When four massive strangers loom over you when you are alone in the woods, what do you do first? After hiding, you stand up and engage in combat. M. Night Shyamalan creates a better movie than he has in a while by taking the house invasion premise, giving it a touch of post-apocalyptic paint, and centering it around a lesbian couple and their young daughter.
Better not just because the 100 minutes are limited. And not just because it is directed by the incredibly talented Dave Bautista, who introduces the menacing quartet with a tender but stinging prologue with young Wen (Kristen Cui) as they capture grasshoppers and put them in a glass cage. Sylvan settings punctured by macabre, ominous events have been Shyamalan's go-to since the beginning, but the combination had ceased working for a while. The director returns to form with "Knock At The Cabin," which is based on Paul G. Tremblay's 2018 book "The Cabin At The End Of The World."
Wen's two fathers, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), are unwinding on the back porch when the young child runs in, terrified. Outside of Bautista, the group is confronted by four strangers—Amuka-Bird, Aby Quin, and Grint—wielding strange-looking weaponry as they force their way inside and demand a horrible sacrifice. Nothing less than the end of the world is at risk.
That is also the case because, despite repeated end-of-the-the-world prophecies, life keeps on. It is predictable how Shyamalan, who gives himself a blink-and-miss role in the film, leads us to believe something might be very wrong. A couple scenes also become repetitive, especially when the strange equipment are being used in horrible ways. But overall, the movie keeps us interested. It's difficult to avoid grasshoppers and little girls.
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