Knock at the Cabin

... Most of the pleasures of Knock at the Cabin arrive from two sources: Shyamalan’s masterful filmmaking and Bautista’s nuanced performance.

If there is some kind of allegory on violence that is supposed to be going on in “Knock at the Cabin,” the movie and its story are certainly not smart enough for it to come to fruition.

Instead of pulling the rug out from under the viewer, Shyamalan goes in a direction that proves more disquieting, examining the nature of sacrifice and the bond between parents and children.

Shyamalan dazzles here with his gift for taking the kinds of ideas that once comprised the plots of pulp magazine stories, anthology television, and B movies and turning them into high art.

A rock solid adaptation of the novel. There are changes, but both versions of the story work and both existing is bound to make the conversation/analysis of this scenario even richer.

This gets incredibly literal, clunky, and actually silly.

Fans of the book will note that there will be a different ending. M Night Shyamalan is not Frank Darabont and does not yet have the directing gravitas to pull off that ending. In this current emotional atmosphere, it wouldn’t have been the right time.

M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t reveal his hand until the very end. And then the discussion begins. Like so many of his films, “Knock at the Cabin” prompts many more questions than it answers.

Shymalan’s latest is compellingly perverse and wracked with a real sense of menace, making its hopeful denouement something of a betrayal.

A pretty profound idea to play with, but one that winds up clashing with the practicalities of the actual plot at hand.