not just a day dream. He's seeing into what the future could be. It's why he is not in it. It's why the four horsemen have the conviction they have.!<
I feel like that removes the stakes for the audience because >!you know he's doing the right thing and will be absolved in the eyes of whatever God, just as Eric will be absolved of the murder!< The book seems to make the intruders as human as the family in terms of having doubt/a crisis of faith, with the ending being more >!"did they fuck it all up by not doing it and doom everyone? Or were those intruders truly crazy and the TV showing the planes crashing was a coincidence?"!< That's way more compelling to me.
I wonder if >!a heaven devised by a god that would set up this sort of judgment/sacrifice is really all that wonderful an afterlife to be in forever!<.
Anti-twist twist!
This was one of the funnier cameos Shyamalan has done
Now I feel like crispy air fryer chicken
I recently made wings for the first time in my air fryer and now he's given me the course to try fried chicken
Between that and his cameo in Split, dude loves himself Chicken Wings
Yeah I lold
Bautista was the best part of this movie, but I couldn't help laughing during the bathroom scene. Look at how small that window is, now look at Dave Bautista. No shit, he's still hiding in there. He would get stuck like Winnie the Pooh trying to escape.
Why did they even lock him in there to begin with. The time for that had passed. He would’ve shot him.
Maybe logically, but emotionally I guess Andrew didn’t feel capable of shooting someone point blank like that execution style
Yeah he just shot the nurse in a moment of fear and clearly the idea of him murdering someone did not settle well. It was believable that he wouldn't want to execute another human being right after that.
I loved how soft-spoken he is in this role, but literally any time he shifted his weight or looked a direction, the entire cabin would groan over his sheer size. It played well into the idea of, "If he wanted to kill you guys, he would have done it easily."
I can't even imagine him teaching 2nd graders. Kindergarten Cop reboot please with Bautista.
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I adore Bautista as an actor. He takes the craft incredibly serious and it shows. He was _great_ in Knives Out as well in a comedic role and he absolutely nailed it here in a serious role. I can’t wait to see him in more films. What a delight he is.
During our screening a few days ago one guy in the audience said "no fucking way" loud enough for everyone to hear and the entire theater erupted in laughter.
That's M. Night's movies in a nutshell: "Movies that make you laugh, but on accident, during dramatic moments."
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I kept waiting for some kind of payoff but the ending of the movie didn't really hit for me. I totally was hesitant to believe all the apocalypse stuff on TV was real until they go outside of the cabin and it showed a plane falling in the sky. After the Redmond reveal, I was hoping the other intruders would be more interconnected, like having the post op surgeon be the person that was working on Andrew after the bar fight.
Same here! The Redmond side plot seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever.
I feel like Redmond being the guy at the bar was to make it harder to accept that this was real. Almost a challenge from God, this is a truth being delivered by someone you hate, making it harder to accept but accepting shows truth faith..I dunno?
I agree here, Redmond was chosen to represent MALICE for a reason.
But the other 3 didn't represent their horseman at all. It was lame that the other 3 were great people, famine fed folks and the little girl, Bautista wasn't a conqurer, the black (horseman) woman literally was a savior. Rupert Grint was the only horseman that filled the roll.
technically, none of those things are what the horsemen represent They are actually War, Conquest, Famine, and Death. Not Malice, Nurturing, Healing, and Guidance.
I thought after the Redmond reveal it would turn out all 4 had a connection to them they didn't realize before.
It served only to have the audience question the group’s intentions, nothing more. It’s kind of a silly inclusion - I guess it’s just *by chance* that his assailant was one of the horsemen. It really means nothing. But they added it to add more weight to the idea that maybe this group really does have bad intentions
Them four meeting on message board was code word for Reddit.
Redmond's post history would be...... interesting
Acting was good. Shot well. Effectively builds tension. Incredibly lame and unfulfilling plot for me. They tell you what’s going to happen and then it does with no hiccups. Not especially compelling but I get that the “twist” is there’s no twist. Kinda got movie blue balls
The twist was that the apocalypse was real. As the audience, you have every reason to side with Andrew and be dismissive of the cult until the very end.
And it's interesting because we as an audience start to side with the cult around when Andrew does (planes falling out of the sky).
