KNOCK AT THE CABIN 15
Doom with a view… ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS
Vacationing in a woodland holiday home, Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) receive an unexpected – and unwelcome - visit. Four strangers arrive at their door brandishing weapons - or ‘tools’, as the quartet’s de facto spokesperson, schoolteacher Leonard (Dave Bautista), calls them.
He’s flanked by menacing gas engineer Redmond (Rupert Grint), mother-of-one Adriane (Abby Quinn) and nurse Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird). Horrifying visions have brought these four together, telling them to present Wen’s family with a deadly task, one that will save humanity. But at tremendous personal cost…
Co-writer/director/producer M. Night Shyamalan built his reputation on game-changing twists, but the strength of Knock… is its juicy premise, adapted from Paul Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World. This is the most contained movie of Shyamalan’s career; yet despite being primarily set in one location, it doesn’t feel stagey, perhaps because larger global events are never far from the characters’ thoughts.
Bautista is particularly compelling as Leonard, a gentle-but-firm fellow who approaches his mission with grim determination, while Grint is very watchable as the troubled Redmond. Shyamalan also makes an obligatory cameo in a story that weighs up whether humanity is worth saving… or not. Dizzying and debate-worthy, this is the multihyphenate’s most unequivocally thrilling movie in years.
THE VERDICT A clever story, thunderously acted, carried off with élan, this is Shyamalan doing what he does best.