After an arguably very strong year of cinema, the horror/sci-fi movie “Knock at the Cabin”, at first glance, seems pretty straight forward, but I can assure you, it’s not. Director M.Night Shyamalan is known for his strange, culturally different and “out-of-the-norm” takes on horror and other genres. He hits on very similar marks in this one, too.  

It starts out with a stark and unnerving scene, a heavy set, large man approaches a young girl who was catching grasshoppers. The movie starts hitting on your nerves instantly; is the man here with bad intentions, or is he a nice guy being kind to a child? I personally found myself very skeptical of this scene, why would they choose to start here rather than at the start of the trip to this cabin? From there you are introduced to a whirlwind of emotion.

The movie is centered on this couple, Eric and Andrew and their daughter Wen. They travel to a cabin for a family getaway and then are rudely interrupted by four very strange people, pounding on their door and pressing them with an impossible question. The first being the tall stark guy we meet in the first scene, Leonard and the second, an angry red-headed man, Redmond. They are joined by a loud outspoken woman, Adriane, and a nurse, Sabrina.

Three of the four intruders are very dislikeable. However, I came to like the large man we met at the beginning. He tried his best to comfort the protagonists and help them understand the situation and why it was occurring. Although I am sure others may have seen him differently.

These individuals pose a question to the family of three which forces them to make a horrible choice: Their family can remain fully intact, but all the rest of the Earth falls in darkness and peril, or a sacrifice can be made to save humanity. Think about it, would you rather lose one of the members of your family, or all others on Earth? As a pure and loving family that values each other the question seemed like the easiest one to answer for Andrew, Eric and Wen. They would not sacrifice themselves, based on the words of four absolute strangers. Regardless of what nonsense the four spewed.

This movie hits a ton of marks, suspense, sadness, confusion, but even with all that it really isn’t that hard to follow. If you find movies that challenge crazy ideas, watch “Knock at the Cabin.” Maybe it will have you questioning things that have never even crossed your mind. 

Have you watched “Knock at the Cabin”? See page 22 in our February print issue, to fill in your rating