M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin: Seven towards the apocalypse
The author is behind an analysis project about M. Night Shyamalan‘s films. There are several articles on each: The Sixth Sense (1999, here, here and here), Unbreakable (2000, here, here and here), Signs (2002, here, here, here and here), The Village (2004, here, here and here), Lady in the Water (2006, here and here), The Happening (2008, here, here and here), The Last Airbender (2010, here and here), After Earth (2013, here and here), Split (2016, here, here, here, and here), Glass (2019, here) and Old (2021, here). All the articles can also be accessed through this overview.
The events of Knock at the Cabin will be freely discussed with no spoiler warnings. For a summary of the plot see here.
*
Knock at the Cabin (2023) is a riveting experience, powerfully tapping into highly topical, online-fuelled phenomena like irreconcilable world views, gaslighting and conspiracy theories. It can also be taken as a metaphor of humanity refusing to sacrifice anything in the face of mounting evidence of apparently escalating environmental disasters. Ultimately, however, it is about the timeless theme of the nobility and necessity of sacrifice.
M. Night Shyamalan is mining this adaptation (with some major changes) of Paul Tremblay‘s lauded 2018 horror novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” for maximum intensity via its many contrasts. Not only the intrusion of absolute irrationality into an idyllic vacation, but the behaviour of the four invaders are swinging from the most banal normality to periodically being transformed into automatons performing acts of unspeakable brutality, killing others and letting themselves be executed.
Finally, their bizarre need to become friends with their tied-up victims provides a darkly humorous, absurd layer, following up the opening scene’s exquisite feeling of quiet-before-the-storm estrangement, as a fairy-tale-like gentle giant turns up out of nowhere to befriend a little girl.
The unbelievable story is, crucially, grounded in terrific performances from the entire ensemble. How on earth did his former career as a professional wrestler prepare the towering Dave Bautista, who has now been critically lauded, for this subtle performance, with perfectly modulated line deliveries, as the mild-mannered and (sometimes comically) well-meaning Leonard, the leader of four everyday people determined to prevent the apocalypse?
The cataclysm can only be avoided if one of the family of three in the rented, remote cabin decides to willingly sacrifice themselves and be killed by another family member. Jonathan Groff and (especially) Ben Aldridge are excellent as the same-sex parents Eric and Andrew – always hitting the right tones, either of incredulity over the intruders’ odd behaviour, fear of their unpredictability, helpless rage over the situation, or constant worry that they have been targeted because they are gay.
Eric is calm, thoughtful but also overly cautious, while the more aggressive, single-minded Andrew is one of Shyamalan’s countless deeply traumatised characters, here after a homophobic physical attack that landed him in years of therapy. Andrew’s outburst of rage against the “monsters” of the outside world when it dawns upon him that Eric is seriously considering sacrificing himself for them, thus depriving Andrew of the love of his life, comes across with a searing emotional honesty.
From a dialogue hint in a flashback Eric seems open to religion and might even be practising – which becomes key for him to not only realising that the strangers are modern-day versions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but also to the film’s resolution – while on the other hand, again without it clearly stated, Andrew’s parents, who sternly reject his gay partner, are likely to be deeply religious. Throughout the ordeal, Andrew seems worried that his partner will be swayed by the invaders. This fear of allowing anything that might make one diverge from a chosen path is mirrored by Leonard, who refuses to entertain the thought that one of his now-deceased associates might have had a personal motive to seek out the gay couple. It is ironic that, unlike in real life, the crackpot ideas expounded by the invaders turn out to be true – it is not like Shyamalan is endorsing conspiracy theories in this movie but the story needs a dramatic climax.
Kristen Cui is yet another enchanting child performer in Shyamalan’s work as Wen, Eric and Andrew’s soon eight-year-old adoptive daughter. The rest of the intruders are played by Abby Quinn, as the sharp-featured, wild-eyed Adriane who seems both overwhelmed but also very proud to have been elevated from a line cook to this exalted position; Nikki Amuka-Bird as Sabrina, a nurse who loves to heal but also knows where to inflict wounds to prevent victims from escaping; and Rupert Grint as the impatient, volatile Redmond, who appears to have an odd connection to Andrew (discussed here).
What drives the invaders is their shared visions of future disaster and doomsday, which shall come in four waves, resulting in the eradication of mankind. A counterpart of sorts is constituted by four flashbacks, equally divided between trauma (Andrew’s parents rejecting Eric; Andrew subjected to the homophobic attack) and joy (their initial encounter with the orphan Wen; their collective performance routine of Eric’s favourite song in the car and then upon arrival frolicking in the lake).
There is another vision in the film, however, forming a centrepiece of its emotional climax. In a sweepingly fluid, one-take flashforward – soundless except for Eric’s voice-over and Shyamalan’s new discovery, Icelandic composer Herdís Stefánsdóttir‘s evocative score – we see Andrew accompanying a happy adult Wen decades into the future.
