M. Night Shyamalan has rightfully gotten a reputation for doing movies with twists, but sometimes the twist is that there’s no twist, just a super weird premise that turns out to be true in an alarming way. In “Knock at the Cabin” the premise is that a sacrifice needs to be made to save the planet from unbelievable horror, and four strangers are brought together to give the opportunity to a family to make the choice of who among them will die so everyone else can live. The question through the film of course, is if the strangers are right, if they’re crazy, or maybe something strange will happen in the final moments of the film to explain everything. There are no answers by the end of the film, just many more questions about the nature of the world we live in, something that left me feeling unfulfilled. There’s no deep philosophical statements, nor are there are any story elements that would explain the situation, just an impossible choice that has to be made without any clarification.
There’s something missing here that I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s interesting enough to check it out if you have a spare couple hours, if only so you can try to explain it to me in simpler terms.
