Knock at the Cabin 4K 2023 Ultra HD 2160p

The home of a couple and their child is invaded by four strangers. The burglars claim that they must kill one member of the family, or the apocalypse will happen and the world will be destroyed.

Knock at the Cabin 4K Review
In the Hollywood environment M. Night Shyamalan's name is still associated with puzzle thrillers that evoke a wide range of emotions, from fierce hatred to universal admiration. But the most frequent reaction to Shyamalan's work is still incomprehension, a slight cognitive dissonance, a silent question left unanswered. And if crowdsplitters such as Split and The Sixth Sense gave a fairly clear understanding of the director's message, then The Apparition or, say, The Mysterious Forest were open to a wide variety of interpretations. The problem is that modern audiences are rather lazy, especially when it comes to niche genres of filmmaking like the psychological/mystical thriller. In the public mind, the thriller is more about mood and atmosphere and less about any deep semantic context. Shyamalan's attempts to make the genre more intellectual usually result in failure, and Knock on the Door is, alas, no exception in this regard.

Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Eldridge) and little Wen (Kristen Tsui) rent a house in the woods for the weekend. Everything is going fine exactly until a group of strangers - high school teacher Leonard (Dave Batista), bartender Redmond (Rupert Grint), nurse Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and young mother Adrian (Abby Queen) - show up on their doorstep. All four are convinced that the planet is on the brink of a terrible natural cataclysm and only Eric, Andrew and Wen can save everyone from imminent doom. To do so, one of them must consciously sacrifice himself, because it is the only way to atone for the sins of all mankind.

Contrary to the now-fashionable slooburners who concentrate on gradually increasing tension in the frame, "Knock at the Shack" is immediately thrown into the thick of things. A fragile family idyll is shattered by a sudden invasion, a dense forest casts the shadow of impending apocalypse, uninvited guests pose as prophets, and the closest people begin to doubt themselves and each other. Much of the action unfolds in a confined space, a small cabin where the three must decide the fate of all humanity. Eric and Andrew, nurtured on the ideas of Western individualism, stubbornly dissociate themselves from such a brazen and blatantly inhumane attempt to impose collective responsibility. But the villains are not so simple - they hide their aggression under a mask of divine enlightenment, confirming insane ideas with doomscrolling. Deontology collides with consequentialism, the reality of the heroes is questioned, the belief in the old ways begins to come apart at the seams.

By and large, Shyamalan has screened a depressing picture of the world of the last days, where abusive behavior becomes the new religion and love and salvation are replaced by violence and murder. Social consciousness is determined by whoever holds the power. In the universe of The Knock at the Shack, power is wielded by four psychopaths whose reality is built on the idea that only suffering can lead to happiness and long-awaited liberation. The heroes have no choice but to believe someone else's truth and give up on themselves, thus becoming part of a collective trauma.

This might be more than satisfying in a festival context, but you expect at least a happy ending from a popcorn thriller with such a conventional narrative language. Shyamalan once again plays with the viewer's perception, turns on a raft-twist, this time at the level of the genre, - planting social context where you don't expect it at all. And he does it too implicitly, too veiled, leaving a pressing ambiguous void as an additional source of physical discomfort. In all likelihood, the director has too high a bar for his target audience, not assuming that the mass audience goes to the movies primarily for pleasure, but not for a couple of new existential crises.