Knock at the Cabin: when horror films are inspired by real life

Wednesday, February 1, 2023, Knock at the cabin hits theaters. The latest from M. Night Shyamalan has many surprises in store for viewers. A true psychological and terribly harrowing thriller, it confronts the audience with very current fears.

What scares you the most? Accidents ? The death of a loved one? A sickness ? In his latest film, M. Night Shyamalan confronts the viewer with these very realistic fears. Knock at the cabin, in theaters Wednesday, February 1, 2023, puts a family in the heart of an impossible dilemma. Andrew, Eric and their daughter Wen are vacationing in a cabin lost in the woods when four strangers burst onto the property. The latter kidnap them and ask them to make a decision to save humanity. If they refuse, they will be responsible for the apocalypse. The director invites his audience to attend 1h40 of indecision and anguish. And for good reason, the horror of this film rests (in part) on the catastrophes which are represented there.

M. Night Shyamalan: “When we tell apocalypse stories, we play with this fear”

In order to symbolize the Last Judgment, M. Night Shyamalan opted for catastrophes that we know only too well. Tsunamis crash on the coasts, a virus decimates the populations, planes plunge all the passengers towards certain death… A compendium of phenomena which send shivers down your spine and which are far too close to real life. Monday, January 23, 2023, M. Night Shyamalan agreed to give an interview to Tele-Leisure. He reveals to us the reasons for this screenplay choice which is not insignificant. Far from the clichés taken up in horror films, which offer us monsters, vampires, ghosts and other fantasized and terrifying creatures, the director opts for a register closer to what he knows and who animates him. “I think the beauty of life is that it’s very fragile. […] I also think that we always have the feeling that the end of the world is imminent and that we have all wondered how to prevent it. Therefore, the realization that nothing is forever is always somewhere in the back of our minds. When we tell stories of the apocalypse or the Last Judgment, we play with this fear”he explains.

M. Night Shyamalan: “I’m much more scared when I use what already scares me in real life”

For the father of Split (2016), “In the old genres of horror movies, when you brought in the supernatural with vampires and the like, you were alluding to the dark side of the human being. Their out-of-control urges and desires. Subconsciously, we understand it when we look at this type of register. There is enough distance and fantasy in the style for that”. On the contrary, in the case of Knock at the cabin, the screenwriter was inspired by his own fears. “Taking things from real life into horror movies and giving them more meaning… It makes me shiver more. I’m much more scared when I use what already scares me in real life to my movies”, he told us. Suffice to say that by going to see this film, the spectator may well find himself nailed to his seat and leave the cinema room praying that the sky does not fall on his head.