Reviews
‘Knock At The Cabin’ (2023) Review
Are you there God? It’s me, Dave Bautista.
A New Movie From Director M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan’s movies make me feel weird. Not weird in the sense that they astound me or are bafflingly strange or terrifically bad, simply that they don’t seem to hit me with their divisiveness.
Since I was a young filmgoer on Al Gore’s internet, I have heard every joke about M. Night Shyamalan’s career. We all know the man has an exaggerated reputation. Once Hollywood’s darling, now its greatest punching bag, I genuinely feel apprehensive about covering his work because of the unnecessary aggression many people have towards him and his filmmaking, both in defense and in attacking his oeuvre. There’s a need among critics at this point to mythologize Shyamalan’s work in a way that is, honestly, just kind of annoying.
The Emotional Disconnect of Shyamalan’s Horror Films
Because I sometimes feel mentally broken looking at them. Especially with his horror films, and especially waiting for my hatred or love of them to sink in. And neither happens. They’re just fine. Even The Happening, reviled as one of the best “so-bad-its-good” horror movies, is sort of just a void to me. I’ve seen it twice, and it doesn’t do much either way.
They’re okay. Devil was fine. The Visit was fine. Split was fine. Everything he does to me, is just fine.
All of this very long preamble is to say my voice as a critic tells me Knock at the Cabin is much of the same, and if you have strong inclinations about Shyamalan’s filmmaking like many do, this film is a pendulum that will swing in your direction.
A Cast of Heavy Hitters Led by Dave Bautista
For the uninformed, Knock at the Cabin is based on the acclaimed Paul Tremblay novel The Cabin at the End of the World. It follows couple Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) who, while on vacation with adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), find themselves besieged by a doomsday cult that holds them captive. Led by the awkward giant of a man, Leonard (Dave Bautista), and united by visions of the apocalypse that force them to choose which among them will be sacrificed to stop the world’s end.
This cast, rightfully, piqued a good deal of people’s interests. Many have been curious to see Bautista take on more serious roles, and for those excited about that prospect, you will enjoy yourself. He wonderfully inhabits the character of Leonard, a violently neurodivergent doomsayer burdened by a task he believes wholeheartedly. The role is meaty enough for him to work with but not so distracting that he detracts from anyone else in the cast. His companions, played by Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rupert Grint, and Abby Quinn, are also good, barring some awkward line deliveries, but we’ll get back to them soon.
Strong Chemistry, Underutilized Characters
As for Eric and Andrew, Groff and Aldridge have undeniable onscreen chemistry, making a very believable pair; Aldridge is the calloused human rights attorney, while Groff is his much more softhearted husband, and the two balance each other nicely. But for some reason, the two are not particularly compelling in their struggle until their final scene together, which itself is marred by some ham-fisted dialogue despite being ultimately touching. I think it’s because the movie doesn’t give them much to do until the final act, with most of their speaking lines coming from flashbacks to difficult times in Eric and Andrew’s relationship. As a result, much of the onus to entertain and astound is on Bautista’s suicide cult.
The Cult’s Dynamic: A Missed Opportunity
And that’s another hiccup. One of the conceits of how the cult operates hurts what I like the most about the supporting cast; their nervous energy works well off one another, with all the actors’ dread bouncing off electrically as they trade lines. But it doesn’t last that long because…
They begin killing each other to initiate the very real plagues that will destroy everything. Which is an interesting idea, but in practice deprives us of a lot of great character interactions that I’m assuming were in the book and condensed down to a sub-2-hour runtime. While those developments on the ground shaking and the sky falling can be scary, it seems to ignore the human interactions we’re here for.
A Serviceable Script with Thematic Depth
The script is tight, and serviceable for the most part, except for some strange line choices. Thematically the movie isn’t overly ponderous or paper thin, it communicates its thoughts on the thin line that can sometimes appear between faith and delusion quite well, and the weight of the sacrifice is never diminished. The choice to utilize flashback segments wasn’t one I can outright call bad, but they don’t add enough of an emotional punch, or at least don’t add anything that wasn’t already present. The script is fine.
An original score that can ratchet up some of the tension in a film where it’s not always present is an aspect of the film I can appreciate. As far as technical praise goes, the lighting works in tandem with the set design nicely. On the other hand, there’s somewhat obnoxious camerawork that emphasizes a lot of very dire close-ups of characters. The movie opens with one of these, and it’s a few minutes long, shot reverse shot of two faces right next to each other. I understand what they’re trying to communicate, Leonard encroaching on Wen’s space and getting down to her level, but it just feels too literal, and the insistence on pulling in on every character’s face at least once gets tired.