Like the ones of the invaders, this vision too is shared: it is so compelling that Andrew is able to see the absolute truth of it, which enables him to pull the trigger to complete Eric’s sacrifice – not like robots compelled by a strange ritual in the case of the visitors, but as a conscious, deliberate decision, powered by both intellectual reasoning and emotional love.
In a film driven by drama and enthralment about the plot’s unfolding, there is not that much deep emotion, until that sudden scene. It works on this viewer in the same way however many times Knock at the Cabin is seen: Eric’s almost whisper of a voice, the small beatific smile on his face, his eyes closed to hold the vision before his inner eye in his moment of death – while he is “thinking the most beautiful thought”.
Knock at the Cabin‘s last shot, with 120 seconds its second longest take, is filmed as if from the vantage point of Eric’s spirit, looking through the windshield at his surviving family in the front seat of a truck, observing how they are starting to come to terms with his death by allowing his favourite song to continue playing on the radio.
Is there a supernatural element here – his spirit willing the song to appear as a last message and helping them reconcile with their loss? They are also leaving him behind, however, reversing the car away from him while he and the camera stay rooted to the ground, ultimately leaving him to look at the car as it disappears into the distance.
Recurring obsessions
Knock at the Cabin has a lot in common with Shyamalan’s previous film Old (2021), sharing the same font in the opening titles and the fact that they are adaptations of existing works. There is also a similar race against time: the heroes must act quickly before the world dies, while in Old before they perish themselves. Here too there is a limited cast of characters from diverse walks of life under terrible strain and dying one after each other – cut off from the outside world, although in Knock the mayhem is mostly happening in the outside world, not confined to the beach in Old.
They also feature the same (apparent) obsession the characters have with volunteering information about themselves, and especially keen on announcing their occupations.
Seemingly intended as a comical estrangement effect in Old – as well as showing how the characters are uselessly clinging to their former identities when facing the strangeness of the beach – it did not always work so well. The effect in the early stages of Knock is a full-on success, however – profoundly weird, and with the motivation behind it eventually easier to understand: the intruders are really trying to connect with their victims on a human level.
Adriane’s information at a much later stage that her little daughter “likes pancakes” is a touching echo of this, but now said with a helpless resignation that fully recognises the futility of it, the words becoming virtually her last ones in life.
Andrew’s rage against the cruelty of the outside world and the couple’s need to protect their innocent child mirror The Village (2004) population and their absolute rejection of everything external, as well as the setting of a small civilisation surrounded by forest, with their social life governed by elaborate rituals.
The disaster movie angle is shared with Signs (2002), in both films with the catastrophe only viewed through TV reports, with home invasions and the Signs aliens in one instance knocking on the defenders’ cellar door. (The knocking in the new movie seems highly ritualistic: the invaders are pounding the door seven times in a row, one for each of the main characters. The knocking is repeated at the very finish of the end titles, four times when the film title is visible, a fifth time exactly as it disappears, possibly signifying Eric’s sacrifice, and then two more for the surviving characters.)
The Happening (2008), another disaster movie, of course also springs to mind, not least via its coda, where the protagonist couple seem to have adopted their friends’ now orphaned daughter, not that much older than Wen, and their pride in her and the beautiful quietude of the coda reflect the serenity of the flashforward of the adult Wen. Its epidemic of mass suicide is echoed in the suicidal sacrifices central to Knock – the score seems to quote the mournful main theme of The Happening just before Adriane’s death – and in the earlier film too the catastrophe suddenly stops, although it is much more unclear whether the protagonists had something to do with it.
The eerie shot in Knock‘s opening scene when Leonard looks away but can see no one in the forest is reminiscent of the girl on the bench in the opening of The Happening where she thinks she hears someone cry out in panic but can only see total normalcy when looking around.
For seasoned Shyamalan viewers, the opening situation between Wen and Leonard will be even more sinister with Split (2016) in mind, whose series of six flashbacks about the heroine as a five-year-old detail her relation to her uncle, a similarly hulking figure with a beard, who turn out to an abuser that will try his best to ruin her life. Knock employs the same structure as Split, with four flashbacks triggered by events in the current timeline, a device not often used by the director.
As for recurring Shyamalan themes and motifs right from the early stages of his career, Knock presents many in their most acute form: sense of purpose and faith – which when acted upon can produce extraordinary results – as well as rituals, here in the fixed nature of the situations when the captives are asked to sacrifice themselves, the line “a part of humanity has been judged” plus the white hood that must be worn before the invaders sacrifice themselves instead, always killed with the same home-made weapons.
Hands have always been a recurring motif for the director so it is not surprising that when Eric sums up the intruders as representing various aspects of humanity, the illustrative shots exclude their faces, focussing on their hands and actions, as seen in the below slide show:
Knowledge of the motif gives added resonance to the fact that the first human element entering the film is (Wen’s) hands, in the second shot:
Soon comes the handshake between Leonard and Wen, the shot composition clearly recalling the fateful shake in the epilogue of Unbreakable (2000) between Mr. Glass and David, signalling additional ominousness for the experienced Shyamalan viewer:
Form
The average shot length of Knock at the Cabin is 6.79 seconds, which is par for the course for Shyamalan since his long-take-dominated period of the early 2000s – statistics for most of his other films can be found here – but Knock is perhaps his most traditionally shot work, as regards framings, editing patterns and mise-en-scène. It is still the work of a meticulous filmmaker but his attention is mainly concerned with the actors and telling the story as clearly as possible, rather than trying to break new ground with inventive directorial flourishes.
