KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023)

This was a film I was super excited to see, I liked Split, Sixth Sense and the Village, I was eagerly anticipating another M Night Classic, but I was left bitterly disappointed. I wanted a big reveal, I wanted a twist, I wanted something that make me sit up and 'oh my lord I didn't see that happening at all' it just never happened. It was like getting your downstairs touched by someone that doesn't know what they're doing. At first you're excited because someone is playing with your downstairs and after a few minutes you're just begging and wishing it was over. It wasn't horrible, but the expectations were high with this one. There was no twist, there was no big reveal, it was just four random people that rocked up to a cabin to kill the 2 gay guys inside if they don't sacrifice themselves, and people around the world are dying if they don't. Yes I know that sentence doesn't really make sense, but that is this movie. Nothing to explain any of it other than Bautista saying they all had vivid dreams to tell them to do this. ummmmm ok, that's cool.

The casting was fine, the settings were fine, getting the whole film shot at the cabin was nice, you didn't feel like it was a small contained world, it still felt like there was a lot going on elsewhere with the clever use of the news outlet on the TV. It was as if everything was fine, other than the writing, and when you're hitting the mark and then the writing is the part that lets you down it really hurts the film. It's not great and the thing saving this from being rated one popcorn bucket is the fact that every other aspect of it was fine.

M Night is on his last warning though, he has built up so much equity and goodwill with the audience that they will forgive him for this, but he needs to go back to what people expect, a twist that logically ties it all together, The village made logical sense, they wanted to start a civilization without technology or electricity and it isn't controlled by money or greed and the twist was it was set in modern times. That was neat, that was different and the audience loved it, but what was going on here? Armed strangers rock up, tell the gay couple to make a sacrifice in order to prevent the apocalypse? Like ok, that's cool, but why? none of it makes sense.

There are a couple more M Night films in the making at the moment that are to come out next year and I'm not surprised he is turning around so quickly to get another one out because this one has left a sour taste in peoples mouths. The cast has nothing to be ashamed of, but the writing was the biggest let down of this film.

Rating: 🍿🍿