February 17, 2023 • 11 mins
Mike gives his spoiler version of their review for Knock at the Cabin. Mike shares his thoughts on the violence, the ‘twist’, ending and how he was hoping it would have turned out in the end. I repeat, ****CONTAINS SPOILERS****. Listen if you’ve seen the movie…or you don’t care about having it ruined for you.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike, and this is a spoiler episode.
We're gonna be talking about Knock at the Cabin, so
continue listening. If you have seen the movie, or you're
the rare type of person who likes having a movie
completely ruined for you, maybe you had no intentions of
seeing it whatsoever, so this is your way of getting
a movie completely for free. So let's get right into it.
(00:23):
This was a hard movie to review because outside of
the original premise, which is about these four strangers they
break into a cabin, there is a couple there with
their daughter, and then they present them with the situation
that if they don't sacrifice one of themselves or their daughter,
when the entire world is going to end because they
are there to prevent the apocalypse. And that's really all
(00:43):
you need to know going into this movie. And I
almost felt like, even though it wasn't spoiler s to
tell you more details about it, I wanted you to
experience it for the first time for yourself, because that
is this type of movie. It's almost knowing nothing about
it without seeing a trailer, which I was a little
bit mad looking back at the trailer on this movie,
there was a detail that they revealed in that that
(01:06):
I felt took away from the impact of the entire movie,
the entire message. If you watch the trailer going into
this movie, you see a scene where Eric has made
it outside of the cabin and there's a plane falling,
and that would really ruin it for you, because what
this movie is doing throughout the entire time is have
you guessing are they actually there to prevent the apocalypse
(01:28):
or they just messing with them? Are they controlling all
of the broadcast on TV? Are they lying about all
these events going on? And by seeing that plane fall,
it just automatically leads you to believe, like, Oh, at
some point it's actually all going to be real. So
I did not like that detail kept into the trailer.
There were so many details and the final trailer they
put out, which I always tend to avoid those, I'll
(01:50):
watch the initial trailer that comes out. Those are the
ones that share on the trailer park. But the trailers
they always released maybe a couple of weeks before the
movie comes out, they give away way too many deed
hills because they're just trying to get people out to
the theater at that point, so I was not a
fan of that detail left in the trailer. I feel
like they do that with horror movies sometimes, which this
isn't really a full on horror movie. M Night Shamalan
(02:12):
kind of gets put into that category, and when you're
explaining it to people, it's kind of horror esque. It's
like horror adjacent. But he deals a lot with more paranormal, suspenseful,
and just things that don't really have any kind of explanation.
So it's these thrillers that he's really known for. And
he's also known for having movies with a twist, which
we'll get into a little bit more later. I don't
(02:33):
really feel like this movie had a twist, although somebody
did kind of ruin it for me to going into
this movie. I don't read reviews or watch reviews or
listen to reviews going into a movie because I don't
want them to influence how I feel about it. But
I did see somebody post on Instagram saying that you
won't see this ending coming. I felt like that was
a little bit of a spoiler, because even though m
(02:53):
Night Shamalan is known for his twist, I don't want
to know that I'm not going to see the ending coming,
because to be honest, I kind of saw the ending
coming in a way, and at first I was a
little bit underwhelmed by it. But I get the decision
for it now. But let's go back to the beginning
before we talk about the end. As I was saying
that m Night Shamalan is not really a horror director,
(03:14):
I felt like his decision to not show the gruesome
parts was interesting because really, aside from Rupert Grint's death,
which is the first one to die, all of the
other killings are basically implied. And I think we've gotten
to a point in movies and TV shows where headshots
have kind of become the norm, and I feel like
they're almost losing their impact and their effect with any
(03:37):
kind of shock value to us. It was a little
bit more groundbreaking, probably in the late two thousand's early
twenty tens, where you really didn't see that kind of
straight up brutal violence in movies and TV shows. So
probably now in the last like seven years, ten years,
we become a little bit more desensitized to that kind
of thing. So I did enjoy the implied gruesomeness some
(04:00):
of them, aside from Rupert Grint getting killed. Would you
kind of see the headshot a little bit? But I
could feel m Night Shamalan pulling back a little bit
from that gruesomeness. The second and third deaths are basically
just implied, and then Leonard's death I felt was more
sad than shocking and gruesome. So I think what the
movie did a really good job was keeping me guessing
(04:21):
the entire time of what is going to happen. Granted
I did not read the book. I did not know
where the story was going to go, so I was
completely fresh on the entire plot of this movie. Now,
if I was put into the situation, I would probably
be Andrew thinking they were crazy, especially when the details
come out that they all met on a message board.