There is an undeniable intensity that can be achieved by these traditional means, for example close-ups and the “battle of the mind” usage of shot/reverse shot between predominantly fixed camera positions. (One can also argue that in this case the story in itself is so bizarre that the very “conventionality” of the visual storytelling may create an interesting contrast.) When he is occasionally pushing the envelope, however, the suddenness of the device can be very effective.
The following example is not sensational but nicely underlines the heroes’ confusion and desperation when the intruders try to break down the main door.
The next item is monstrously impactful, however, springing to existence out of nowhere. The camera is tilting to a sideways position at a deliberate pace, giving us time to develop a bewildering sense of wonder about what is in store for us, and then – WHAM! – it goes quickly back down again as if it helps Leonard’s axe in the beheading of Redmond. One has seen a camera imitate a weapon before but this execution appears to be an original idea. See the below slide show (the initial slide is marked by a red border):
Knock at the Cabin contains 15 takes longer than 30 seconds – for a full list see here – which is fairly normal for Shyamalan over the last decade or so. One of the more interesting occurs in the fourth and last flashback where a camera movement segues from the taverna to the emergency ward where Andrew is treated after the attack, as if the new location was in the next room. The transgressive nature of the movement underscores how fundamental the event will be for Andrew’s life.
Clocking in at 127 seconds, the shot on the back porch that culminates in Leonard’s ritualistic suicide is the film’s longest:
At one point, the concussed and confused Eric thinks he glimpsed a figure in the light reflected in a mirror. Later a scene starts with a close-up of the bathroom window, marked by a similar flare. Sabrina is treating the back of Eric’s head in there, and not only does the fact that we often see them in a mirror connect to that earlier scene, but she is constantly shown swathed in that light. (Note the simple yet fascinating pattern of the window, dividing it into various areas of fours and threes, referring to the number of people in the two groupings.)
Afterwards, when Eric is back in the living room, we see Sabrina remaining there, still strongly connected to the light, and throughout the film we often see the circular light behind Eric through the open bathroom door:
Shyamalan also draws a fascinating connection between Eric and the green forest visible through the main door, a sight lingered upon in a way that suggests more than just a yearning to escape, or the discomfort of a concussed person over the light.
Some overt symbolism or at least the creating of meaning visually is also perceptible in the next scene, where we for the first time are inside the tree house – a miniature cabin – where Wen has been waiting out the climax:
Our last knock on the door will be a detailed walkthrough of the eerie opening scene, whose strong sense of estrangement is helped by a subtle, sophisticated play on size differences and hierarchies.
Now something funny happens. Just before, when he asked if it bothered her having two fathers, she replied no, except when her “guidance counsellor keeps saying how it’s so great that I have two dads. For some reason it makes me feel like she’s saying the opposite”. Then he looked away and upon her following question about what’s wrong, he answers “nothing at all”.
The sense of helpless dread and unavoidable all-encompassing disaster in Knock at the Cabin is reminiscent of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011). Like with that film, however, it is difficult to replicate the full impact of the first-time viewing. This makes the engagement with it somewhat different than other Shyamalan films, which almost invariably yield a deepening of the experience. The high degree of craftsmanship on most levels nevertheless ensures an engrossing future with this movie.
Enclosure: The mysterious connection between Redmond and Andrew
This is perhaps the deepest mystery of Knock at the Cabin, never resolved. Andrew suddenly claims to recognise Redmond, who under the name of Rory O’Bannon was the perpetrator of the homophobic attack and was sentenced to prison for it. The identification card later found on Redmond proves that he is indeed O’Bannon – but what is the significance? Is perhaps the predicament of the couple after all the result of having been targeted precisely because they are gay, with Redmond perhaps having shadowed Andrew on the internet to find out he has rented the cabin?
Or is there some kind of mystical connection between Redmond and Andrew/Eric, a cosmic coincidence that has led the group to precisely their cabin? (But if he did not know they were there, why would he find it necessary to use an assumed name during the whole operation?) Because in the film’s last scene, after the apocalypse have been averted through Eric’s death, Andrew starts the car that the invaders had arrived in, and in a moving moment Eric’s favourite song automatically starts up too. Is this another connection – the same song is also a favourite of Redmond’s? (It is likely his car; there is an employee card with his Rory O’Bannon name on it stuck on the shade.) But the thing is that Andrew and Wen have already used the car, to get to the diner, without the song being on. How come it is starting now?
I much prefer my already discussed interpretation that it is the spirit of Eric that causes the song to be played. I appreciate the poetic justice, however, that the very person who caused Andrew to learn boxing (and get a gun) is the one who gets crushed by Andrew’s fists in the cabin.