Cinematography and Editing: Perfectly Fine
The editing is good, while some of the CGI is a bit distracting on a large scale and the small scale (I still don’t get why we’re using CGI blood for simple gunshot wound effects in 2023, but I know that’s just a personal gripe). Can you guess which two words I would ascribe to the cinematography? Right-o, reader: it’s fine.
I’m torn, as usual. In the end, Wen’s promise to her jar of grasshoppers feels like a reflection of my thoughts on Knock At The Cabin: this movie felt like I was here to learn about these people, and learn I did. For some that will be enough; for others, this will be another exercise in disliking Shyamalan’s work. But at the end of the day, I’m not sure if this character study will stick with me, or if it has much rewatch value. It’s a thriller with its fair share of positives and negatives, but it is ultimately no world-rending serpent or rapturous hand of God when it comes to the genre. Still, it’s worth at least one watch, so check it out and see how you feel.
Of all the horror movies to be described as a runaway train, Rob Savage’s Other Mommy is the first in recent memory to have that quality as a negative. A more focused piece of over-the-top supernatural horror would capitalize on starting at a high speed and just gunning it. It would get increasingly faster, more horrific with its effects and reveals, more stunning and spectacle-filled. But Other Mommy never utilizes the momentum it starts with. It stays at the same steady, uncomfortable pace. And it gets old, very fast.
Other Mommy Is Missing a First Act
The movie begins in what should have been the second act; it never does stop haunting the narrative that Other Mommy feels like it’s missing 30 minutes of setup and 10 minutes of breathing room that would actually get you to care about what’s happening. Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark) is a young girl already well acquainted with a creature known as Other Mommy. A supernatural being that can change shape and size to her liking, becoming anyone she wants and then some. The entity only desires one thing: for Bela to let it into her heart and give it a new body.
Bela’s parents, Ursula (played by Jessica Chastain, in a dual role as the Other Mommy) and Russell (Jay Duplass), become aware of the space-bending creature in the film’s very first scenes. Soon, they’re on the run from the creature that’s trying to tear the already strained family apart. But the overwrought family drama of an unfaithful mother and a scatterbrained father forced to hide their struggling marriage from their kid is smothered. Much like Chastain’s performance, it’s drowned out by a barrage of aggressive and unimpressive digital effects trying to milk every single moment for a fright, desperate to keep audiences’ attention.
A Clumsy Digital Effects Showcase That Smothers the Story to Death
Other Mommy is primarily concerned with showing off its titular monster and her reality-bending powers, jumping from one “scare filled”, dreamlike sequence to the next; heavy, heavy quotes on scare filled. You become inured to every trick the film has as it shows you all the most unimaginative uses of a shapeshifting, size changing monster possible. There is no clever framing or use of shadow to obscure it, no restraint at all really. The directing is frenetic and clumsy, but it makes sure to make the monster as clear as possible. It’s all out in the open, plain to see, and bizarrely mundane for a depiction of a demonic interloper.
Every jumpscare-a-minute scene moves too fast and is too overlit to ever scare. The bright and inappropriate atmosphere fails the already rough looking digital effects. What it amounts to is a choppily edited and disjointed assortment of scenes, with weak imitations of Trevor Henderson style abominations center stage. Tall and small and melty variations of a CGI Chastain, none of them work to evoke tension or fear or any emotion other than the occasional eyebrow raise for how goofy some of them look.
There are a few moments where Chastain teases at playing the monster effectively without face and body morphing effects, sporting a genuinely disturbing countenance and creepy voice. But as soon as these fragments of interest come, they’re washed away by warping her into a lanky, slinking monster of ridiculous proportions. What we get out of the dual role is a boring creature for the feature, and a dry, one-dimensional protagonist, both squandering the phenomenal actor Chastain is.
Other Mommy is Full of Dull Performances and Squandered Potential
Duplass offers little with his supporting role, providing flat dialogue and flatter comic relief as a middling SNL sketch’s idea of a clownish father. It’s worth noting Clark actually provides the most interesting performance among the entire cast, a feat impressive from such a young child actor. But even her endearing and heart-breaking time as Bela is too little and too shadowed by the faulty composition of the film it’s trapped in.