(04:42):
Their stories start to get a little bit convoluted on
how they all arrived, whether or not they knew each
other before. I would also be so over analytical, like
he was paying attention to how many times Leonard was
looking at his watch, paying attention to how they could
have got all of those news cast lined up. I
felt like he was thinking in a more logical manner
(05:03):
that I would be, hopefully in that frame of mind.
And then you have Eric, who was obviously suffering an
injury to his head, is concussed. He is the one
starting to buy into everything they are telling him, mainly
because of when he saw Rupert Grint about to be killed.
There was this little flash of light up until the
point where Leonard starts reciting the newscast that is happening.
(05:27):
That is when my mind started to shift a little bit, thinking,
oh man, this could actually be happening. My theory throughout
the entire movie was that I thought it was going
to be revealed that they had pre recorded all of
those news casts, like it was even bigger than them,
to where they had a new studio where they filmed
all these things and plotted everything out, and we're only
(05:48):
showing them what they wanted to show them at the
time they wanted to show them. But the part I
couldn't really land on is why, And that's what I
was trying to find in all the details. And then
when it comes out that Rupert Grin character may have
been the one who assaulted at that bar, I was like, Okay,
maybe we're getting somewhere here, but it's really not until
the very end where it's only Leonard remaining, and he
(06:12):
kills himself, and then you start seeing all the other
signs that what they're saying was actually true. You see
the planes falling, you see everything catching fire. So I
didn't really feel like it was a full on twist
more so than just it being a shock that they
were actually telling the truth or was it all a coincidence,
Because how this movie ends is Leonard kills himself, and
(06:34):
then before he does, he tells them there is still
a chance to prevent the apocalypse. They can still stop
all this if they sacrifice one of themselves. He kills himself,
and then Eric tells Andrew that he is willing to
be killed, that he believes it. He saw something in
the mirror. He is at peace now and he is
(06:55):
ready to go to prevent the apocalypse. You get a
flash into the future of Andrew and their daughter when
growing older, her living out her life, and then you
see that Eric guys Andrew when leave the Fiery Forest,
they find the truck that came into and then they
see all the details about these characters that they were
actually telling the truth. Leonard actually was a coach, Rupert
(07:18):
Grint was an electrician, the other woman was a nurse,
and the other woman did have a son, even though
he didn't believe her. So they take off in their truck.
They drive to a diner and watch a news report
that all of the crazy occurrences, all of the tsunamis,
the fires, the planes falling out of the sky, have
all miraculously stopped. Therefore they have prevented the apocalypse. And
(07:42):
then they just kind of drive off listening to this song,
and that's how the movie ends. So I guess I
thought there was going to be a little bit something
more to that ending. I was almost expecting kind of
a bummer ending, like the Mist wherever he makes the
decision to kill his family because he thinks there is
no hope left, and just minutes after doing that, the
(08:03):
misclears up and their salvation at the end. So if
you would have just waited a little bit, he could
have saved his entire family. And I guess m Night
Shamalan did not want to leave people on such a
low note. But man me, as a movie fan of
movies just going there and making you feel awful, just
making you feel anything, I really wish you would have
stuck to the ending in the book, which I looked
(08:25):
up later. Their daughter when accidentally get shot, so I
can see the decision and how shocking it would have
been if she would have died in the movie. After
she accidentally gets shot, Leonard is devastated by it and
agrees to be tied up, but still says that even
though she has been killed, it doesn't count as a
willing sacrifice. So Sabrina kills Leonard. So she tells them
(08:47):
that there is still a chance they could prevent the apocalypse,
but she kills herself. Eric, like in the movie, wants
to be sacrificed, but Andrew refuses to do so, so
they head out to the car with Wen's body, and
the book ends without a real conclusion of whether or
not the apocalypse is coming or not. So yeah, probably
would have been a bummer if when would have died
(09:07):
because they were fighting over a gun and she gets shot.
But I almost think a movie like this with a
devastating ending would have made it like a perfect movie.
