Review: ‘Knock at the Cabin,’ starring Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint

February 1, 2023

by Carla Hay

Ben Aldridge, Kristen Cui, Jonathan Groff and Dave Bautista in “Knock at the Cabin” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Knock at the Cabin”

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in an unnamed city in Pennsylvania, the horror film “Knock at the Cabin” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, Asian and African American) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two husbands and their 7-year-old adopted daughter are held hostage in a remote cabin by four strangers, who tell them that one of the family members must choose to kill another family member, or else there will be an apocalypse that will kill everyone on Earth except the three family members. 

Culture Audience: “Knock at the Cabin” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and horror movies with apocalyptic themes.

Abby Quinn, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint in “Knock at the Cabin” (Photo by PhoByMo/Universal Pictures)

The apocalyptic horror film “Knock at the Cabin” has a more predictable story than the novel on which it is based, but the movie still delivers many tension-filled scenes and memorable characters. The cast members, particularly Ben Aldridge and Kristen Cui, elevate the film with their credible performances. “Knock at the Cabin” is one of those movies where you can figure out from watching the trailers how everything is probably going to end. It’s one of the few movies from filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan that does not have a shocking twist.

Shyamalan directed “Knock at the Cabin” and co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman. The movie’s screenplay is adapted from Paul Tremblay’s 2018 novel “The Cabin at the End of the World,” which has a very different turn of events than the movie version of this book. It’s easy to see why the filmmakers chose to make these changes, because there are many things in the book that would not be as “crowd-pleasing” to movie audiences.

Even though “Knock at the Cabin” plays it very safe in how the movie was adapted from the book, there’s still enough in the movie that brings a level of gripping suspense, thanks to skilled editing and capable acting performances. Except for flashbacks and scenes showing events on TV news, “Knock at the Cabin” takes place primarily in a remote area in an unnamed city in Pennsylvania. The filmmakers of “Knock at the Cabin” wisely chose not to clutter up the movie with extraneous characters and locations that are not in “The Cabin at the End of the World.”

“Knock at the Cabin” begins with showing a kind and intelligent 7-year-old girl named Wen (played by Cui) collecting grasshoppers in an open field and putting them in a bottle. Wen is an aspiring veterinarian—she says she wants to be “take care of animals” when she grows up. She is cataloguing the statistics of the grasshoppers that she has collected, and she has even named the grasshoppers. Wen (who is an only child) and her two gay fathers Andrew (played by Aldridge) and Eric (played by Jonathan Groff) are on a vacation trip in this isolated wooded area of Pennsylvania, where the family is staying at a cabin.

Suddenly, a hulking man named Leonard (played by Dave Bautista) emerges from the woods. He approaches Wen and makes small talk with her. At first Wen is wary of this stranger, but she starts to warm up to him when he shows an interest in her grasshopper collection by helping her get a grasshopper and asking her about the collection. Wen says she will turn 8 years old in six days. Leonard tells Wen that he wants to be her friend and he needs to go inside the home where her parents are.

Leonard is not alone. He has three companions with him, who all have the same intentions. Redmond (played by Rupert Grint) has an angry personality. Sabrina (played by Nikki Amuka-Bird) has a calm personality. Adriane (played by Abby Quinn) has a cheerful personality. Leonard is their leader, and he has a “take charge” personality. All four of these strangers are armed and dangerous.

As already shown in the movie’s trailers, all four of these strangers break into the cabin and take Andrew, Eric and Wen hostage. Andrew and Eric put up a fight in self-defense. Eric gets into a losing brawl with Sabrina, and he gets a concussion from being knocked to the ground. Andrew and Eric are then tied to chairs, although (as the movie trailer already reveals) Wen is not tied up, and she briefly escapes.

Leonard tells this captured family that they have to make a choice: someone in the family has to voluntarily kill someone else in the family, or else there will be an apocalypse where everyone on Earth except this family of three will be killed. Every time someone in the family refuses to kill someone else in the family, a plague will descend on Earth until the world-ending apocalypse will happen.

Andrew (the more outspoken and more assertive husband) is immediately skeptical and thinks that these four strangers are mentally ill. Andrew mentions later in the movie that he’s a human rights attorney, which goes a long way in explaining why Andrew thinks he can argue his way out of this horrible situation. At first, Andrew and Eric also think that this home invasion is a hate crime because Andrew and Eric are a gay couple. But Leonard denies it and says that he and his three cohorts did not know in advance that the targeted family would have a same-sex couple.