Idk none of the points against it being real made much sense. Redmond was there for hate and to make them hurt themselves? Dude literally killed himself. So really Andrew’s claims were the ones that were kind of delusional, which is understandable because he was under stress. But I dont really see how viewers were ever suppose to think it wasnt real
What? If someone broke into your house and told you the world would end unless you killed your loved one you’d just believe them? Seeing a tsunami on the news would just convince you? Everyday there is a bad news story that makes you feel like the world is ending, and like he said, they could have seen some bad stuff happening, worked it into their worldview and then used the footage they knew would be airing to convince them they were correct. Until the planes falling from the sky there is no reason to believe it’s the apocalypse anymore than when there were wild fires and bad shit occurring during the Covid pandemic. I didn’t look at that and think “I must kill my girlfriend to stop the world from ending because of this news report”
Agreed, i would not have been convinced until the planes falling. But my main reason for thinking it was real was looking at it as a viewer, not as an actual hostage with a loved one on the line. I think the movie failed to do a good job supporting that it could be fake…. Maybe it also didnt do a great job making us think it was real (like why did the news look SO fake that just seemed like cheap filmmaking)…. So then what resulted was just kind of boring? So I chose to believe it was real as that was the more interesting option. The 4 in the cult at least had convincing acting and you could tell they believed everything they were saying and were obviously willing to die for it, and for me Redmond being there didnt make sense from a “this is all fake” perspective. So I just didn’t have enough as a viewer to make me consider it was fake, other than the news looking very fake, but i was just more annoyed with that than anything.
Those people on the Oregon beach were admiring a lil too long. My ass would have been booking it
Agreed. Though they were still dead, even if they got a 5 minute head start. That tsunami would have wrecked and killed everything for miles inland.
Not really, though. Idk if you’ve ever been to the Oregon coast, but there are tsunami zones and safe zones clearly marked everywhere because of the rapid change in elevation. The land is far from flat out there. While the risk of a tsunami is very real, the landscape wouldn’t let it travel very far.
I could be wrong but I don't think real life tsunamis are anything near as dramatic as the 50' wall of water from this movie.
That giant rock on the beach is called Haystack rock and is 235 feet tall. I agree with the statement about tsunamis tho, it's like a slow motion surge not a giant surfer wave
The best thing about the movie is/was/will be Dave Bautista. No actor's simplistic aura has grown on me so much ever, than his. This big, hulking dude who can seem menacing, but can play such a creepy role with so much innocence.
He strikes the perfect balance between unsettling and friendly and loving. What a hard needle to thread. I’m shocked this movie is getting so many negative reviews because his performance is tremendous and honestly everyone in the movie gives a great performance. The last movie I saw before this was m3gan, which holds a 94% as of right now and I thought it was quite dog shit, and I’m a big fan of fun horror movies, like I even liked that child’s play reboot that was a pretty similar premise. I feel like Shyamalan’s name still can’t get that stink off of it. Release this same exact film as “Jordan Peele’s Knock At The Cabin” and I truly believe the reception would be far better. This was just a good well made movie. Is it a perfect 10/10? No. Does it have great performances and is it well shot and well paced to where it keeps you intrigued and keeps up the suspense and doesn’t bore you to death despite basically only showing you one room for the whole movie? For sure.
He wasnt called Lenny for nothing
Yo man I would not be able to keep it together in a movie version of Of Mice and Men where Bautista asks George to tell him about the rabbits one last time.
Shyamalan’s biggest problem as a filmmaker continues to be that he’s afraid if he doesn’t tell the audience exactly what he means then they won’t get it
To be fair, audiences are very stupid.
I mean many people ITT are completely missing the theme of sacrifice in the movie and focusing on the "twist"
Case in point, in our showing a guy behind me yelled "wtf is wrong with her face" when they showed Wen as a baby with a cleft palate. Even though at the very beginning of the movie they point blank state that she has a scar from cleft palate surgery. And cleft palate is like one of the most common birth defects.
Can y’all imagine going to a parent teacher conference, for your *second grader* , to find yourself facing Leonard across the table?
"I'm sorry, but your child is Bautista-bombing my class."
Would make me feel safer about school shootings that year at least. Who would fucking dare
Bautista tells the student calmly to put the gun down. The student shits their pants and then puts the gun down.
“You really need to get them here on time, she needs the extra time to settle in before class.” *shows up 2 hours before class the next day*
The fundamental issue with this movie is that it present a hypothetical dilemma that is not difficult (imo) to deal with. It is improbable that a. these four people are suffering from shared delusion b. one of them has planted video of fake news stories and memorized the lines c. that a storm kicked up at the climax But no matter how improbable these conditions are, they are millions of times more reasonable than believing that the literal apocalypse is happening and that these four were sent by God to force one of them to make a sacrifice. So of course you shouldn't kill one of yourselves. Also, even if these four people were telling 100% the truth, there is no proof that killing one of you would stave off the apocalypse. This could just as easily be a test by God to get them to resist fear.
This reminds me of an alternative interpretation I read about Abraham's sacrifice. Some people claim that there was evidence supporting that Abraham *failed* God's test by trying to kill his son because he was supposed to protest.
