Knock at the Cabin

In cinemas now

M Night Shyamalan’s latest, adapted from a 2018 bestseller by Paul Tremblay, provides audiences with an intriguing premise, a great opening scene, and a pleasingly eclectic cast that is led by Dave Bautista in arguably his best role to date.

Building on the former wrestler’s penchant for playing softly spoken gentle giants, his character is the reluctant leader of a modest cult of fanatics that are convinced the rapture is nigh. More interesting is the group’s belief that the only way to prevent the coming apocalypse is for Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge’s couple to sacrifice one of themselves or their adopted daughter.

Running only slightly over the 90-minute mark, Knock at the Cabin is a refreshingly tight thriller which wastes little time in building to its crescendo. It’s a shame, therefore, that the film winds up being more than a little anti-climatic, so much so that it could even be considered the antithesis of Shyamalan’s usual twist-heavy work, despite the director’s earnest attempts to throw viewers off the scent by way of a series of intermittent flashbacks.

That being said, Knock at the Cabin remains somewhat compelling throughout, due primarily to the stellar work of Bautista – who is really beginning to forge a reputation for himself as a compelling alternative to the traditional Hollywood ‘big guy’ – and in particular Kristen Cui, whose performance belies her infantile years.