A fan of Knock at the Cabin has spotted an Easter egg which could tie back to one of director M Night Shyamalan’s previous releases.
The film, released in cinemas this week, focuses on a family staying at a remote holiday cabin, who are approached by four members of what seems to be a doomsday cult.
In her four-star review for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey described the film as “a (largely) single-location, narratively straightforward horror that unspools the tricky moral conundrum at its centre with inventive, Hitchcockian flair”.
“Hopefully, Knock at the Cabin will serve as a reminder that Shyamalan should be celebrated as much for his craftsmanship as he is for his shock tactics,” she added.
The film stars Ben Aldridge, Jonathan Groff as the parents of young Wen (Kristen Cui). The four interlopers are played by Dave Bautista, Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn and Nikki Amuka-Bird.
Significantly, Amuka-Bird also had a role in Shyamalan’s last project, the 2021 sci-fi Old. In that film, she plays Patricia Carmichael, a psychologist who is one of a group of people trapped on a beach which makes them age rapidly.
Twitter user @ZackPeercy drew a link between the two characters, writing: “Hi so as the preeminent Old (2021) scholar, I need to point out that Nikki Amuka-Bird’s Patricia says she has a sister who is a nurse.
“Just saw Knock at the Cabin where we meet said nurse sister, also played by Amuka-Bird. Fun Easter egg! I see you @MNightShyamalan!”
Technically, in Old, it is stated that Patricia’s sister is a therapist, while Amuka-Bird’s Knock at the Cabin character, Sabrina, is a nurse. However, the link still seems too close to be a coincidence, and may well have been intended as a deliberate Easter egg.
Others chimed in with support for the theory, with one Twitter user writing: “Incredible!”
Shyamalan has previously set some of his films in a shared universe, with Split revealing only at the very end that it takes places in the same universe as Unbreakable.
Knock at the Cabin is out in cinemas now.