Gay dads face the apocalypse in ‘Knock at the Cabin’ Whether it scares you or not, a movie that gives us lots to think about

By JOHN PAUL KING

As horrors go, it’s hard to get more horrible than the end of the world.

It’s the ultimate existential threat, a potent fear that has fueled nightmares for millennia, but while it may feel chillingly plausible in our modern era, many of us tend to imagine it in terms of scientific reality – climate change, collision with an asteroid, or simply the eventual death of the sun – rather than as a literal enactment of the doomsday scenarios proscribed in the myths, folktales, and religions of the ancient world.

What if we’re wrong, though?

That’s the essential hook in “Knock at the Cabin,” the latest thriller from horror movie maestro M. Night Shyamalan, which gambles that its viewers – even those who staunchly believe in a science-and-reason-based conception of the universe –might still occasionally be kept awake at night by a flicker of doubt, and spends a slow-burning 100 minutes trying to stoke that flicker into an apocalyptic flame.

Based on Paul Tremblay’s Stoker Award-winning 2018 novel “The Cabin at the End of the World,” Shyamalan’s compact adaptation (co-written with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman) doesn’t waste much time setting up its confrontation between rational secularism and End Times prophecy; gay dads Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), vacationing in the woods with their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), have barely settled into their rented cabin when a quartet of ominous strangers – led by hulking-but-soft-spoken Leonard (Dave Bautista) – shows up at the door, insisting to be let in and not willing to take “no” as an answer. The visitors claim they are on a mission to prevent the apocalypse, and that they have been compelled by visions to deliver a message: mankind can still be saved, but only if this terrified little family is willing to make an unthinkable choice.

To reveal more would definitely constitute a spoiler; suffice to say that it’s a decidedly unpleasant proposition, and the two protective papas – who are convinced they are being terrorized by a homophobic cult of religious fanatics despite Leonard’s assurances to the contrary – are understandably resistant to it. Still, these seemingly reluctant home invaders are prepared to use extreme measures to ensure the couple’s cooperation, and Andrew and Eric are forced into an escalating standoff in which they must try to outwit their captors if they have any hope of whisking Wen away to safety; yet even as they forge a desperate escape plan, troubling news from the outside world begins to suggest the threat of impending cataclysm might not be so far-fetched, after all.

The screenplay for “Knock at the Cabin” – or at least, the initial draft of it, penned by Desmond and Sherman – was already a hot property before Shyamalan became involved, having been touted both by Hollywood’s highly influential “Black List” and by GLAAD as one of the best unproduced scripts of 2019. It’s easy to see why; for a mainstream film industry under pressure to prioritize inclusion, there’s an obvious appeal to the idea of a taut, commercially viable thriller featuring a same-sex couple as heroes, especially when it’s based on a popular bestselling novel. Good ideas frequently go bad in Hollywood, however, and it’s fortunate that the veteran Shyamalan saw the appeal, too, because without his experienced eye behind the camera –and his legion of loyal fans in the theater seats – this one could easily have gone either way.

Mounted almost as a “Twilight Zone” style morality play, “Cabin” juggles a hotbed of topical ideas and themes as its handful of characters, loosely representing a cross-section of humanity, engage in an unapologetically allegorical battle of beliefs – though it’s never explicitly stated that any God or devil is behind the supposed approaching apocalypse. There’s an implausibility to its premise that’s hard to dismiss, and while that might be a key factor in the movie’s ploy to undermine its heroes’ – and its audience’s – sense of certainty, it also makes it harder for it to scare us. With so many layers of “meta” in play, there’s sometimes too much intellectual distance in the way for us to feel fear.

A similar obstacle is created by the script’s use of broad strokes in defining its characters. Though the four antagonists – a mismatched assortment of eccentric but painfully ordinary strangers – are sharply drawn and unique enough to stir an interesting dynamic into the mix, Eric and Andrew are less substantial; the things we know about them are revealed to us in brief flashbacks and snippets of dialogue, serving more as plot devices than insight into what makes them tick. They’re a collection of positive traits, but they are largely blank underneath - and that doesn’t make it any easier to invest in them.

Fortunately, these potential shortcomings are largely overcome in Shyamalan’s finished product. “Cabin” is a perfect fit for his trademark style, laden with an unrelenting sense of dread and looped through a high concept framework that lends itself to the kind of puzzle-box storytelling with which he made his name. His magic doesn’t always work; sometimes, his succinctness of detail tips us off too early, or feels too precise to be convincing. Nevertheless, he keeps us fascinated by what he shows us on the screen – even if the story sometimes tends to stall.

His cast serves him well in making that happen. While their characters may be thinly drawn, Groff and Aldridge – especially the latter, fresh from his MVP performance in “Spoiler Alert” – fill in the gaps by infusing the leading men with personality and anchoring them with an authentic sense of depth. Young Cui gives a devastatingly genuine child performance as Wen, and Rupert Grint (of “Harry Potter” fame) gives a memorable against-type turn as a hapless blue-collar thug in Leonard’s company. The MVP in “Cabin,” however, is Bautista, whose Leonard is the kind of giant whose gentleness only makes him us fear him more.

As for fear, that’s where “Knock at the Cabin” might fall flat for some viewers. While it’s mostly a gripping ride, there are few moments that really hit us where we live. It pokes at our deeper fears, but it never quite stirs them up; even the nightmarish prospect of a home invasion feels strangely blunted of its edge. Violence happens, but only sparingly onscreen, and despite Shyamalan’s penchant for ingenious twists, this time he leads us almost predictably toward a conclusion that owes more to Hitchcock’s “The Birds” than any fire-and-brimstone apocalyptic thriller.

Still, there are plenty of reasons to see it, not the least of which is the placement of a same-sex couple at the center of a mainstream genre film which successfully displaced “Avatar: The Way of Water” from its top seat at the box office. Besides, whether it scares you or not, it’s a movie that gives us lots to think about – not just notions of Old Testament divine retribution, but universal human experiences like love and loss, death and grief, and how much we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of the people we care about.

Maybe that’s what the apocalypse is really all about, anyway.