Andrew and Eric refuse to kill anyone in their family. As already shown in the movie’s trailer, as a result, a plague happens that kills numerous people near the Pacific Ocean. (Shyamalan continues his tradition of appearing in small roles as an actor in the movies that he directs. In “Knock at the Cabin,” he briefly appears on the cabin’s TV set as a co-host of an infomercial that is interrupted by breaking news.) Leonard shows the family the TV news to prove that this plague happening.

Andrew is convinced that the four strangers knew in advance that this catastrophe was going to happen. Leonard insists that he, Sabrina, Leonard and Adriane were all strangers with the same visions who found each other through the Internet. Leonard also says that several families over time have had to make the same decision. And he emphatically states that he, Sabrina, Leonard and Adriane are “heartbroken” that they have to force Andrew and Eric to make this life-changing decision.

In order to make themselves relatable, Leonard and the rest of the home invaders tells the captured family more about themselves. Leonard says he’s from Chicago and has two jobs: He’s an elementary schoolteacher who runs an after-school program for second graders, and he’s a bartender.

Sabrina is a hospital nurse who works at an intensive-care unit in Southern California. She says she feel guilty about Eric getting injured in their fight, so she tends to Eric’s head wounds. Sabrina also says that the rules are that Eric must be thinking clearly when making his decision with Andrew. But who exactly is making these “rules”?

Adriane says she’s a line cook at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C. “I love to feed people,” she adds. Later in the movie, Adriane says she has a pre-teen son named Charlie, and she begs the hostage family to not let the apocalypse happen, or else her son is going to die.

Redmond is an ex-con who works at a gas company in Medford, Massachusetts. He mentions coming from an abusive family where “my father used to beat the shit out of me.” Later, Andrew is convinced that he knows Redmond from a traumatic event that happened in Andrew’s past.

As the tension builds over what decision will be made, “Knock at the Cabin” shows flashbacks of Andrew and Eric’s life together before this home invasion. Viewers will find out that Andrew’s parents (played by McKenna Kerrigan and Ian Merrill Peakes) disapprove of him being gay, while Eric’s mother (who is never seen in the movie) is accepting of Eric’s sexuality. Andrew and Eric also went to China to adopt Wen when she was a baby, but Andrew had to pretend to be the brother of Eric’s non-existent wife, in order to avoid any homophobic restrictions that would prevent them from adopting Wen.

There are also flashbacks to happy family times with Andrew, Eric and Wen, such as when they’re driving in their car while K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s 1975 hit song “Boogie Shoes” is playing. Andrew, Eric and Wen love this song so much, they sing loudly and joyfully move to the beat of the song. “Boogie Shoes” will be used again later in the movie in an emotionally powerful scene.

Because “Knock at the Cabin” is a horror movie, not everyone will make it out alive. At a certain point, it becomes very obvious which of the husbands will be more open to the idea of killing someone in the family, in order to save the world. But will that husband be able to convince his spouse?

There are no real surprises in “Knock at the Cabin,” except for how much the movie removed some of the risk-taking plot developments from “The Cabin at the End of the World.” With a total running time of 100 minutes, “Knock at the Cabin” is a taut thriller that doesn’t drag on for longer than the story needed, although some parts of the movie get a little repetitive. Knock at the Cabin” is a very Hollywood movie version of the book, but it’s ultimately satisfactory entertainment for horror fans who don’t want to see anything too disturbing on screen.

Universal Pictures will release “Knock at the Cabin” in U.S. cinemas on February 3, 2023.

Review: ‘Spoiler Alert’ (2022), starring Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge and Sally Field

December 4, 2022

by Carla Hay

Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge in “Spoiler Alert” (Photo by Giovanni Rufino/Focus Features)

“Spoiler Alert” (2022)

Directed by Michael Showalter

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2002 to 2015, primarily in New York City (and briefly in New Jersey), the dramatic film “Spoiler Alert” (based on a true story) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two gay men, who are almost total opposites, meet and fall in love with each other, but their relationship is tested by mistrust/jealousy issues and when one of the men gets cancer. 

Culture Audience: “Spolier Alert” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based and will appeal to people who are interested in watching a tearjerking drama about love and loss.

