It seems that M. Night Shyamalan has the end of days on his mind. A couple of years ago, he pondered the quandary of aging in “Old,” based on the graphic novel “Sandcastle,” by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters. In his latest film, he turns toward the apocalypse, or at least the idea of it, in “Knock at the Cabin,” adapted from Paul Tremblay’s 2018 horror novel “The Cabin at the End of the World.”
Tremblay’s novel is terrifying in its unpredictability and ambiguity. Structured around a home invasion that takes place over the course of a couple of days, it explores the ways in which a stunning amount of suffering can occur if someone believes enough in their mission, misguided or not. “Knock at the Cabin,” adapted by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, is faithful to the source material until it is not, because this wouldn’t be a Shyamalan movie without his own original take on the ending.
Shyamalan films are always perfectly cast, thanks to longtime casting director Douglas Aibel, who has worked with the director since “Unbreakable” in 2000, and “Knock at the Cabin” is no exception. There are no better actors to play the main trio than Ben Aldridge, Jonathan Groff and Dave Bautista, who tear into these challenging roles with an emotional and technical rigor. The rest of the small cast is uniformly excellent, including the incredible Kristen Cui in her first film role.
