Director M. Night Shyamalan has dealt with some intense subject matter in his movies – unhappy spirits, alien invasion, “monsters in the woods”, crazy grandparents, people held captive by maniacs, a beach where aging is accelerated. But as thrilling and disturbing as some of his movies have gotten, they’ve rarely strayed into R rating territory. In fact, Shyamalan has only made one R-rated movie to date: the very unpopular 2008 thriller The Happening, where the environment strikes back. Now we can add another R-rated Shyamalan movie to the list, as his latest thriller Knock at the Cabin has also earned an R rating from the Motion Picture Association.
Knock at the Cabin is rated R for “violence and language”. The film is scheduled to reach theatres on February 3, 2023.
Scripted by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond, and Michael Sherman, the film has the following synopsis: While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.
Knock at the Cabin is an adaptation of the Paul Tremblay novel The Cabin at the End of the World (which can be purchased at THIS LINK. Here’s the description:
Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.
One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault”. Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”
Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined. The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay.
Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin stars Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy), Rupert Grint (Servant), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Old), Abby Quinn (Torn Hearts), Ben Aldridge (Pennyworth), and Jonathan Groff (The Matrix Resurrections).
Are you looking forward to Knock at the Cabin? What do you think of the movie receiving an R rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.