So for me, if it would have gone to that level,
I would have given this movie a five out of five,
and I think that would have given the movie a
little bit more of his trademark twist. They did give
the explanation of how Eric thought that these four intruders
(09:31):
were the four horsemen of the apocalypse, which really wasn't
a twist. It was more symbolism and just kind of
an aha moment of everything all being brought together. But
it also just makes me think, was everything just a coincidence? Say,
all these crazy occurrences just started to happen around the
same time. I was still holding on to some kind
of hope that this entire time they were just being manipulated,
(09:54):
and after they went to that diner, that it was
going to be revealed that even all those people were actors,
and since some of the violence and deaths were implied,
you were going to find out that the four people
didn't actually die and that was all just fake. Even
when you see Leonard carrying out some of their bodies
and putting them in a room, I thought maybe later
they would discover that their bodies were gone. So, even
(10:15):
though I am somebody who loves into the world type scenarios,
for some reason, I didn't want that to be the
case here, And I guess because it's the nim Night
Shamalan movie, And of course I hadn't read the book
going into it, but I just thought it would have
been a little bit more trippier, a little bit more
mind bending, if at the end of the movie you
find out that they were just part of a bigger plan,
and you would have left feeling a little bit gut
(10:37):
wrench knowing that he killed his partner for no reason.
So it wasn't so much that I felt a little
bit underwhelmed. I just felt this movie could have been
taken a step further if there wasn't this worry of
bumming everybody out. Sometimes it's good to feel bummed out.
Those movies stay with me longer than everything, kind of
being wrapped up in a nice little package. But I
still think the movie is great. I can't wait to
(10:58):
rewatch it, knowing eactly where it's going now, to see
if I can pick up on some more of these details.
I also wish that we still had alternate endings to movies.
We would get them more back when movies were put
out on DVD. In the bonus features, there would be
the alternate ending, like I remember watching the alternate ending
to I Am Legend, where the story ends a lot differently.
(11:19):
So I wish there was a cut out there like
a director's cut to where this movie ends the depressing way,
so if you want to see it go down like that,
you can experience that for yourself. I wish there was
that option. Let's bring back the alternate endings, but that
has been the spoiler edition of the Knock at the
Cabin review. Sorry if my voice sounds a little bit off,
(11:40):
but I will be back next week breaking down the
new ant Man movie, giving you the recap on the
new way. I rewatched all the Marvel movies and we'll
talk about the flash trailer too that dropped at the
super Bowl. But until then, go out and watch good
movies and I will talk to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike, and this is a spoiler episode.
We're gonna be talking about Knock at the Cabin, so
continue listening. If you have seen the movie, or you're
the rare type of person who likes having a movie
completely ruined for you, maybe you had no intentions of
seeing it whatsoever, so this is your way of getting
a movie completely for free. So let's get right into it.
(00:23):
This was a hard movie to review because outside of
the original premise, which is about these four strangers they
break into a cabin, there is a couple there with
their daughter, and then they present them with the situation
that if they don't sacrifice one of themselves or their daughter,
when the entire world is going to end because they
are there to prevent the apocalypse. And that's really all
(00:43):
you need to know going into this movie. And I
almost felt like, even though it wasn't spoiler s to
tell you more details about it, I wanted you to
experience it for the first time for yourself, because that
is this type of movie. It's almost knowing nothing about
it without seeing a trailer, which I was a little
bit mad looking back at the trailer on this movie,
there was a detail that they revealed in that that
(01:06):
I felt took away from the impact of the entire movie,
the entire message. If you watch the trailer going into
this movie, you see a scene where Eric has made
it outside of the cabin and there's a plane falling,
and that would really ruin it for you, because what
this movie is doing throughout the entire time is have
you guessing are they actually there to prevent the apocalypse
(01:28):
or they just messing with them? Are they controlling all
of the broadcast on TV? Are they lying about all
these events going on? And by seeing that plane fall,
it just automatically leads you to believe, like, Oh, at
some point it's actually all going to be real. So
I did not like that detail kept into the trailer.
There were so many details and the final trailer they
put out, which I always tend to avoid those, I'll
(01:50):
watch the initial trailer that comes out. Those are the
ones that share on the trailer park. But the trailers
they always released maybe a couple of weeks before the
movie comes out, they give away way too many deed
hills because they're just trying to get people out to
the theater at that point, so I was not a
fan of that detail left in the trailer. I feel
like they do that with horror movies sometimes, which this
isn't really a full on horror movie. M Night Shamalan
(02:12):
kind of gets put into that category, and when you're
explaining it to people, it's kind of horror esque. It's
like horror adjacent. But he deals a lot with more paranormal, suspenseful,
and just things that don't really have any kind of explanation.
