A young family is vacationing at a remote cabin in the woods. Seven-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) is outside catching grasshoppers. A huge, hulking man slowly approaches. He says his name is Leonard (Dave Bautista) and despite his size, he’s gentle and kind. We’ll later learn he is an elementary teacher and we can believe that in his demeanor and actions.
But while he is being nice to Wen, engaging in her grasshopper collecting, he keeps looking over his shoulder as if something menacing is going to approach.
Moments later three people do appear. Leonard tells Wen that they are going to have to come into the cabin and that she should tell her dads.
Wen panics at this and then rushes to the cabin, and screams at her Dads – Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) to come inside and lock the door. They try to calm her down but when they see Leonard, and all his girth, standing at the door they get worried. When they see the other three carrying what appear to be makeshift weapons, they panic.
Leonard tries to explain that they need to come inside. He does so in his school teacher’s voice. The film makes great use of Bautista’s size juxtaposed against his kindly demeanor. But he also says they will force themselves in if the men don’t unlock the doors.
The doors remain locked and these strangers do force themselves in. After a brief fight, where Eric sustains a concussion, Eric and Andrew are tied up.
The strangers, which also include a nurse, Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a cook Adriane (Abby Quinn), and a violent redneck Redmond (Rupert Grint) tell a strange tale about how each of them has been having visions about the end of the world. About how Eric and Andrew must make a decision – a grave decision to stop it. They must choose one member of their family to sacrifice – to kill, to murder – to stop the oncoming apocalypse.
That’s completely mad. No one would believe a few nutters barging into their house spouting that nonsense. And our heroes don’t believe it. But then the film starts to make us, and them believe.
I won’t spoil the details but the film uses the isolated setting and a few other tricks to make this scenario plausible. Director M. Night Shyamalan is an expert in creating tension out of fantastical settings and stories.
Still, I never quite bought into the premise. The thing about a film like this is that you spend all your time wondering what the film is going to do in the end. Will the apocalypse come? Or will it be averted by someone being sacrificed? Or will they sacrifice someone only to realize that the strangers were in fact crazy and nothing actually happened on the outside? Or will it have an oblique ending, will we never know if the apocalypse was real or not?
Apparently, the movie ends differently than the book, and most people seem pretty upset with the changes they made. I’ve not read the book, but the ending definitely was not satisfying. But I’m not sure it could have done anything to really satisfy. As I said, I never quite bought into what the story was selling.
Still, I quite liked the film. Shyalaman is a very good director and a master of camera placement and movement. I was enthralled with the filmmaking even when the story let me down.
themidnightcafe.org 