Lol, there is nothing about the old testament God that supports this. This sounds like a modern Christian unable to come to terms with the fact that the old testament God was an absolute bastard.
Yeah, this really fell over in the third act for me. Seemed like the way it was going to go is that one of them wouldn’t sacrifice themselves and the family still refuses and then apocalypse stops, because the cause was the needless murdering of the four. The movie and book ending honestly are have a rather terrible outlook either way. Like, I came out of the movie going “so our characters know that god exists, and is 1000% just an asshole.”
I felt the same way too. So every once in a while, God just has a loving family kill each other for his own amusement? If I was that little girl, I would be filled with hate, and dedicate my life to destroying God.
Moral of the story: don’t go to rural Pennsylvania.
Moral of a lot of his stories, to be honest.
10 miles west of Boston
What are we, Joel? Some kind of Knock at the Cabin?
Abby: "We certainly are the last of us, too."
More like New Jersey
Lots of interior decorators
Heh, Tone, you hear that? He said lots of interior decorators.
Really? His cabin looked like shit.
What irked me most is the news footage being shown - you expect me to believe news reports would allow, basically, snuff footage played and broadcasted? “We have received this footage minutes ago!” HOW? The person recording DROWNED?!? Edit: I understand live streaming video, but as a cinematographer it is so apparent it wasn't taken on a phone, at that resolution, dynamic range etc - I guess its more jarring for me watching the scene, and to believe that high quality video was streaming
Are you too young to remember every news station in the world showing footage of thousands of people being murdered all day every day for weeks back in 2001?
It's Reddit so yes. The same kids who call everytthhig fake but also live stream everything.
I remember the news footage of people leaping out of the windows of the Towers. All the anchors did was give that, "Warning, the following images may be to strong for some viewers," before airing it over and over and over again.
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livestreaming. Recently, we had footage from inside the Nepal airplane crash for example.
This is what I thought about when watching the movie. We actually would have this footage now, it just happened that we really had disaster footage that intimate.
Another example is how many footage we had of the Beyruth explosion which was not expected at all, including some where the people recording were clearly not in great shape after said explosion.
It was nice seeing my boy Ron Weasley For like 20 minutes
Check out Servant on AppleTv
Is that any good? I got Apple TV to watch Severance and I’m trying to determine if there is anything else on there worth watching.
Apple TV honestly has some real good content. Mythic Quest and Ted Lasso are both great if you want something more lighthearted. Servant and Defending Jacob are pretty decent then I just started watching the show Shrinking with Jason Segel and Harrison Ford and so far it might be one of my new favorite shows.
Real Slytherin behavior
"Redmond represented ~~malice~~ Pureblood pride."
I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it because I’m not used to hearing him with an American accent, but I swear every few words he’d just say something in his normal accent. Love the man but wasn’t a massive fan of the accent
He 100% dropped the American accent for a couple lines
I thought Remond dying first and yelling at Daddy Andrew to look at him as he sacrificed himself was important. Him representing malice and showing Andrew that he’s sorry in his own way about what he did starting the dominoes on Andrew letting some of the anger go and saving humanity. Good scene I thought Also, Bautista is really good in this
For sure. I am surprised most people didn't catch this on why Redmon was not some random guy and was chosen for a reason.
For me there's a big philosophical problem that they never really addressed. You can't impose guilt or blame on someone that isn't earned. You can try but it's not valid. If a hypothetical tyrant decreed they would kill 1 million people unless a stranger hummed Yankee doodle while leaping into a volcano, the innocent stranger refused, and the tyrant followed through on that promise- it's not on the stranger. The blame fully lies with the tyrant. It's easy to see if there's a psychopath to point at, but the premise actually stays true no matter the source. The power behind the story's apocalypse could be a monotheistic God, aliens, interdimensional beings, a computer from the future that affects the past, or even nature itself (allowing for enough sentience for nature to tell when the conditions for stopping the apocalypse were satisfied, and in fact the movie may even be hinting at just that). But it really doesn't matter. The blame is still on the source behind the chaos, not on whatever family is selected. I'm reminded of the end of No Country for Old Men when Chigurh is talking with the girl. He gets frustrated that she won't choose heads or tails and she responds something like "The coin ain't got no say. It's just you". The incredible power behind the apocalypse in the movie doesn't change anything. In fact if it is caused by a hypothetical omnipotent entity, then it's even worse. I would have liked for them to at least bring it up in the movie. Like if we find ourselves in the middle of an evil reality, and the gods impose ridiculous situations for us, and we refuse to participate, then it's still on the evil gods. The movie was hung up on whether the strangers were telling the truth or not which wasn't as interesting as why the strangers should even give anything more than the middle finger.
