Knock at the Cabin

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Knock at the Cabin follows a couple (Jonathan Groff’s Eric and Ben Aldridge’s Andrew) as they and their little girl (Kristen Cui’s Wen) are held hostage at their vacation home by four criminals (Dave Bautista’s Leonard, Nikki Amuka-Bird’s Sabrina, Abby Quinn’s Adriane, and Rupert Grint’s Redmond). It’s a fairly standard premise that’s employed as a springboard for an increasingly engrossing and flat-out spellbinding thriller, as Shyamalan, armed with a script written alongside Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, delivers an impressively taut endeavor that’s enhanced by its stirring visuals and top-notch performances – with, in terms of the latter, the cast’s completely (and uniformly) engrossing work effectively grounding the proceedings through a narrative that grows more and more outrageous. And while the movie’s opening stretch admittedly does contain a small handful of lulls, Knock at the Cabin progresses into a tense, engrossing midsection that’s been augmented with a number of unexpectedly (and impressively) suspenseful interludes and sequences – with the film ultimately building towards a visceral and emotionally-charged climax that packs one heck of a palpable punch. The final result is a first-class endeavor that easily ranks near the top of Shyamalan’s undeniably rocky body of work, and it’s worth noting, as well, that the movie improves upon its source material, Paul G. Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World, to a predominantly striking degree.

***1/2 out of ****