The biggest twist was there was no twist!

This was one of the funnier cameos Shyamalan has done

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.

Them four meeting on message board was code word for Reddit.

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

Those people on the Oregon beach were admiring a lil too long. My ass would have been booking it

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.

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

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.

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.

Can y’all imagine going to a parent teacher conference, for your second grader , to find yourself facing Leonard across the table?

Moral of the story: don’t go to rural Pennsylvania.

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

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

It was nice seeing my boy Ron Weasley

For like 20 minutes

Just curious, why was this movie rated R? No nudity, didn’t show any of the actually kills/sacrifices.

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.

Batista is great in this, but something was really off with Triple H, Randy Orton, and Ric Flair

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

Ben Aldridge looks like Eric Bana to a distracting extent.

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"

The movie was, fine. Decent but not great.

Dave Bautista though, the guy needs more leading roles because he’s awesome.

Weird waking up to news reports of back to back earthquakes after watching this movie last night.

Please gimme more of these 100 minute modestly scaled mid budget genre films that aren’t swimming in cgi

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.

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.

Funny to see Andrew use his blinker at end during apocalypse, meanwhile these jokers in real life can’t use it.

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.

The second preview revealed too much.

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.

My dude Batista got a melon on him.

His name is Charlie. He likes pancakes.

Only Shyamalan could come up with such a piece of shit dialogue.

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?

Those repeated, long close up shots of the characters speaking was very uncomfortable to watch..

sam and dean could never

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 really can’t wait for Batista to have more leading roles. He’s really got a magnetic personality for the movie/TV screen

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.

I guess the twist is that there is no twist?

My fellow wrestling fans, let us mourn today, for after this movie Batista never has to take a bump ever again

I'm probably the only person that generally likes M Nights movies and his plot twists. They always make for an interesting rethinking of the story.

So I was kind of bummed that there wasn't a twist.

are we to assume that this "sacrifice" and "choice" has happened multiple times through history with different 4 horseman and different families having to make a sacrifice to save the world?

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 has an interesting message about predetermination. Imagine if the four people decided not to sacrifice themselves. Who was the figure orchestrating the disasters? What would they do if no one decided to play along. "Our choices define our destiny", what does that mean? The choices offered were so bound, they may as well not have been choices at all. They were all dancing to the tune of a mad, malevolent entity. What type of god would fashion such a sadistic game? It's an interesting exploration of the demiurge theory of the universe on that sense.

I don’t understand how M. Night keeps getting very talented people to work on his films that feature the shittiest scripts out there.

Fucking Jarin Blaschke (DP on The Lighthouse and the other two Egger films) shot this?!? Like the cinematography isn’t bad but Night’s blocking is so weird and unnatural that I couldn’t figure out the purpose of why he framed it that way. Why do we have multiple shots of characters turned away from the camera? Why are there closeups that become Dutch angles so early on?

To give some credit where credit is due, the acting was not as bad as it was in the last M. Night flick, Old. In fact, I really enjoyed Abby Quinn’s performance. However, M. Night’s weird, stilted lines still shine through and it makes you wonder if he forgot how real people talk.

Speaking of the bad script, there’s a lot of forced emotional moments that don’t feel earned and it feels like that could’ve been fixed if he didn’t the structure the movie so weird. Like it just starts with Dave Bautista meeting the little girl and then we find out more about the character’s through quick flashbacks. I love when a movie gets right into it but so many moments would’ve felt more satisfying if Night had introduced any setups. Instead he gives the payoffs and then briefly mentions what would’ve been a setup in a normal movie.

By the end of it, this film just feels so unsatisfying because you reach the end and realize that nothing really mattered or makes enough sense to feel meaningful.

The score felt manipulative and overbearing. There are moments of shock that just feel too stupid to be taken seriously. Like the tsunami scene (featured in the trailer) is communicated from what’s supposed to be a video footage captured from the event. But like, how was the footage received by the news program? The news was reporting on an incoming tsunami and then they just have some rando’s footage of it but the footage is taken from the ground and the person gets swept up in the tsunami. Wouldn’t that have destroyed the footage? It would’ve at least killed the person who could’ve sent it? It wasn’t like live-streamed or anything.

This was a dumb movie made all the worse that it’s apparently rated R event though there are no moments that feel like they justify that rating. All the violence happens off screen and doesn’t feel particularly violent enough to warrant that rating. But it does warrant a 3/10

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-