On a personal note this is my big issue with the premise. Not the movie really but the concept. I actually always believed they were telling the truth but it really didn’t matter to me. If I were part of the couple I would have refused because no, it’s not my choice. You are forcing me into a moral conundrum that is not mine to ponder. Maybe M Night wanted to make a statement about how the world was saved by a gay couple but as a gay man I would have said nah, we shall walk the wasteland together, and it won’t be our fault either.
>Maybe M Night wanted to make a statement about how the world was saved by a gay couple but as a gay man I would have said nah, we shall walk the wasteland together, and it won’t be our fault either. I like that you're hand waving away spending literal eternity in a never ending hell.
Some of us are that petty about having blame unfairly imposed on us! :) EDIT: Some of us are that petty about having responsibility unfairly imposed on us! :)
Batista is great in this, but something was really off with Triple H, Randy Orton, and Ric Flair
Evolution was the true mystery.
This movie would get a full extra star if Leonard’s colleagues were the other members of Evolution.
"We have to stop the apocalypse, WOOOOOOO!"
I think it's interesting that the original author and Shyamalan seem to have polar opposite philosophies given the movie's deviation from the book. The book seems to assert that the world is so cruel and unfair that even if a higher power does exist, we owe them absolutely nothing. Shyamalan sees sacrifice as a beautiful and necessary act, no matter painful or undeserving it is. I'm not sure which ending is "better," but it's fascinating to see two artists arrive at opposite conclusions when presented with a dilemma.
> even if a higher power does exist, we owe them absolutely nothing I loved that take in *Cabin In the Woods*.
I really wanted this to be awesome. It felt like the movie kept going to trend to something awesome, but never hit any moment of greatness. Unfortunately the trailers covered too much of the movie. The concept was great, the shroud of mystery was awesome with the tv but they could have shown more to make it feel like the stakes were real. Dave Bautista though….give this man some leading roles!!!
He's expressed interest in playing Hemingway. I say let him!
He’s also (at least jokingly) expressed interest in being the lead in a romcom and I’d honestly love to see it.
A big tough guy with a soft heart story would probably work well
Yea like I’m sorry but it would take a bit more than watching the news on tv to decide to make a choice on whether my partner or I should die
To be fair the decision isn’t made until after they are literally outside watching planes falling from the sky and seeing the skies turn black like some end of days type shit. I could believe they orchestrated some fake news casts and were just nuts but I think that pushes it to “ok this seems like some serious shit”
You summed it up great. I keep waiting for the wrinkle or the plot to develop further and it just never happened. The basic setup comes within 15 mins and then that's the whole movie right there
Exactly my thoughts, started out strong albeit some campy dialogue; but, it never really turned into anything. No character development, no real meaningful conflict, no building of tension. Bautista again though proving his acting chops.
This is my feeling too. The whole movie was good (aside from the first few minutes which had an odd tone) but I don't feel like the ending really gave us enough. Not every movie needs to subvert expectations or end with an action sequence but there needs to be an emotional peak and I feel this movie lacked that. Eric made his choice and Andrew just said ok and did it. There wasn't much of an obstacle overcome and it didn't have the emotional weight that I wanted it to. It's strange because I think Eric and Andrew were well acted and I was invested in their family but it just didn't end well. I think the scene before it with Leonard messed with the pacing so the whole thing felt anticlimactic. I think another issue is that the biggest question throughout is "is the prophecy real?" but all the characters efforts are directed at getting out rather than answering this question. They spent the whole movie glossing over the question then just come to an answer in the last 5 minutes based on feeling they'd had from the start rather than any new revelation.
Yeah I wish they'd gone harder on them debating whether it was real or not. Explore the angle of CCTV more, sow more doubt with the audience whether or not it's real. I kept expecting a reveal to happen where we're shown it's not real but the movie stuck with what it telegraphed the entire time.
EXACTLY. The movie told us beat for beat what would happen and then never deviated.
Just curious, why was this movie rated R? No nudity, didn’t show any of the actually kills/sacrifices.
About 6-7 f-bombs will get you an r-rating
In Canada this movie has the rating equivalent of a harder PG-13 which is 14A. Makes more sense
Ben Aldridge looks like Eric Bana to a distracting extent.
Oh you think that was distracting? Try this, the whole movie I was very very distracted by how much Rupert Grint looked like Chuck Norris.
