M. Night Shyamalan explains how he tells stories in Knock at the Cabin featurette
M. Night Shyamalan has been scaring audiences for over 20 years, starting with 1999’s The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan’s psychological thrillers are full of supernatural elements that typically end with a huge plot twist. His latest venture, Knock at the Cabin, combines a home invasion with the apocalypse to tell a story that feels larger than life despite taking place in a secluded location.
“I believe in this type of storytelling that when you come to the movie theater, you want to see something incredibly powerful, incredibly emotional, experiential, but you want it to be bigger than life,” Shyamalan said in a featurette. “I’m very drawn to stories of confinement and telling very large stories through a small window.”
Parents Eric (Mindhunter’s Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Pennyworth’s Ben Aldridge), along with their young daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), travel to a secluded cabin for a family vacation. Their getaway is interrupted by four strangers – Leonard (Dune’s Dave Bautista), Adriene (Old’s Nikki Amuka-Bird), Sabrina (Little Women’s Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Servant’s Rupert Grint) – who invade the cabin and hold the family hostage. The family must willingly sacrifice one of its members, or the world will end.
“There is a family, and their home is invaded by four strangers who have been asked to make a choice of sacrifice to save humanity,” Bautista said. There is no place to run. There’s no place to hide. So I think it’s like layers of nightmares in this film.”
Shyamalan directs Knock at the Cabin from a screenplay he co-wrote with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman. The film is based on Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 best-selling novel The Cabin at the End of the World.
Knock at the Cabin arrives only in theaters on February 3.
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