Knock at the Cabin | |
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Directed by | M. Night Shyamalan |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography |
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Edited by | Noemi Katharina Preiswerk |
Music by | Herdís Stefánsdóttir |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 100 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $20 million [2] |
Box office | $54.8 million [3] [4] |
Knock at the Cabin is a 2023 American apocalyptic psychological horror film written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote the screenplay from an initial draft by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman. It is based on the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay, the first adaptation of one of his works. The film stars Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint. In the film, a family is vacationing at a remote cabin when they are suddenly held hostage by four strangers who ask them to do something unimaginable.
Knock at the Cabin premiered in New York City at the Rose Hall on January 30, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 3, 2023, by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed over $54 million worldwide.
Seven-year-old Wen is vacationing with her adoptive fathers, Eric and Andrew, at a remote cabin in rural Pennsylvania. She is approached by a stranger named Leonard, who explains that he needs Wen and her parents' help to save the world. Leonard and three other individuals break into the cabin with makeshift weapons and tie Eric and Andrew up. Struggling to fight them off, Eric sustains a concussion.
Leonard and his companions, Sabrina, Adriane, and Redmond, claim that they have no intention of harming the family. However, in the past week, they have been driven by visions to find the family. They foresee an impending apocalypse in which oceans will rise, a pandemic will spread, and the sky will fall. The only way to prevent this is for the family to sacrifice one of their own. If they fail to do so, they will be the last living humans.
When the family refuses, the intruders sacrifice Redmond by fatally striking him with their weapons. Eric sees a figure of light as Redmond dies. Television news reports show devastating megatsunamis. Andrew believes Redmond was Rory O'Bannon, a man who had been arrested after assaulting Andrew in a bar years prior. He thinks Rory tracked him down for revenge. Leonard, Sabrina, and Adriane grapple with guilt, but reveal that Redmond's death has unleashed the first judgment of humanity. The next day, the intruders sacrifice Adriane. Meanwhile, a deadly variation of the flu virus spreads across the world.
Andrew escapes and shoots at Sabrina with his gun until she flees. As Leonard is being held at gunpoint, Sabrina breaks in and is shot by Andrew. Leonard decapitates Sabrina, and afterwards Andrew finds Redmond's wallet and proves to Leonard that he was Rory. Andrew confronts Leonard in the bathroom, but Leonard overtakes him and grabs Andrew's gun. A TV broadcast reveals that hundreds of spontaneous plane crashes have occurred around the world.
Realizing their time is nearly over, Leonard informs the family that after his death, they will only have a few minutes to make a decision, before slashing his throat. Upon his death, lightning causes fires and more planes to crash. Eric now believes the events are real, and that the intruders represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Not wanting Wen to grow up in a destroyed world, he offers himself as the sacrifice and envisions an older Andrew and an adult Wen thriving in the future. He feels that their family was chosen to make the sacrifice because their love is so pure. Andrew reluctantly shoots and kills Eric.
Andrew and Wen find the visitors' truck with belongings that corroborate their stories. They drive to a crowded diner, where they watch news reports confirming that the disasters have subsided, before driving off.
Knock at the Cabin is an adaptation of the 2018 horror novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, who had signed an option with FilmNation Entertainment in late 2017, prior to the book's publication, and had to keep secret that the film was based on one of his novels until July 2022. The Black List and GLAAD List listed the initial draft by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman as one of the most popular unproduced screenplays of 2019. [6] [7] While another director was briefly attached, M. Night Shyamalan read the original screenplay and grew interested in producing. Shyamalan later rewrote the script and came on board to direct the project as part of the two-film partnership between Universal Pictures and his production banner Blinding Edge Pictures. [8] [9] Old (2021) was the first film in that deal, with Knock at the Cabin being the second. [10] [11] The first draft was halfway completed by July 2021, and the title was revealed in October. [12] [13] Shyamalan said the script was the fastest he had ever written in his career. [14]
Castings were announced from December 2021 to July 2022. They included Dave Bautista, [15] Rupert Grint, Nikki Amuka-Bird, [16] Ben Aldridge, Jonathan Groff, [17] and Abby Quinn. [18] Shyamalan cited Bautista's performance in Blade Runner 2049 (2017) as the reason he wanted him to star in Knock at the Cabin. [19] Bautista increased his weight "in a short period of time" to 315 pounds for the role; in hindsight, he said he "over did it" and felt "uncomfortably big", which pushed him to lower his weight to 240 pounds, adding, "It took me forever to shed it off. And then I noticed the more I trimmed down, the better I felt." [20]
Principal photography took place in Burlington County, New Jersey, from April 19 to June 10, 2022, with cinematographers Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer. [21] [22] [23] [24] Shyamalan shot the film with lenses from the 1990s, to give it an "old-school thriller" look. [25] During post-production, Herdís Stefánsdóttir composed the score. [26] Shyamalan chose to change the ending of the film and make it different from the book so that it was not as dark and open-ended. [27]
The film received an R-rating from the Motion Picture Association for "violence and language", making it Shyamalan's second film to receive that rating after The Happening (2008). [28]
Knock at the Cabin premiered in New York City at Rose Hall on January 30, 2023. [29] The film was theatrically released on February 3, 2023, by Universal Pictures. [13] The release was originally set for February 17 before being brought forward by two weeks as to avoid competition with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania . [9]