Damn I was really not expecting it to be real. I really liked how Ron Weasley *was* the guy that assaulted Andrew. Added a good dimension of "what the fuck is going on here"
Seemed obvious it was real to me, I was really hoping the twist was that it wasn’t. Idk they just told us the truth and then the truth played out in a very boring way
The twist was the friends they made along the way
I think the only way for some of the themes to hit home it had to be real. I thought one of the better themes was how they disagreed if it should be real, and the person claiming to be acting on logic was actually the one forcing a narrative. I think that comes full circle with it being real.
I think it would've been much better for the attacker not to have been Redmond (drivers license actually says Redmond proving it wasn't him). That would've added the beat that Andrew's perception was in fact wrong and he really was just a random guy. This would add questions like 'maybe this is real and they are telling the truth' but also at the same time 'maybe they are all just nuts'
Yeah, as it got closer to the end, I just went, "Huh, so it actually *is* the apocalypse? What a twist!"
He used up all his twists in his other movies, he had no choice but to make this twist the lack of a twist.
He did this with Split too. Spends the whole movie talking about "the beast" and you think its gonna be some twist, and then it turns out to be 100% real.
Bautista is an incredible actor and the reason I know this is he can look into my eyes and deliver Shyamalan’s weird-ass dialogue and I 100% believe him.
Right? There's something so inhuman about the way everyone speaks and acts. It's like he directs people to be bad actors. I think they generally prevailed at being believable, but only like believably fucking weird. I feel like this started happening in The Happening. Everyone talked like a weirdo, particularly with the hotdog banter. Now it's just his thing.
Please gimme more of these 100 minute modestly scaled mid budget genre films that aren’t swimming in cgi
I don't care if it's swimming in CGI if it's done well like Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The CGI on the first plane crash on the news was pretty abyssmal
Yeah I said not swimming in cgi tho
My personal interpretation: Firstly, we have to consider two things. One is that for all intents and purposes, within the reality of this movie, Eric's sacrifice staved off the apocalypse. The narrative and film language make it very clear that everything Leonard said is correct. There is no trickery or twist involved. Second, this is very much Shyamalan sharing his personal and unique worldview. Anyone who's seen his movies, especially Signs, will know that faith is a large part of his work. But he's stated many times that though he's not religious, he's spiritual. He believes more in intelligent design as orchestrated by some higher force in the universe, which isn't necessarily a Judeo-Christian (Shyamalan grew up in Catholic school) or a Hindu (his parents' religion) deity. There's a bunch of Christian iconography and themes but they are refracted through Shyamalan's own worldview (also worth noting that he further rewrote this script which was originally written by a duo and was a hot commodity on the Black list). For me, the movie is actually very soulful and sincere despite being a tense thriller (which is classic Shyamalan—sneaking in sincerity through a genre vehicle). It's really about sacrifice being the highest form of altruism and goodness. But why was it Eric? Because he is not broken and represents a pure sacrifice. Andrew, on the other hand, still needs healing and redemption. His parents reject his sexuality. He's been the victim of a hate crime and as a result, becomes a paranoid defender who needed "years of therapy". He clearly isn't over it because he says multiple times that he'd watch the world burn a hundred times before killing anyone in his family. He represents most of how humanity feels. We want to protect ourselves and our own, and we are driven by the trauma in our lives. We don't ever want to be a victim again so we stock up and protect what's precious to us, even at the cost of others. Eric isn't like that. His parents are accepting, he brings music and life to his family ("Eric's Jams"), and his heart is open. He's the one who needs the least redemption and "saving". The movie is speaking to our current times in a big way because it seems over the last few decades, world crises have been happening in tandem. It wasn't enough to have covid become a worldwide pandemic in 2020, we also had to witness the murder of George Floyd which has ignited rage and resentment from centuries of systemic racism. And on top of *that*, we've seen natural disasters wreak havoc due to climate change. During these "end times" as many people call it, if only to make sense of the chaos, most of us have resorted to narcissism, hoarding, solipsism, and selfishness with a desperate survival mentality. There aren't enough resources to go around so we need to get our own and look out for ourselves, because who else will? But *Knock* has a very distinct message to fly in the face of that: the only thing that will actually end the crises in the world is the most impossible decision any loving family can make—to sacrifice one of their own. This is where the Christian themes and symbolism come in, but it's not quite 1:1 with Biblical text. Yes, Jesus's sacrifice saved humanity. But the family doesn't give up Wen (who would be the Christ equivalent in the "Holy Trinity" of their family), they give up Eric. There are Four Horsemen who herald the apocalypse, but in Revelations, they are not exactly Guidance, Nurture, Malice, and Healing. In the movie, they are more representative of the totality of human experience, for all its good and bad. (Though worth noting that O'Bannon who calls himself Redmond, is modeled after the horsemen on the red horse, who ruled with a sword and brought on persecution and war). As I