Bill Irwin, Sally Field, Ben Aldridge and Jim Parsons in “Spoiler Alert” (Photo by Linda Källérus/Focus Features)

“Spoiler Alert” can get awfully treacly, and the movie’s ending fizzles out in a trite manner, but there are plenty of other things to like about this bittersweet love story. The principal cast members give charming and believable performances. This drama hits a lot of the same, predictable beats of movies about couples whose lives are affected by cancer. However, “Spoiler Alert” offers some unique narrative choices—some that work better than others.

Directed by Michael Showalter, “Spoiler Alert” is based on entertainment journalist Michael Ausiello’s 2018 memoir “Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies.” David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage co-wrote the “Spoiler Alert” screenplay, which is the movie’s weakest link. The screenplay sometimes does a disservice to this true story by cutting to some cutesy and comedic flashbacks in between scenes that are supposed to be emotionally gut-wrenching.

Some of the movie’s supporting characters are shallow stereotypes, but the relationship between the central couple is depicted in a mostly authentic way. Having talented actors playing the main characters also makes a big difference in the appeal of “Spoiler Alert,” which is watchable, but not quite the overwhelmingly beloved crowd-pleaser that it wants to be. People with empathy will be rooting for this couple, despite most viewers being told from the beginning of the film that one person in the relationship will die of a terminal illness.

That’s because the movie “Spoiler Alert” literally does what the book title “Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies” does: It reveals that there’s going to be a major death. The very first scene of “Spoiler Alert” shows Michael Ausiello (played by Jim Parsons) and his husband Christopher “Kit” Cowan (played by Ben Aldridge), who are both in their 40s, huddled together on Kit’s hospital death bed in New York City. Kit (who has rectal cancer) has all the signs of someone with a terminal illness who’s about to die.

Michael can be heard saying in a voiceover: “It wasn’t supposed to end this way, but meeting you in the first place was the plot twist I never expected.” It’s possible that many people seeing this movie will already know in advance that someone in this relationship will die. But many other viewers of “Spoiler Alert” won’t really know that before seeing the movie. And when they see this death bed scene in the very beginning of the movie, it really is a “spoiler” with not much of an “alert.”

The problem with telling viewers from the very beginning that Kit is going to die—especially for people who don’t know this death is going to happen before seeing the movie—is that revealing this information so early will lessen the impact of how the death is depicted toward the end of the movie. It also makes the movie essentally a countdown until this tragic death, because viewers will be bracing themselves for the scenes where Kit and his loved ones find out that he has cancer, he goes though inevitable suffering, and then he dies.

Michael is the narrator of “Spoiler Alert,” so a better movie would have let viewers experience the same rollercoaster of emotions of shock, sadness, hope and fear that Michael experienced with Kit during this cancer journey. But viewers don’t get that perspective, because viewers have been told from the beginning that Kit’s cancer journey does not have a happy ending. You can’t get any clearer when a spouse of a cancer patient looks back on the spouse’s final moments on a hospital deathbed and says about the relationship: “It wasn’t supposed to end this way.”

After this hospital deathbed scene (which the movie circles back to toward the end of the film), “Spoiler Alert” becomes mostly a depiction of Michael and Kit’s 13-year relationship in chronological order, beginning in 2002, the year that they met at a gay bar in New York City. In 2002, Michael is a staff writer for TV Guide, while Kit is an aspiring photographer working a day job at Cosi, a fast-casual restaurant that’s part of a nationwide chain of Cosi restaurants.

As Michael explains in a voiceover, Michael has been obsessed with television since he was child. When he was a kid, he liked to imagine that his life would be like a family sitcom called “The Ausiellos,” which is why all his childhood flashback scenes are filmed like a 1980s sitcom, including having a prerecorded laugh track. In these flashbacks, Michael is shown at about 9 or 10 years old (played by Brody Caines), mostly in his family’s living room watching TV. He has fond memories of watching soap operas with his widowed mother (played by Tara Summers), who would later die of cancer when Michael was still a pre-teen.

Michael is the middle of three brothers. His older brother (played by Braxton Fannin) would sometimes tease or bully young Michael about his chubby physique. Later in the movie, during a scene where Michael and Kit are sexually intimate for the first time, a very nervous and awkward Michael confesses that he has had lifelong body issues. Michael describes himself as “FFK: former fat kid.”

Michael thinks TV Guide is his dream job, and he doesn’t mind working the long hours required. However, his demanding work schedule has left little room for his love life. In 2002, at the urging of a friend/co-worker named Nick (played by Jeffrey Self), Michael goes to a gay club during a theme night called Jock Night, where the patrons are encouraged to dress as athletes. Michael goes to the club in his regular clothes.

