Regardless of its quality, there simply isn’t an option to not see a new M. Night Shyamalan film when it arrives.
“Knock at the Cabin,” is based on Paul G. Tremblay‘s 2018 novel, “The Cabin at the End of the World.” FilmNation secured the film rights even before the book was published, and by July 2022, they had virtually clandestinely advanced the production. A script, penned by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, had already made its way onto “The Black List” by 2019, which inevitably piqued Shyamalan’s interest and led him to join the project.
Though it leans more towards the sci-fi fantasy genre than pure horror, the film embodies an utterly unpredictable plot point – the world will end unless one family member is killed.
There’s a discernible unevenness in the script and the performances, but in true Shyamalan fashion, he manages to weave it all together, leaving behind a wonderfully peculiar afterglow. The ending, distinctively different from the original novel, could only be the work of Shyamalan.
The score, reminiscent of classic Hitchcockian horror, is composed by Herdís Stefánsdóttir, an up-and-coming Icelandic female composer whose recent work on “The Essex Serpent” still lingers in memory. In 2016, she was an intern under Jóhann Jóhannsson while studying at J University. I believe this is her third feature-length score, but the quality is already outstanding. Quite a bright future lies ahead for her.