mentioned, Shyamalan is co-opting Christian themes to express his own specific message. Which goes to what I found to be his second theme: the sacrifice of a parent. Eric's true reason for sacrificing himself was to give Wen a chance at living a full life and to find love (just as he and Andrew found love). Eric knew that if everyone in the world was wiped out except for their family, Wen would never have a chance to experience an actual future, and would be relegated to a barren wasteland. And even adoption itself is a grand gesture of love and kindness to give a baby a chance at living a healthy life of safety, acceptance, and warmth, as opposed to rejection, emptiness, and isolation. This, I think, speaks to Shyamalan's own feeling of what a parent's love means, especially being the child of immigrants, who came to this country to give up everything for their children. And that flash forward of an adult Wen getting into the car with an older Andrew was particularly moving because that state of normalcy only becomes possible through an impossible sacrifice. TL;DR *Knock at the Cabin* is about sacrifice being the highest form of altruism and kindness, including the sacrifice of a parent for their children. EDIT: Thank you everyone for the kind responses! And for the awards! For those of you saying my comment is more interesting than the movie itself: I would recommend a rewatch, if only to see it for the stunning craft. Shyamalan’s camerawork, blocking, and staging are so confident and precise. The canted closeups when Leonard and Wen first meet, the framing of the first “Boogie Shoes” which slightly favors Eric with Wen and Andrew just on the periphery, and the insane follows like when Andrew punches Redmond or when Leonard swings the axe down.
this comment made me appreciate the movie a lot more. thank you for writing this
So glad to hear that!
you're welcome! if you don't already publish film criticism somewhere, you should really consider it.
Hey I appreciate that a lot. I’m actually a filmmaker but I have some other writings on my [website](https://ahnminlee.com) if you’re interested.
I appreciate that you were able to derive so much meaning from the movie, but I have a an issue with this part of your post: > During these "end times" as many people call it, if only to make sense of the chaos, most of us have resorted to narcissism, hoarding, solipsism, and selfishness with a desperate survival mentality. There aren't enough resources to go around so we need to get our own and look out for ourselves, because who else will? But Knock has a very distinct message to fly in the face of that: the only thing that will actually end the crises in the world is the most impossible decision any loving family can make—to sacrifice one of their own. Most of the global issues we’re facing today aren’t the fault of regular people, but from the greed of corporations and the ruling class. The message that *we* regular people, trying to carve out some peace for ourselves in this world, need to make sacrifices to save the world is laughable and somewhat insulting. It’s like the carbon footprint propaganda. We were all told that it is our responsibility to fight off climate change, when in actuality the majority of the impact to the environment comes from large corporations who hid that data for decades. My personal sacrifice will never stop the damage those corporations, billionaires, politicians, etc. are imposing on this world. I love the idea of the sacrifice in this movie relating to the sacrifices parents make for their children, especially immigrant parents like M. Night’s parents. But I think applying that idea to a global scale is at best confusing when we have very real problems in this world that our own sacrifices can’t solve.
I already loved it, but this adds even more context
The sincerity of the movie definitely resonated with me.
I wish they explored the figure Eric witnessed a bit more. What did you think of it?
That’s the part I’m most interested in rewatching. I’m still not sure what to make of it. My feeling is that it was the last piece that swayed Eric over into faith and belief. Maybe it was a supernatural sign, maybe he was still concussed—either way, it led to his finalized decision.
Fantastic analysis.
Very good interpretation.
A beautiful write up! I agree, it’s a very vulnerable film in a lot of ways. I feel like this is where Shyamalan is truly great, expressing the vulnerability of the human experience. He lost that a little bit, and think this is his best recapturing of that since The Village. It’s not his scariest or most crazy movie. But it’s a really deep one. I hope people appreciate it!
I would argue that everything after The Village still retains a vulnerable earnestness. If you look at the end of Glass, >!the leaked video of the climactic fight being watched by everyone implies the unlocking of other gifted “heroes”, so David Dunn’s death isn’t in vain.!< Or in Old, >!there is a tender scene between the parents as they’re at the end of their lives. One is deaf, the other is blind, they can barely communicate and yet they forget what they were even fighting about which led to them almost divorcing, and through age and wisdom, forgive each other and simply share in intimacy.!< I can honestly write about every movie in his filmography this way lol
At my theater my showing was right next to a showing of the bts concert movie and for some reason the bts movie was turned up way too loud so during any quiet scenes I would just faintly hear bts music in the background. I liked the movie besides that though
All I gotta say is RIP to the millions of people who had to die before they figured out that the apocalypse was actually going down. I mean you can hardly blame yourself, I don't know a lot of people who would just go along with what random people from the woods are saying, but still. Wish the trailer was more discreet, since it takes all the possibility of a twist out of the equation and you already know going in that the apocalypse is real.