Michael and Kit have their “meet cute” moment when they see each other across the room. Kit, who immediately smiles at Michael, is wearing a sweatband and workout clothes, like he just walked out of Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 “Physical” video. They eventually introduce themselves to each other and start talking.

Michael is such a self-described TV nerd, he immediately points out that their names (Michael and Kit) are the same names as the main characters in the 1982-1986 TV series “Knight Rider.” Kit doesn’t really get the joke because he never watched “Knight Rider.” It soon becomes obvious to Michael and Kit that they’re almost complete opposites.

Kit is outgoing and confident. Michael is reserved and insecure. Kit likes to dance. Michael doesn’t like to dance, but he eventually does dance with Kit that night. It’s a classic “opposites attract” situation.

It isn’t long before Michael and Kit start kissing each other at the club. Michael doesn’t want them to go back to his place, so Kit agrees with some hesitation that they should go back to Kit’s apartment. Their first sexual encounter is depicted in a semi-comedic way, because Michael is so anxious about everything. Michael also thinks that Kit is too good-looking for him.

After spending the night together on the first night that they met, Michael and Kit begin dating. During their first dinner date together, they find out even more how different they are from each other. Michael has been openly gay since he was a child. He said his mother knew he was gay when Michael was 8 years old, and she noticed Michael had a crush on the “Days of Our Lives” character Bo Brady. Michael says his mother was completely accepting of Michael being gay.

By contrast, Kit is still semi-closeted. His friends know that he’s gay, but he hasn’t told his parents yet. Kit describes his parents as very traditional. Other contrasts: Michael is a TV fanatic. Kit hardly watches TV. Michael grew up with two brothers, who are never seen or mentioned in the movie as adults. Kit is an only child. Michael says that he believes in marriage, while Kit thinks marriage is an outdated institution.

The rest of “Spoiler Alert” chronicles the ups and downs of the relationship between Kit and Michael. Early on in their romance, Michael says to Kit that they should confess to each other what their childhood obsessions were. Michael says his childhood obsessions were soap operas and Christmas. Kit says his childhood obsession was becoming a magician.

Kit soon discovers that Michael has another obsession stemming from Michael’s childhood. Michael has been avoiding bringing Kit over to Michael’s apartment (Michael lives alone) until Kit insists on seeing where Michael lives. Kit is shocked when he finds out that Michael has a major Smurf obsession: Michael’s entire apartment looks like a cluttered Smurf merchandise store. Michael says his Smurf collection reminds him of when his mother was alive and she used to buy him Smurf memorabilia.

Michael’s Smurf obsession is a quirk that Kit accepts because he and Michael are starting to fall in love at this point. However, later in the movie, when Michael and Kit move in together, they live in an apartment where the overload of Smurf merchandise is no longer there. There are some Smurf memorabilia as decorations, but not to the vast extent that Michael had when he lived alone.

It’s an example of how the movie skips over some details that would give the relationship more depth in the movie, such as if there had been some explanation for why such a big part of Michael’s life is no longer in the home that he shares with Kit. Did Michael put most of his Smurf merchandise in storage? Did he sell most of it? Don’t expect the movie to answer to these questions.

“Spoiler Alert” could have used better character development for the people in Michael and Kit’s social circle. On the night that Michael and Kit met, Kit was with a straight female friend named Nina (played by Nikki M. James), who was drunk. Upon meeting Michael, she blurted out that she has a thing for good-looking gay men like Kit, which Nina says is probably why she’s still single. Nina is nothing but a stereotype of a “straight woman friend of a gay man,” whose only purpose in the movie is to make sassy comments.

When Michael and Kit first began dating, Kit had a roommate named Kirby (played by Sadie Scott), who is also an underdeveloped character, for a better reason. As Kit accurately describes her, Kirby is “monosyllabic.” Kirby’s tendency to say one-word sentences becomes a joke in the movie, which makes Kirby look like a parody of an eccentric roommate.

The “Spoiler Alert” dialogue is the wittiest when it involves Michael and his self-deprecating and sarcastic comments. Parsons (former star of the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”) has made a career out of playing uptight and insecure nerds, so he’s in familiar territory here, and he does it very well. He navigates the comedic moments, as well as the heavier emotional scenes, with great aplomb. Parsons is also one of the “Spoiler Alert” producers.

