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Review

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This review may contain spoilers.

"Knock at the Cabin" (2023) directed by M. Night Shyamalan is one of the most polarizing films I've ever seen. It is so nonsensically idiotic and yet I still fell in love with it due to how emotionally impactful it is.

Four strangers from completely different backgrounds randomly show up to a cabin where a homosexual couple of men and their daughter are staying for vacation. The four strangers are doomsayers and claim to have foreseen what will happen if they can not convince the two men to make an impossible decision. The four doomsayers are not allowed to directly intervene, but they must convince one of the two men to sacrifice one of the three family members to stop the world's end. For the majority of the time the two men do not believe their ludicrous captors for one single second, but eventually one of them starts to slip.

While I ultimately adored Knock at the Cabin, I must state that it is beyond idiotic. The four strangers approach this situation of theirs in the absolute worst manner possible, and it's so obviously portrayed that way to pad out the time of the film, so that is my biggest gripe with it. Another issue is the stunted nonsensical logic that never gets addressed, the strangers slowly commit suicide one after the other as they keep pressing the trio for an answer, but it's never explained why. I can infer that it's because of the stupid specific rules Mother Nature or God or whatever force of evil has deemed necessary, but I needed an actual line of reasoning to be convinced on that.

The reason this idiotic trash of a film was so dear to me is because it characterized the trio of main characters absolutely perfectly start to finish; literally flawlessly. I often criticize many films for having weak and disposable nobody characters, so it's only right that I point out when it's done extremely well as it is here. The relationship between the two men was completely believable and it was extremely impactful and genuine. The film finds a surprisingly decent way to end itself that didn't leave me angry or upset like I anticipated I would be.

Knock at the Cabin is such a major mixed bag. It is not just fantastical but beyond fantastical to the point of pure hubris idiocy, but it's a film that had me utterly gripped to the screen from start to finish and delivered on some genuinely fantastic emotional beats and messages.