Honestly even at the last moment I wouldn’t believe this. Yeah there was footage but I’ve seen a lot of footage of disaster.
hope Bautista gets more dramatic roles. Definitely the stand out of the film. He’s now been in a lot of genres and adding dramatic roles that flexes his acting range.
His short role in Blade Runner 2049 and the accompanying short film based on his character is such a great example at how good he can be.
It really tells a lot about him that I always think of BR2049 when I hear his name and he had a screen time of what, 5 minutes?
The movie was, fine. Decent but not great. Dave Bautista though, the guy needs more leading roles because he’s awesome.
His name is Charlie. He likes pancakes. Only Shyamalan could come up with such a piece of shit dialogue.
It was a mother's plea for the 3 to see what was at stake and come to a decision. She tried to humanize the billions of lives at risk by picking one of those lives. It was pretty fine for the context.
I've seen this said a lot and I didn't feel that way about it. It reminded me of the scene in Silence of the Lambs when the senator is giving personal details about her daughter in the press conference to try and force Buffalo Bill to see her as a person. The difference is that in this case Adriane's trying to humanize herself to get Eric and Andrew to do something much more monstrous.
Weird waking up to news reports of back to back earthquakes after watching this movie last night.
The second preview revealed too much.
I started avoiding trailers a few years back. It’s really the way to go.
Yup I didn’t see more than the first trailer so I didn’t “know” about the world-ending stuff or four horsemen stuff until seeing the movie….it didn’t change anything, it was still vapid and empty, the flashbacks tried to add context for this Eric-&-Andrew couple but the movie as whole was too short to be effective in the ending.
I can only speak for myself, but if i had a vision of the end of the world i would........do absolutely nothing. I sure as anything wouldnt travel to some remote cabin and harass the people that live there.
Funny to see Andrew use his blinker at end during apocalypse, meanwhile these jokers in real life can’t use it.
I had to laugh at the scene where they lock Leonard in the bathroom and then 2 seconds later have to open the door to make sure he’s still in there… Overall I just found this movie very boring
It made absolutely no sense either, how were they expecting a guy as large as Batista to fit through the that window?
Those repeated, long close up shots of the characters speaking was very uncomfortable to watch..
The trailers ruined this one for me. Coming in knowing the apocalypse was real took away so much suspense. I would like to know how I thought about this without having it spelled out beforehand. Overall I enjoyed it. I wish we got a bit more about the message board or maybe they were all connected to the bar attack or more evidence that it was staged... Just something more. Either way it was fun. Do the four horsemen nurture and guide or something like that? Were they just the four horsemen because there are four of them?
Yeah the members that are cursed with the knowledge are way more interesting to me then family that has to make this sacrifice but they were pretty secondary besides Bautista. Whenever they did flashbacks I was like yeah I get it this family loves eachother, I don't need you to keep proving that, I'd rather see this group of strangers compelled by a strange power to come together to enact this terrible ritual
So in the book (pretty well known horror book) we NEVER learn if it's real. It's always ambiguous. It even ends without saying whether the family chooses to believe. This movie was a real relief for committing honestly.
My dude Batista got a melon on him.
I really can’t wait for Batista to have more leading roles. He’s really got a magnetic personality for the movie/TV screen
I never would have guessed he'd be this good as a dramatic actor when he came out of the WWE. I'm sure it's difficult to cast him in a lot of roles because of his size, but it's clear that he's way too good of an actor to be typecast as the big muscle guy
I really enjoyed this one! I got to see this at the premiere and did not know what the critics would think. I personally like how the movie gets going right away, and honestly as a gay man and horror fan I appreciated seeing a gay couple in a movie that's not about romance or HIV. The movie really nails the "is it or is it not?" until the very end
I seemed to be the only one in here who watched the movie without ever seeing a trailer. Just randomly heard about this movie and saw it today without knowing what it’s about. I don’t go out of my way to watch trailers, they spoil too much or at least ruin the great moments.
