KNOCK AT THE CABIN REVIEW

By Dwight Brown, film critic for DwightBrownInk.com and NNPA News Wire

Bow down for Queen Bey! The Houston entertainer has just sent herself into the superstar stratosphere by winning the most Grammys in history! With a record 32 wins, she received her latest Grammy for best dance/electronic album for the record "Renaissance." Beyonce also took home Grammys for best traditional R&B performance for "Plastic Off the Sofa," best electronic dance for "Break My Soul," and best R&B performance for "Cuff It," respectively. She is, without a doubt, the GOAT of music!

Beyonce wasn't the only Houstonian to walk away with a Grammy. Lizzo won record of the year for "About Damn Time." She embraced the moment to recognize the people and experience that got her to the winners’ stage. First, she dedicated her award to the late purple musical genius Prince, and manipulate. Says one: “I don’t have a scar, but if you look inside, you will see that my heart is broken.” So what?

The confrontation occurs in a remote wooded area in Pennsylvania. The menacing quartet knocks on the door of what is called a “cabin,” but looks more like a fancy wooden structure that would rent for a fortune in Bucks County. The married twosome is gay, which is about as forward thinking as the multicultural cast of interlopers. The casting doesn’t feel necessarily exploitative, more like a reflection of life.

However, the script, by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, does over extract from the male/male subplot with way too many flashbacks. Background sequences include apprehensive parents, a gay bashing incident and the loving adoption of their Asian daughter. None of it adds much depth to the story, and the frequent lookbacks don’t reveal anything an audience couldn’t already fathom. Also, if this film had stayed in the moment and chronologically developed the narrative bit-by-bit, minute-by-minute, it might have sustained momentum for a full 1h 40m (editor Noemi Katharina Preiswerk). It does not.

For horror fans hunting for the newest realm, forget it. Life here on earth is all you get. For sci-fi fans hoping for incredible special effects, a gigantic water plume is the only visual device of interest, and that’s an old trick. There is tension. There is bloodshed. Not like that in a gory slasher film. More in a generic thriller way dotted with repulsion as characters fight for their lives or bite the dust like champs.

It’s noticeable that the camera lens likes to be intrusive, especially in the opening scenes. Closeups on the little girl as she collects grasshoppers and a stranger who approaches her are from mid forehead to chin. It’s an odd device that doesn’t draw you into the characters. It’s just invasive enough to make you notice the technique.

Interiors and exteriors (production design Naaman Marshall), cinematography (Jarin Blaschke, The Northman and Lowell A. Meyer, Servant), costumes (Caroline Duncan) and props (Robbie Duncan) don’t’ stand out. If anything, Herdis Stefansdóttir’s heavy bass musical score drones in a way that sounds like a whale dying and it is effective.