Knock At The Cabin is a home invasion thriller based on the novel The Cabin at the End of the World. A gay couple on vacation with their daughter are assaulted by a group of strangers who inform them that unless one of them kills another the world will end.
By and large the movie is excellently cast, particularly Dave Bautista as Leonard the leader of the invaders, who is absolutely committed, who brings all his hulking tenderness to bear in a really compelling way. Also great to see Jonathan Groff who, although primarily a Broadway actor, he excels at the more eerie stuff(this and Mindhunter most recently). The rest of the, limited, cast are all intriguing but much like the source material this story isn't really about people its about this rather contrived moral dilemma.
Shot with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's typical lushness and slow-moving dread it looks great(until the CGI climax which looks straight out of a 1999 TNT movie) the score elevates the suspense, the cabin where the majority of the action is set, is beautiful, the homemade weapons of the intruders evocative. Overall, it succeeds rather tidily on it's intent and yet the existential morality play the characters mark through doesn't pack that much of a punch because little-to-no time is spent setting up the characters that enact it. The movie kind of hurtles along on the gas of it's own premise but forgets that for all of this stuff to be impactful we have to care about the humans involved. Which we only kind of do, in a vague generalist way.
Baptista shines, the story underwhelms.
Currently streaming on Peacock.
Stream It.
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