People who are pop-culture enthusiasts will have the most appreciation for Michael’s jokes, since he makes references to several movies and TV shows. In a hospital scene, where Kit is getting cancer treatment, Michael has a temper tantrum at a nurse because he wants Kit to have a hospital bed when the nurse says all the hospital beds are already occupied. Michael later quips to Kit that it was his Shirley MacLaine moment. It’s a reference to a similar temper-tantrum scene that MacLaine had in the 1983 film “Terms of Endearment,” but people who don’t know that won’t understand the joke.

Aldridge is perfectly adequate as Kit, although “Spoiler Alert” could have done a better job of telling more about Kit’s life outside of his relationship with Michael. There are vague references to Michael and Kit agreeing to not be monogamous when they first started dating. The movie never really explains if that agreement actually changed over time. There’s a brief subplot of how Michael gets jealous of Kit’s handsome co-worker Sebastian (played by Antoni Porowski), because Michael is afraid that Kit will have an affair with Sebastian.

“Spoiler Alert” has an imbalance in how the movie shows the respective career trajectories of Michael and Kit. Michael eventually becomes the founder/editor-in-chief of TVLine (but the movie doesn’t mention his real-life, two-year stint at Entertainment Weekly), and he is shown actually working more than Kit. Kit’s photography career is depicted in vague terms, with the movie making it look like he did occasional freelance photos shoots for mostly unnamed employers. Kit is shown taking more pictures in his free time (such as when he’s with Michael) than in a job.

The sequence where Michael meets Kit’s parents is played for laughs. Michael and Kit have been dating each other for months (before they moved in together), but Kit wants to keep the relationship and his sexuality a secret from his parents. And so, there’s a scene where Kit (who’s in the hospital for appendicitis) asks Michael to go to his apartment and remove all evidence that Kit is gay before Kit’s parents bring Kit home from the hospital. Michael asks sarcastically, “You want me to de-gay your apartment?”

Kit’s parents Marilyn (played by Sally Field) and Bob (played by Bill Irwin) eventually find out that Kit is gay and in a relationship with Michael. (This isn’t spoiler information, since it’s indicated in the movie’s trailer.) Kit’s parents are accepting of everything, but Marilyn is upset that Kit didn’t tell them sooner that he’s gay.

Marilyn, who is a former long-distance running champ, is very domineering, talkative and opinionated. Her personality is in stark contrast to Bob, who is laid-back, quiet and not as judgmental as Marilyn. Field brings a lot of crackling energy to the Marilyn character, but she has played these types of “mother knows best” type of roles many times before, so there’s nothing very revelatory about her acting skills in “Spoiler Alert.”

“Spoiler Alert” handles the cancer part of the story with a mixture of sensitivity and schmaltz. One of the criticisms the movie might get is that it really erases the hard conversations and tough decisions that a terminal cancer patient must make about preparing loved ones for life after the cancer patient dies. It’s a glaring omission that puts “Spoiler Alert” into some shallow territory.

Before Kit had cancer, he and Michael were having problems in their relationship, but those problems are only vaguely referenced in one or two arguments. In one of these arguments, Michael shouts that he’s fed up with Kit’s marijuana addiction, while Kit accuses Michael of becoming a drunk. The movie doesn’t explore these substance-abuse issues in a meaningful way, even though they were big problems in the relationship. The movie has just one short scene of Michael and Kit in a relationship counseling session with a therapist.

There are the expected scenes of Kit’s hair loss and vomiting from chemotherapy, as well as Michael’s tears and denial about how close Kit is to dying. “Spoiler Alert” has some touching scenes of Michael and Kit spending time with Marilyn and Bob in Kit’s final days. These scenes are among the movie’s highlights, because they look the most natural and not overly staged for a movie.

“Spoiler Alert” has its share of flaws (such as an over-reliance and occasional misplacement of the sitcom-formatted childhood flashbacks), but these flaws don’t ruin the movie. The principal cast members give “Spoiler Alert” a lot of warmth and humanity, in a film that sometimes looks overly contrived. In telling this true story, “Spoiler Alert” at least succeeds in delivering what most viewers want to see in this film: a love story that endured in the midst of some very painful and tragic circumstances.

Focus Features released “Spoiler Alert” in select U.S. cinemas on December 2, 2022, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on December 9, 2022.

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