In 1967, Philippa Foot introduced a genre of decision problems that would later be called Trolley Problems. They are ethical dilemmas, the classic one is there is a runaway trolley on the tracks, you do nothing and it kills five people, or you can pull the lever and switch tracks but it will kill one person.
You are made to choose, do nothing and five people die, or do something and you are responsible for killing one person, what do you do?
Knock at the Cabin is the Trolley Problem in cinematic form. Director M. Night Shyamalan is responsible for some great films; he had his initial hit with The Sixth Sense. This gave him a lot of cinematic credibility and he was known for having interesting twist endings. My favourite film of his was Unbreakable. Knock at the Cabin is a film based on the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay.
Wen (Kristen Cui) is trying to capture grasshoppers in an empty forest when a behemoth of a man Leonard (Dave Bautista, I am going to go on a wee tangent here. I love that he gets to play thoughtful, sensitive, erudite characters, as a larger gentleman that pursued acting I would only get casting calls for someone big and/or dumb; we taller physically stronger people have feelings and thoughts too). Leonard tries to ingratiate himself with Wen and wants them to become friends. Suddenly three other people turn up that Leonard says are his friends. Wen is scared and runs back to the cabin where her dads are.
Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) are lounging at the back of the house when Wen storms in telling them there are strangers coming and they need to lock the house. They don’t take her warnings very seriously until the knock at the door happens.
Words were exchanged through the door and lines were drawn in the sand. The four strangers wanted to come inside, the family didn’t want that to happen. After a brief stand-off, the stranges made it inside and the family is tied up. The strangers have all had the same prophetic vision, the end of the world is happening but this family can save it. They need to willingly and knowingly sacrifice one of their family so that everyone in the world can live.
Hence the trolley problem.
Are the strangers genuine? Andrew thinks it is a hate group forcing them to hurt themselves. Eric thinks they might be telling the truth. One by one the prophecies that are foretold by the group come true and the family have to decide if they believe them or not in the face of brutal acts by the group.
It sounds interesting and suspenseful but never really is. It comes down to a question of do you believe, as someone who is inherently sceptical I rarely do. Exceptional claims require exceptional proof. Even after decisions were made it never really felt like the stakes were raised or tension was built.
I have enjoyed some of Shyamalan’s films, I am sad to say this wasn’t one of them.
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe
4th February 2023