The trailer for Other Mommy may have caught audiences off guard at the cinema in the past few months. But ultimately, that trailer showed the movie’s entire hand. Other Mommy is a pasty, crooked collage of elements from the supernatural horror movies producer James Wan made the backbone of the genre a decade ago. That doesn’t make it a throwback; just a rehash of cliches, with no structure and no sense of cohesion. It never amounts to anything more interesting than what the marketing material showed, which is a tragic end for a film, if there ever was one.
Luz: The Flower of Evil is a movie simultaneously charged with and mired in ambition. It’s genuinely comical how overly ambitious of a first-time film it is for writer-director Juan Diego Escobar Alzate: a microbudget, shot on location in the mountains of Colombia, character driven psychological horror film meant to explore the very nature of good and evil while also tackling cults and misogyny.
So, it’s shocking how much of it works. Not all of it works, not at all, but it is cohesive enough to serve as a surprising experience with the colorful aesthetic it employs and incredibly dark places it goes to.
What Is Luz: Flower of Evil About?
After the death of their mother Luz, three sisters in a rural cult community find their faith waning. The three are the centerpiece of an elaborate theology crafted by their cult leader father, a man who is becoming more difficult to deal with by the day. So, when he brings a mute boy into town, chaining him up and claiming he’s the people’s messiah, an already tense situation devolves into outright madness. What ensues is the slow dissolution of the cult, and the torturous end of an already fractured family.
Let this usual synopsis section also serve as a content warning: the film does depict sexual violence very early on, about 25 minutes into the film. It’s not Irreversible levels of horrifically long, but it’s also not particularly brief and still graphic content by its nature. It can be difficult to stomach, so I’m mentioning it now for those who would rather avoid that sort of thing.
A Ponderous Arthouse Folk Horror About Good and Evil
The film has shocking moments, but it’s not very interested in shock value. This is first and foremost a slow burn, a piece of arthouse folk horror that is more about bleeding out than it is about a violent demise. The most obvious comparisons are to The VVitch and Midsommar, but even that feels like an inappropriate mix, even when it leans towards Aster’s commercial darling or Egger’s colonial nightmare.
Fundamentally, Luz is a study about people who mythologize suffering and cruelty and excuse it as being driven by outside spiritual forces rather than their own decisions. It’s about deconstructing harmful religious and cult mentalities, and it wears its philosophy on its sleeve (aggressively so). Alzate creates a visually and textually fascinating meltdown of his characters and the community they find themselves within.
I would say it’s a “descent into madness” if it didn’t feel clear that the characters were already in a tailspin right at the film’s outset. The script, especially through its second act, starts to feel repetitive and a little simplistic, with a somewhat anticlimactic ending and dialog that starts to feel less naturalistic and more tedious. But it’s an interesting dissection of a family, even if it’s rough around the edges.
Hyperreal Sense of Color, But Shaky Directing and Writing
The film’s most obvious and striking feature is its hyperrealist palette, bearing a rich Technicolor aspect that permeates throughout the entire runtime. Colorist Felipe Martinez U paints the mountainous countryside with such vibrancy, a simple but very effective contrast to the dying days of a cult the story centers on; bleak, muddy times, punctuated by vibrant nature all around. Aesthetically, it’s pretty clearly visually inspired by the early works of Pedro Almodóvar and the visual warmth of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man.
Even the naturalistic tendencies of Terrence Malick make an appearance here, though how much of that is just in the gorgeous location scouting and how much is actually emulated by Alzate is up for debate. All around, the film lacks polish. The camerawork is amateurish in some ways, slightly cramped and occasionally uninspired in its framing. Sometimes the oversaturated look of the film can feel a little saccharine and heavy, but the pop of color here feels purposeful enough that I can forgive it as being highly stylized rather than trying to mask the weak points of a first-time director.
Is Luz: The Flower of Evil Worth the Watch?
In the search for great Latin American horror, Luz was an odd duck to stumble upon to be certain. But I’m a champion of strange birds with a lot of character, so you do the math.
Luz: The Flower of Evil is a struggle of a film, hard to watch at points despite how visually appealing it can be. It’s a brutal, bleak piece of psychological folk horror that certainly has a thin audience and will test the patience of even those the premise appeals to. But it does have as much substance as it does style, even when it treads into murky waters, and for that I think it’s worth the watch.
