After his bonafide masterpiece Old (yes, the beach that turns you old, no, I won’t be told it’s anything less than a perfect film), M. Night Shyamalan has returned with another bone-chilling thriller. The first trailer has been unveiled for Knock at the Cabin, a secluded horror story following two dads (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) on a family vacation with their sweet young daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui).
Opening on “Boogie Shoes,” a classic, fun-loving tune from K.C. and the Sunshine Band, is a bit misleading. Knock at the Cabin appears to be far darker than any upbeat melody, though the young family enjoys what fun they have before things start to get really creepy. There’s a lurker in the woods. Now, he’s knocking down the door. (Knock at the Cabin, get it?)
Wen befriends the strange, “heartbroken” man (Dave Bautista), who tells her he’s afraid of what he has to do today. What’s so grim on the agenda? We’re forecasting murder, torture, or some other grisly body horror, because the forest man shows up with his buddies (Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird) and a bunch of weapons.
“See, the four of us have a very important job to do,” Bautista echoes over the trailer. “In fact, it might be the most important job in the history of the world.”
Then, the kicker: “The four of us are here to prevent the apocalypse.”
So, the family staying in the cabin has been chosen to make a huge decision—though we don’t know what, exactly, that choice entails. If they don’t choose correctly, the world will end. The stakes are pretty high; in fact, they’re perhaps the highest they’ve ever been.
Since 1992, M. Night Shyamalan has been creating world-bending thrillers and horrors, like Split, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense, and The Village. Knock at the Cabin is based on the 2018 horror novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, which won the Bram Stoker Novel Award in 2019.
Knock at the Cabin will hit theaters February 3, 2023.
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