“Make the choice” demands the advertising tag line for M. Night Shyamalan’s theocratic thriller, Knock at the Cabin (2023), which comes with a tagline as heavy with political implications as its peremptory plot. The latter’s orthodox overtones, a curious mix of cultish Christianity, archaic aggression and sectarian spectacle, retrospectively seem the plausible progression for a director whose films are littered with conspiracy theories, quasi-Christian lore, and a constant emphasis on patriarchal family values. The cornerstones of religion and reactionism are accompanied by a pattern of often intertwined key motives neatly fitting into a set of larger concepts: being chosen or singled out to play a specific role, a divine plan or predetermined fate, and an existential truth which protagonists either can’t see or refuse to believe.
Shyamalan’s forcefully forward allegories, which transmit these ideas along with an unwavering approval of the gospel, make for a curious series of faith based movies. Signs has a father regain his faith while discovering that crop circles are indeed caused by aliens. The Sixth Sense already spells out in its title the faith which the central story of purgatory is rooted. The Village pairs an exaltation of “blind faith” with surveillance schemes. The Unbreakable series mixes political paranoia with modernized myths of angels and demons. Old embraces traditional family values and the idea of big pharma plotting. Even the Edgar Allan Poe inspired low budget thriller The Visit evolves around deadly deception, validated suspicion, and the importance of biological family bonds.
What is perhaps most perplexing about Shyamalan’s adaption of Paul Tremblay‘s 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World is not the unequivocal fundamentalism of its moral groundwork but the very choice of this particular source material. Tremblay’s novel could be the perfect vehicle to illustrate the horror of the ever escalating demonization and aggression queer people are currently facing in the US, while also supporting an atheist worldview. But with small but crucial changes, the plot of Shyamalan’s adaptation not only conciliates but sanctifies the violence suffered by Eric (Jonathan Groff) and his partner Andrew (Ben Aldridge) when the titular cabin in the woods the two share with their little adoptive daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) is invaded by four strangers.
Hulking teacher Leonard (Dave Bautista), desperate nurse Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), giddy diner cook Adriane (Abby Quinn), and cynical ex-con Redmond (Rupert Grint) need to convince the non-traditional core family to murder one of their own – a sacrifice to prevent the end of the world. A doomsday delusion like this doesn’t seem far fetched given the current reactionary paranoia, one often rooted in a firm belief that the mere existence of LGBTQ+ people is harmful and dangerous. Though dialogue identifies the home invaders as personifications of human qualities – guidance, caring, nurturing and malice – they actually evoke reactionary character types. The staunch protector of old values, the religious zealot, the volatile camp follower, the angry white cis male.
The exemplary dissimilarity of the group who proceed to attack the fathers and tie them up is uncannily reminiscent of the four-headed gang of alt-right women in Beth de Araújo’s engrossing debut feature Soft & Quiet (2022). Whereas Araújo leaves no doubt about the monstrous nature of her characters – one of whom spouts the same defensive phrase as Adriane “I don’t hate anyone” – Shyamalan chooses, early on, to validate the truth of his invaders’ claims.
Removing the essential uncertainty of Tremblay’s novel, which never reveals if the world is ending or if the invaders are delusional, not only robs the scenario of its ethical complexity but also its suspense. Tension is deliberately played down, in other words, in favor of rather twisted teachings.
One of the looming theological questions is addressed indirectly but insidiously by Leonard’s musing that the couple was chosen because “your love is so pure.” This apparent affirmation of queer love is as treacherous as the papal proclamations that being gay was a sin but also that god would not forget any of his children. Knock at the Cabin paints a disturbingly drastic picture of what god has in mind when remembering his gay children. Their love might be pure, and the families they build perfect (as is Andrew and Eric’s family), but they still have to sacrifice that family – or be responsible for nothing less than the apocalypse.
Some might ask if a god who mass murders innocent people is an untrustworthy sadist. Not so Shyamalan. He cleverly changes key plot elements of Tremblay’s novel to shift sympathies against the victims, portraying their attempted rational explanations of seemingly catastrophic occurrences and reluctance to comply with the demand to sacrifice one of their own as egoistical ignorance. As in his other genre films, to be reasonable is to be wrong. By inventing for Adrian a son who would perish if Wen’s family stays intact, Shyamalan brings up the social spectre of the opposition of traditional and non-traditional families. Adrian’s straight, white, blood-related family is put against the gay adopted mixed-heritage family that is embraced with the hypocrisy of the “hate the sin, love the sinner” gospel.
Unsurprisingly, one of them has to die, and it is the less conventionally masculine Eric who does so. Uncomfortably recalling the self-loathing and suicide of so many fictional queer characters, Eric begs his lover to kill him. Flash-forwards show Andrew as the proud single father of an adult Wen, suggesting that literally and symbolically killing off his gay half will convert him into an upstanding member of straight society. The final moments remove any ambiguity as to whether executing Eric was the right choice. In this scene, we see unfurled the horror of the film’s conviction that innocent people will have to die for a greater good. To underline these ideas, the ending hits a cynically cheerful note.
The last scene and the credits are accompanied by Wen’s favorite song, which her fathers sang along with her on the journey to the cabin – a family bonding habit. The song plays on the radio like one more celestial confirmation that everything that just happened was god’s plan and now all is well, never mind that Andrew and Wen are bereaved. Transferring the song’s personal significance from the happiness of an alternative family to the annihilation of this family under gruesome circumstances, yet coding this moment as “happy ending,” installs hostile heteronormativity as prerequisite for some kind of sacred cosmic order – one that not only legitimizes misguided ideas of religiously motivated killing with kindness but canonizes them.
Lida Bach is a professional movie journalist and critic from Berlin, having been published and publishing in numerous online media. She has also written for Horror Homeroom on “10 Classic Films to Unlock the Uncanny.” You can check out her website, Cinemagicon, and find her on Twitter.
