Found this annoying for the first half but surprisingly found the last act made the film work overall.

Acting is great minus Grint's Boston accent. But I just didn't give a shit.

C

And the trailers basically gave away the entire movie minus the final decision.

I loved this, but had the feeing I’d be in the minority on that.

This was fairly standard for an M Night movie, was mildly invested throughout but it never got too exciting, and it never seemed to have much of a point. It was nice to see West Chester though. A friend of mine ran into M Night while he was shooting the flashforward scene where Andrew is with a grownup Wen. He lives very near me. I have friends who have met him. Hopefully I’ll meet him someday too.

Interesting idea for a film, and some of the ideas in it aren't bad either, but the execution left me unsatisfied. In the moment it actually kept me interested to see where it was going, but in the end it never took a turn that left me surprised or impressed. I couldn't really wrap my head around the story, it comes across as nonsensical. Maybe some of it is the point, but anyway, it does have suspense so I didn't have a bad time.

C+

I thought it was great. Really intense and well-shot. Ben Aldridge, Dave Bautista and newcomer Kristen Cui were all excellent. As has been said there's not much that hasn't been spoiled by the trailer and this does a great disservice to the film. I don't know what they were thinking. They should have only released that first trailer which was great and intriguing. Keeping things more mysterious might have even helped it out at the Box Office. I certainly don't think it would have done any worse had they done this. It also would have made for a much better viewing experience for audiences. Despite the second trailer giving away every major thing from the movie it did have me guessing up until the end. Wondering if it really was the apocalypse or something else.



My friend and I had to go to Target to buy the book right after seeing the movie. I had heard the ending of the book is much darker. My friend said no way Universal would have let them get away with the ending of the book and if they had audiences would have HATED it. I planned on just looking up the book ending after seeing the movie but decided to read the book instead. I'm very curious to see how it ends and if I would have preferred it to the ending we got. With a C CinemaScore they may as well have just used whatever that ending is. But I do think the movie's ending is sad enough.

As far as Shyamalan movies go I do think this is upper-tier Shyamalan.

A-

I'm a bit torn on this one. I lean positive, I definitely liked it, but I also wanted a bit more. There's no twist or reveal, which I felt was off for a Shyamalan. It's pretty much sustaining itself throughout with intensity and the intrigue of 'is their story true or isn't it'. It presents a plot via Bautista and co. then rides it out. And you're not going to learn anything more than the trailer gives you.

Bautista gives a decent performance for a wrestler-turned-actor. An intense, good effort. He's become a very likeable face to see in films now. And Kristen Cui is adorable. The others aren't so great. I found Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint a bit overbearing. They're overly-dramatic. It didn't feel real. Even the family are a bit odd. They engage these people far too reasonably instead of giving them 'Get Off My Lawn' attitude. I felt that was dragged out a bit. But on the whole it kept me engaged and as always I appreciated Shyamalan's shot selection and his whole suspense machine kicking into gear early on. He's not as great with dialogue as he thinks he is, even with co-writers, but Knock at the Cabin is still a welcome addition to his mystery/thriller oeuvre on a par with, say, The Visit or Old - if only he'd never made After Earth and The Last Airbender.

I felt like I knew most of what was going to happen in this from the trailers most of the performances didn't quite do it for me, they tried with giving the dads development in the flashback was the right idea but they still feel pretty bland, especially Ben Aldridge just feels like a generic hot guy/poor man's Eric Bana, and I felt like the dynamics and self-doubt etc. of the four horseman could have been more interesting, especially since they kill off the loose cannon of the group first. Overall pretty meh.