This was the last film from Shyamalan to be released by Universal. After its release he signed a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. [30]
Knock at the Cabin was released for VOD on February 21, 2023, followed with a Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD release by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on May 9, 2023. [31]
Knock at the Cabin grossed $35.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $19.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $54.8 million. [3] [4]
In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside 80 for Brady , and was projected to gross $15–17 million from 3,643 theaters in its opening weekend. [2] The film made $5.4 million on its first day, including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $14.2 million, displacing Avatar: The Way of Water from atop the box office. [32] The film made $5.5 million in its second weekend (a drop of 61%), finishing in sixth, and $3.9 million in its third weekend. [33] [34]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 335 reviews with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Although it's often less than scary and parts of the story don't bear scrutiny, Knock at the Cabin is a thought-provoking chiller and upper-tier Shyamalan." [35] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 63 out of 100, based on 60 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [36] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 56% positive score, with 35% saying they would definitely recommend it. [32]
Ready Steady Cut film critic M.N. Miller embraced the movie's faults by saying, "This is an exceptionally made thriller with satisfying flaws to pick at and debate." [37] Reviewing for RogerEbert.com , Nick Allen gave the film two out of four stars, commending the "rich and earthy" cinematography and Bautista's "disarming" performance but ultimately finding the film "frustrating and self-serious", adding "M. Night Shyamalan should probably just stay away from the apocalypse." [38] Charlotte O'Sullivan of the Evening Standard found "many plot holes" in the film, adding, "The deeper issue, though, is that the supposedly complex home-invaders aren't given enough space to become interesting." [39] Wendy Ide for The Observer wrote, "As the film's bleak momentum builds, so does a tsunami swell of existential dread. It's Shyamalan's most contained and efficient picture in a while." [40] Stef Rubino for Autostraddle felt that "Like all of Shyamalan's greatest features, what unfolds throughout the course of the film is a family drama but on the grandest of scales." [41] Writing for Slate , Sam Adams criticized Shyamalan's changes to the ending and filmmaking choices that gloss over the horrific violence of the story. [42]
Knock at the Cabin was nominated for Best Horror at the 6th Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Film Awards. [43]
Manoj Nelliyattu "M. Night" Shyamalan is an American filmmaker. His films often employ supernatural plots and twist endings. The cumulative gross of his films exceeds $3.3 billion globally. Shyamalan has received various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards and a Golden Globe.
Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint is an English actor. He rose to fame for his role as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series, for which he was cast at age eleven, having previously acted only in school plays and his local theatre group. Grint portrayed Weasley in all eight films in the series, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). Since then, he has continued his work on film, television, and theatre.
Blinding Edge Pictures is an American film and television production company, founded in 1998 by M. Night Shyamalan. The company is known for producing films, such as the Unbreakable series, Signs, The Village, The Happening, After Earth, The Visit, Old and Knock at the Cabin.
Roadside Attractions, LLC is an American production company and film distributor based in Los Angeles, California, founded on July 27, 2000, by Howard Cohen and Eric d'Arbeloff. Lionsgate Films bought a portion of Roadside in 2007, and has majorly served as the arthouse division for the studio since then.
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The Visit is a 2015 American found footage comedy horror film written, co-produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, and Kathryn Hahn. The film centers around two young siblings, teenage girl Becca (DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Oxenbould), who go to stay with their estranged grandparents. During their stay, the siblings notice their grandparents behaving bizarrely and they set out to find the truth behind the strange circumstances at the farmstead.
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Abby Quinn is an American actress. She is known for her role in the 2023 M. Night Shyamalan horror film Knock at the Cabin.
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The Cabin at the End of the World is a 2018 horror novel by American writer Paul G. Tremblay. The novel won the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2019. It was adapted into the 2023 film Knock at the Cabin by director M. Night Shyamalan.
Old is a 2021 American horror mystery film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. It is based on the French-language Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, and Emun Elliott. The plot follows a group of people who find themselves aging rapidly on a secluded beach.
Aaron Stone Pierre is an English actor. After training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Pierre gained recognition for his role as Dev-Em in the science fiction series Krypton (2018–2019). He has since starred in the period drama miniseries The Underground Railroad (2021), the thriller films Old (2021) and Rebel Ridge (2024), and the biographical miniseries Genius (2024) in which he portrayed Malcolm X.
Ishana Night Shyamalan is an American filmmaker. She made her directorial debut with the horror film The Watchers (2024), which was produced by her father, M. Night Shyamalan.
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Steven Jay Schneider is an American film producer, author and critic best known for his work in the horror genre. He has been involved in several film franchises, including the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and the films: Split (2016), Glass (2019), and Knock at the Cabin (2023).