So it's these thrillers that he's really known for. And
he's also known for having movies with a twist, which
we'll get into a little bit more later. I don't
(02:33):
really feel like this movie had a twist, although somebody
did kind of ruin it for me to going into
this movie. I don't read reviews or watch reviews or
listen to reviews going into a movie because I don't
want them to influence how I feel about it. But
I did see somebody post on Instagram saying that you
won't see this ending coming. I felt like that was
a little bit of a spoiler, because even though m
(02:53):
Night Shamalan is known for his twist, I don't want
to know that I'm not going to see the ending coming,
because to be honest, I kind of saw the ending
coming in a way, and at first I was a
little bit underwhelmed by it. But I get the decision
for it now. But let's go back to the beginning
before we talk about the end. As I was saying
that m Night Shamalan is not really a horror director,
(03:14):
I felt like his decision to not show the gruesome
parts was interesting because really, aside from Rupert Grint's death,
which is the first one to die, all of the
other killings are basically implied. And I think we've gotten
to a point in movies and TV shows where headshots
have kind of become the norm, and I feel like
they're almost losing their impact and their effect with any
(03:37):
kind of shock value to us. It was a little
bit more groundbreaking, probably in the late two thousand's early
twenty tens, where you really didn't see that kind of
straight up brutal violence in movies and TV shows. So
probably now in the last like seven years, ten years,
we become a little bit more desensitized to that kind
of thing. So I did enjoy the implied gruesomeness some
(04:00):
of them, aside from Rupert Grint getting killed. Would you
kind of see the headshot a little bit? But I
could feel m Night Shamalan pulling back a little bit
from that gruesomeness. The second and third deaths are basically
just implied, and then Leonard's death I felt was more
sad than shocking and gruesome. So I think what the
movie did a really good job was keeping me guessing
(04:21):
the entire time of what is going to happen. Granted
I did not read the book. I did not know
where the story was going to go, so I was
completely fresh on the entire plot of this movie. Now,
if I was put into the situation, I would probably
be Andrew thinking they were crazy, especially when the details
come out that they all met on a message board.
(04:42):
Their stories start to get a little bit convoluted on
how they all arrived, whether or not they knew each
other before. I would also be so over analytical, like
he was paying attention to how many times Leonard was
looking at his watch, paying attention to how they could
have got all of those news cast lined up. I
felt like he was thinking in a more logical manner
(05:03):
that I would be, hopefully in that frame of mind.
And then you have Eric, who was obviously suffering an
injury to his head, is concussed. He is the one
starting to buy into everything they are telling him, mainly
because of when he saw Rupert Grint about to be killed.
There was this little flash of light up until the
point where Leonard starts reciting the newscast that is happening.
(05:27):
That is when my mind started to shift a little bit, thinking,
oh man, this could actually be happening. My theory throughout
the entire movie was that I thought it was going
to be revealed that they had pre recorded all of
those news casts, like it was even bigger than them,
to where they had a new studio where they filmed
all these things and plotted everything out, and we're only
(05:48):
showing them what they wanted to show them at the
time they wanted to show them. But the part I
couldn't really land on is why, And that's what I
was trying to find in all the details. And then
when it comes out that Rupert Grin character may have
been the one who assaulted at that bar, I was like, Okay,
maybe we're getting somewhere here, but it's really not until
the very end where it's only Leonard remaining, and he
(06:12):
kills himself, and then you start seeing all the other
signs that what they're saying was actually true. You see
the planes falling, you see everything catching fire. So I
didn't really feel like it was a full on twist
more so than just it being a shock that they
were actually telling the truth or was it all a coincidence,
Because how this movie ends is Leonard kills himself, and
(06:34):
then before he does, he tells them there is still
a chance to prevent the apocalypse. They can still stop
all this if they sacrifice one of themselves. He kills himself,
and then Eric tells Andrew that he is willing to
be killed, that he believes it. He saw something in
the mirror. He is at peace now and he is
(06:55):
ready to go to prevent the apocalypse. You get a
flash into the future of Andrew and their daughter when
growing older, her living out her life, and then you
see that Eric guys Andrew when leave the Fiery Forest,
they find the truck that came into and then they
see all the details about these characters that they were
actually telling the truth. Leonard actually was a coach, Rupert
(07:18):
Grint was an electrician, the other woman was a nurse,
and the other woman did have a son, even though
he didn't believe her. So they take off in their truck.