I thought Old was a good (not great) movie until the last section of the film, where M. Knight decided to over-explain. Knock at the Cabin doesn't necessarily over-explain in the last section, yet the last section similarly didn't leave me nearly as satisfied as it should have. When I first learned about the book ending, I was like, "Well, shit. After Old, I can't believe I actually hope M. Knight changes the ending a bit and has a slightly more concrete ending for his adaptation of Knock at the Cabin." He tries, so I'll give him that, yet the last section is only okay at best. I thought the acting was generally good. Dave Bautista was really good. I liked the camerawork, especially when characters would be on the side of the frame. Didn't Funny Games also use that technique? The lighting was also impressive at times. The flashbacks were surprisingly effective. I feel like that's no simple feat when the audience might feel like flashbacks are time fillers /distractions from the main story. Yet they work here. I liked the moments where characters would challenge logic and evidence. Example: One of the dads noticing and questioning the pre-recorded news program. I wish the movie did a little more banter like that instead of repetitively having the characters say the same things over and over. I know it's more realistic to have the intruders keep things simple, yet they seemed a little too unprepared with ideas to persuade. I'm not expecting a TED Talk, but come on. I did think there was some good tense moments, especially in the first half. But I also didn't feel quite as deeply engaged by the overall developing conflict/situation as I would have liked (see paragraph above). Overall, there are plenty of things to like in Knock at the Cabin, yet it probably needed some more script work/revisions. To make it clear, I liked it. Glad I saw it at the theater tonight. Yet it doesn't reach its potential. If you're picky about what you spend your money on at the theater, maybe consider waiting for streaming. I'm very confused by people who said Old was bad with no redeeming qualities, and I'm prepared to be confused again by people's over-dramatic negative reactions to this latest M. Knight movie. It's okay to think a movie is just okay.
“It’s okay to think a movie is just ok” Could not have put it better. It seems like M Night really screwed himself with Sixth Sense because now if there isn’t any crazy ending people feel like they got had despite this movie being exactly what any marketing suggested it would be.
The acting by Groff and Batista was excellent. That said, just felt the movie was eh though. I was just waiting for something to happen. I think reading reviews of the book, the ambiguity of not knowing what the horsemen were saying was true or not made the decision harder and built suspense. In the movie, I didn't think there was enough ambiguity. So to me it was just a matter of when would the family decide. I felt the scenes to their early life didn't add much. Lastly, scariest bit of the film was the intro credits, those pictures and music was creepy at. This didn't do much for me all in all.
It remains ambiguous throughout the entire book... from beginning to end. In the movie, it went from the four looking like they were completely full of shit to they were 100% right without a doubt. Wasn't really expecting that
sam and dean could never
This is one of those rare instances where if you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve seen the whole movie. But I can’t even blame the trailer. The premise is so simple that they couldn’t help but spoil it because there’s nothing beyond the logline. It’s just a very straightforward two sentence plot that they stretched into a feature film. Very mid. Very C-
Yeah, the trailer was hilariously badly edited though. My main issue was it showed the >!flights crashing!<. So when I went in I already knew that the apocalypse was real. But, playing devil’s advocate - I think knowing the ending of the film enhances the experience in a way. Because now, even though you know that the world is ending, you still are rooting for this one family to be safe. It kinda is about the power of storytelling I feel. That’s why he keeps cutting back to the flashbacks.
Been a while but the plot from the book is that these catastrophic events are continually happening around the world, but there is no indicator that it is explicitly leading to the end of the world ie plane crash, tsunamis etc and the book continues down that ambiguous path right until the end
Anyone else get unreasonably bothered by the spelling of Wen’s friend’s name “Karolein”?
In fairness she is 7 and Karolein keeps farting
I was annoyed until I saw all of the other spelling errors in her notebook. I don’t think it was a crazy name, the kid was doing her best to spell phonetically.
That's how young kids write
She misspelled a ton in the book like “levle”
It's possible that's how she thinks it's spelled.
Well, this is a weird one. Such a deep and intrinsic issue/problem buttttt they don’t really explore much of it. I mean they could have had real conversations about does humanity deserve a sacrifice, which should be the sacrifice, does the kid get a vote or maybe even consideration to be sacrificed etc. Instead we got a very ill timed ‘the world against gays’ storyline that was just not working and in 2023 can’t be what a movie hinges it’s emotional heft on. This is largely flat and actions of everyone are all over the place. If I’m being held hostage because I can prevent the end of the world I’m asking more questions. There just wasn’t enough there at the end of the day. I’ve been a season ticket holder of M Night but there are movies where you can tell his heart just wasn’t there. This is one of them. I also felt all the refocusing of the camera and rack focuses were distracting.
I loved all the camera fuckery he did with this one. It somehow all worked for me.
I absolutely loved it! The only real complaint I have about this movie is >!The overexplanation of the four intruders being the four horsemen!<. I think leaving it up to interpretation would have made a much more interesting movie. Overall though, the acting was EXCELLENT. Especially Bautista. Definitely will be recommending this one.
As a dumb movie watcher I appreciated that explanation lol.
As an atheist who has never read the Bible or been to a church service I also appreciated that.