Movie review: Knock at the Cabin is a very good idea that fails to stand out

The literary adaptations to the big screen have had divided opinions, some have been good and others not so lucky, in the last decade trilogies and sagas have emerged, among which we have The Godfather (1972 – 1990), Harry Potter (2001. 2011), Twilight (2008 – 2012), The Hunger Games (2012 – 2015), Maze Runner (2014 – 2018) and Fifty Shades (2015 – 2018) that are popular among their fans.

When trying to adapt one of these works, we take into account that there will be a freer version and that there will be changes in its history so that as viewers we understand that this material is very different from its original and that it has its personality in the complex and demanding world of celluloid.

Science fiction is a literary genre that has been in great demand to make these adaptations and the director M. Night Shyamalan adapts the work Knock at the Cabin by Paul G. Tremblay with a very interesting twist in his story that defines it as a film of apocalyptic psychological horror.

What is the film about?

The vacation of Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) a family planning to have a quiet vacation in the woods in a cabin is interrupted when it is invaded by 4 armed strangers who take them as hostages and then expose their simple proposition: The world is coming to an end, everyone has seen it and only a sacrifice between them can stop it and save humanity.

The story is interesting if we see it in its context and separate it from its original material, it seems that its director has a plausible fascination for apocalyptic stories, we already saw it with The Happening (2007) and After Earth (2013) continuing with the same line and that in turn also seems that this is his trilogy uses a very interesting moral resource on human behavior in the face of the threat of the end of time, what they can do and how such an important decision is made that involves millions of people. innocent people.

Dilemmas of this type, when they are well raised and well managed, manage to capture the attention of the spectators, and the message works, here what has been done is to respect the characters as they were conceived, a homosexual couple with their daughter pretend to have some vacation in the woods where they meet 4 very interesting characters that represent in a modern and simple way the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse who demand that a sacrifice be made so that the chaotic world they present is saved otherwise everything we know will disappear.

These characters are interesting to see, given their religious origin War, famine, plague, and death have been represented in many different ways, as horses, as women, as children, as intangible entities, as villains and now As ordinary people raised in a more real and current scenario, after humanity lived through a pandemic we understand and are more aware of how weak we are as inhabitants of this planet, of the abuse of natural resources that day by day are spent more, of an inevitable global warming, all this and more has inspired literary authors and screenwriters to bring this to the world of entertainment but with a message.

Many things can be said about this work, but the reality is that its screenwriters Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman, and Shyamalan himself give their interpretation of what the original author of the novel wants to make us understand with his work, it seems that things are here They have neither head nor tail, that everything that is done has an independent rhythm that at some point will come together as something that makes the above concrete and culminates with something spectacular, that does not happen here.

It is a pity that this story adapted to the cinema is not as good as expected, as a film, it has a very good proposal with suspenseful elements that make it more interesting and become a thriller that keeps the audience entertained and interested in its characters. It is incomprehensible how, having this in hand, things could turn out differently from what was planned.

Events happen very slowly in a written novel is justified because the spectrum to narrate what is intended is broader, 100 minutes are not enough to present the events in detail, to better develop the characters, and propose a more agile narrative and credibility within his work, we know from the beginning that this target family is made up of Wen and his two parents, Eric and Andrew who do not know why they have been chosen and the same questions that they ask themselves as characters are the same as those that We pose as spectators, we see them tied in chairs before their armed captors and they must decide to sacrifice one of the three to stop an imminent apocalypse. The rule is that they cannot commit suicide under the threat that if they reject their captors’ proposal something terrible will happen. in the cabin and a worldwide plague will be unleashed that has already started with tsunamis and strong earthquakes.

These 4 antagonistic characters are headed by Leonard (Dave Bautista), Redmond (Rupert Grint), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), and Adriane (Abby Quinn) each one has a fixed purpose, as it is a story that presents an equal marriage The strong comment that claims to be justified within his narrative was inevitable. Andrew is the one who protests that they are there only to “kill the fagots” which is a mistaken assessment within despair in the face of a danger that they do not know how it will end, this feels more in favor of the script that does not transcend and is essential.

We can say that we are facing a very light thriller, a work that could well be presented on a streaming platform where it would also go unnoticed, one of the great and unforgivable flaws it has is the vision of its director M. Night Shyamalan, we know that you prefer unconventional projects, for stories that could hardly be taken to another medium, the problem is the execution, here things are so slow that they fall into tedium and boredom and when you try to take things to a high level of suspense is already too late, its mechanics and structure are to present everything suddenly at the beginning and then it becomes slow towards an end that is not very dynamic and dramatic, The Sixth Sense (1999) presented the above and surprised, which we did not expect it is that things were from greater to lesser and less than that.