They drive to a diner and watch a news report
that all of the crazy occurrences, all of the tsunamis,
the fires, the planes falling out of the sky, have
all miraculously stopped. Therefore they have prevented the apocalypse. And
(07:42):
then they just kind of drive off listening to this song,
and that's how the movie ends. So I guess I
thought there was going to be a little bit something
more to that ending. I was almost expecting kind of
a bummer ending, like the Mist wherever he makes the
decision to kill his family because he thinks there is
no hope left, and just minutes after doing that, the
(08:03):
misclears up and their salvation at the end. So if
you would have just waited a little bit, he could
have saved his entire family. And I guess m Night
Shamalan did not want to leave people on such a
low note. But man me, as a movie fan of
movies just going there and making you feel awful, just
making you feel anything, I really wish you would have
stuck to the ending in the book, which I looked
(08:25):
up later. Their daughter when accidentally get shot, so I
can see the decision and how shocking it would have
been if she would have died in the movie. After
she accidentally gets shot, Leonard is devastated by it and
agrees to be tied up, but still says that even
though she has been killed, it doesn't count as a
willing sacrifice. So Sabrina kills Leonard. So she tells them
(08:47):
that there is still a chance they could prevent the apocalypse,
but she kills herself. Eric, like in the movie, wants
to be sacrificed, but Andrew refuses to do so, so
they head out to the car with Wen's body, and
the book ends without a real conclusion of whether or
not the apocalypse is coming or not. So yeah, probably
would have been a bummer if when would have died
(09:07):
because they were fighting over a gun and she gets shot.
But I almost think a movie like this with a
devastating ending would have made it like a perfect movie.
So for me, if it would have gone to that level,
I would have given this movie a five out of five,
and I think that would have given the movie a
little bit more of his trademark twist. They did give
the explanation of how Eric thought that these four intruders
(09:31):
were the four horsemen of the apocalypse, which really wasn't
a twist. It was more symbolism and just kind of
an aha moment of everything all being brought together. But
it also just makes me think, was everything just a coincidence? Say,
all these crazy occurrences just started to happen around the
same time. I was still holding on to some kind
of hope that this entire time they were just being manipulated,
(09:54):
and after they went to that diner, that it was
going to be revealed that even all those people were actors,
and since some of the violence and deaths were implied,
you were going to find out that the four people
didn't actually die and that was all just fake. Even
when you see Leonard carrying out some of their bodies
and putting them in a room, I thought maybe later
they would discover that their bodies were gone. So, even
(10:15):
though I am somebody who loves into the world type scenarios,
for some reason, I didn't want that to be the
case here, And I guess because it's the nim Night
Shamalan movie, And of course I hadn't read the book
going into it, but I just thought it would have
been a little bit more trippier, a little bit more
mind bending, if at the end of the movie you
find out that they were just part of a bigger plan,
and you would have left feeling a little bit gut
(10:37):
wrench knowing that he killed his partner for no reason.
So it wasn't so much that I felt a little
bit underwhelmed. I just felt this movie could have been
taken a step further if there wasn't this worry of
bumming everybody out. Sometimes it's good to feel bummed out.
Those movies stay with me longer than everything, kind of
being wrapped up in a nice little package. But I
still think the movie is great. I can't wait to
(10:58):
rewatch it, knowing eactly where it's going now, to see
if I can pick up on some more of these details.
I also wish that we still had alternate endings to movies.
We would get them more back when movies were put
out on DVD. In the bonus features, there would be
the alternate ending, like I remember watching the alternate ending
to I Am Legend, where the story ends a lot differently.
(11:19):
So I wish there was a cut out there like
a director's cut to where this movie ends the depressing way,
so if you want to see it go down like that,
you can experience that for yourself. I wish there was
that option. Let's bring back the alternate endings, but that
has been the spoiler edition of the Knock at the
Cabin review. Sorry if my voice sounds a little bit off,
(11:40):
but I will be back next week breaking down the
new ant Man movie, giving you the recap on the
new way. I rewatched all the Marvel movies and we'll
talk about the flash trailer too that dropped at the
super Bowl. But until then, go out and watch good
movies and I will talk to you later.
Host
Mike D
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