This makes it lack a key element, it is not that what we see needs a dose of gore, the threat of verbal and physical violence in an isolated place does not manage to have that level of tension that is needed, from the beginning it is considered how far it can reach the human capacity to know and recognize the value of another person’s life, the horror that could create a claustrophobic atmosphere in the emotions and feelings of its characters simply does not exist, the lack of this element takes everything we see out of rhythm, it is a constant fight between good and evil which makes us wonder, are these 4 antagonists really or are they just doing what is necessary to save humanity? And this creates one anticlimax after another within the subplots themselves.

The action scenes are necessary, but equally poorly executed and fall into the cliché of those who try to defend themselves to escape their captors, this could have been handled from various perspectives that, if well directed, would give a different result and the impact that this would cause would be genuine. , what works better than the horror is the fact that they bring up this desperate couple but at the same time we care about them and their destiny, being the target family, the stress comes and goes between the love story of Eric and Andrew and her life with adoptive daughter Wen and having to decide something to end it.

The love that is professed as base changes as the events happen and they reveal a personality that they did not know or know about each other, it is a great guess and the representation of a married couple of the same gives substance to the plot sex that on the one hand, this is already part of daily life inside and outside of what we are seeing and on the other that there is not even a comparison with a heterosexual marriage like many that we have seen in other films but here and in this specific topic Hollywood It still hasn’t fully risked, it feels like there’s still much more work to be done in this area.

Each piece in this puzzle plays by its own rules and clearly marks who are good, very good, and who is bad, very bad, and there is no balance or midpoint in which we can understand what the reasons are, they explain very little and fall in another very comfortable cliché to play with the viewer and for us to guess or have our own opinion and that doesn’t work, especially with a direction as unstable and mediocre as the one Shyamalan gives us, which proves once again that his script is bad and the things go even worse.

For a film that is basically about how humans choose to interact with each other, the performances leave a lot to be desired, we never believe Leonard, who is played by Bautista, that he has good or bad intentions, his monologues say one thing and his expression another, he oscillates between I can but I don’t want to and between I don’t know what I’m doing here, it is to be recognized that the only time he does it well and very credible is how he explains an unthinkable plan with such softness and courtesy, each of these 4 characters has had apocalyptic visions that They have changed their lives, together they share the idea that to save the world you have to do the right thing even if this seems horrible to us and the only viable way to do it is through violence.

Its ending is something more than predictable, it does not surprise or excite, it concludes with the fact that these 4 characters were telling the truth and the terrible events that occur in the world are diminishing and we interpret that 2 of the characters that make up this broken family have They have to face an incredible reality and try to go on with their lives, taking with them the teaching that the pain of losing a loved one is not worth it, but it is worth it to preserve a dying world that may still have good things to offer us.

As is already a constant in any film production, the moral discourse now includes tolerance, love between people of the same sex, love in the family, equal marriages, understanding, and although it is a good idea to touch them in a subtle Here they do not work in their execution either and it feels forced and one can come to believe that this is imposed as a rule and this hinders what the characters can give and make of themselves, it is frustrating that having such an important element is not know how to work

To be very honest Shyamalan as a director is bad, lousy, here he tries desperately to find a way to keep the film visually interesting in the interior shots of the cabin the claustrophobia is portrayed effectively and although we wish Knock at the Cabin would be Transformed into what it promises, we were halfway waiting for more in tension, suspense, action, and horror, the mix is difficult to carry and even more so things are very complicated in such an interesting subject.

There’s a significant shift in the narrative at a specific moment that takes the story down a different path than its source material and it’s also not enough to heighten and bring out some of the more subtly lurking themes in the novel, too little. It will likely become an important studio film that contributes something to the genre that occupies it, the free changes that are made give it its different personality, but this does not mean that these changes are the best.

The cast is made up of Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Kristen Cui, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint who do what they can with what they have, as actors they could have given much more. Still, the limitations of a bad script and misdirection remain only at the beginning of what could be.

The soundtrack composed by Herdís Stefánsdóttir is short, simple and its pieces at times far exceed what we see audiovisually, it works in a limited way and does not promote or support it, it is simply an element that is there and what we can listen to.

In conclusion, M. Night Shyamalan should stay away from apocalyptic themes; moreover, he should stay as far away from cinema as a director as possible, given that his projects are not good, although a few like them, he has touched on themes with very good ideas that do not stand out and on the contrary, they remain as a crude attempt to want to do something right and this recent installment shows it.

Knock at the Cabin is already opening in movie theaters in our country.