“You’ll love this, there’s a twist at the end!” Such is the ominous line we’ve all regrettably been told by a friend before watching a movie. Arguably, the fact that we know there’s a twist at the end is a spoiler in and of itself as we’re no doubt going to spend the whole time trying to guess what the twist will be. u2r5a

And yet, that is the exact promise I am going to give to you now, as I am that certain you won’t guess the twist at the end of this TikTok. @lil_tachy aka Kirsten gripped anyone scrolling through their FYPs in a stranglehold with her story, which provided all the unexpected turns of an M. Night Shyamalan movie but in a fraction of the time. Honestly, why are you even going to see Trap in theaters when you can get the same experience in five minutes by watching this video?

Kirsten kicks off by telling us about a fight she had with her fiancée, which while domestic and small of scale, nonetheless gets you hooked. In what seems like a major red flag, Kirsten explains that her fiancée, Bailey, started implying that she was unhygienic and complained that Kirsten wasn’t wiping herself properly after going to the bathroom. As her remarks were so mortifying and uncalled for, this spawned a massive argument that caused Kirsten to decide to sleep at her family home for the night.

Once she got there, though, it turned out her dad had reached out to Bailey as he thought they shouldn’t end the night angry with each other. Feeling a little betrayed by her father and famished after hours of screaming at her fiancée, Kirsten first went to fetch a bowl of cereal before hashing it out with Bailey some more. However, a tragic trip meant Kirsten spilled her much-needed cereal all over her bedroom floor. And this is where the story takes a turn away from the domestic drama genre into creature feature horror.

Kirsten’s dad is extremely agitated when he rushes in after hearing her yell at dropping her food, and he seems angrier than she would’ve expected. “No, Kirsten, you don’t understand” he intones, ominously. “The ants.” It’s then that Kirsten looks down at her feet and sees that the floor has simply become a sheet of black as a horde of ravenous ants have emerged from the floorboards to swarm over the spilled sugary cereal in their hideous creepy-crawly droves.

“And then I woke up,” Kirsten ends her story time, with a grin. “Because those are the kinds of dreams I have when I take Benadryl.”

To quote the immortal meme, she really had us in the first half, not gonna lie. In the comments, Kirsten confirms that, yes, all of that was indeed something spat out by her drug-addled subconscious. So, no, thankfully her dad’s house is definitely not the center of what Kirsten dubbed “ant armageddon” and her fiancee Bailey is really not that toxic. “My fiancée is wonderful and she would never say some stupid shit like this,” she assured one .

Kirsten’s probably not the only one out there who has had some crazy vivid dreams after taking Benadryl, as allergy medicine that contain antihistamines are known to sometimes cause nightmares. Even so, it’s probably safe to bet that no one has had a Benadryl dream quite like this one before.

Kirsten should probably expect a phone call from a certain director any day now, as he may have just found the plot for his next film. Coming to cinemas in 2025, M. Night Shyamalan presents… Ant.

If there’s any major filmmaker who needs a win right now, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. For roughly two decades, Shyamalan has been on a streak of mediocrity that’s well and truly painful to witness. We know he can deliver the goods, and even now he’s one of the few directors who can consistently pull a big audience without the extra boon of a major IP or being James Cameron.

A good movie is always a win for everyone involved (and that includes audiences), but that truth is taken to extra special heights when that movie comes at the hands of Shyamalan. Trap is that movie. Shyamalan has found a way to turn his usual weaknesses into strengths, and while the seams start to buckle near the end, Trap‘s wealth of victories (among them a sensational turn from Josh Hartnett) make it stand tall as a crowd-pleasing thriller, a genre exercise, and, most importantly, a Shyamalan film in the form we know they’re capable of taking.

Hartnett stars as Cooper, a loving father and family man who brings his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to an indoor concert put on by her idol, pop star Lady Raven (portrayed by Saleka Shyamalan, the filmmaker’s daughter). But beneath that paternal facade, Cooper is secretly a horrifying serial killer known as “The Butcher.”

When they arrive at the concert, Cooper notices a suspicious police presence at the event; a police presence that eventually turns into an FBI presence. Realizing the concert has been rigged to trap and capture him, Cooper endeavors to escape the concert with Riley, and perhaps escape a few other things, too.

Even Shyamalan’s weakest entries don’t call his raw presentational ability into question, and with a space as claustrophobically cinematic as a packed concert venue, Shyamalan’s direction takes especially invigorating flight here. His penchant for close-up POV shots is given an extra heft by Trap‘s setting, and the way he frames, cuts, and contrasts Cooper’s simmering psychological state with his oft-busy surroundings is nothing short of fascinating.

To that point, it’s still abundantly clear that Shyamalan needs a screenwriter, because Trap‘s dialogue is jarring, unnatural, and occasionally utterly senseless. And yet, the setting and the procedural context of Trap offer this otherwise weak dialogue a curious place in the film. Trap isn’t telling a story in the purest sense so much as it’s a puzzle that we all observe as it solves itself, and since we as an audience aren’t exactly cheering for Cooper, the movie preemptively promises that it isn’t rooting this story in emotion, and that’s a promise that it mostly keeps throughout.

The dialogue, therefore, need not hook us; it can get away with being mechanical and awkward. Furthermore, the manner in which this dialogue is delivered plays into Trap‘s narrative tension to great effect. The discomfort we already feel from the many shoes waiting to drop is only bolstered by how wrong the dialogue seems.

And with the blow of Trap‘s dialogue softened so brilliantly, Hartnett has free reign to bring Cooper to life. In a purely physical sense, Hartnett is in top form here: Cooper frequently shifts between his two shades, sometimes suddenly and other times gradually, and Hartnett navigates it with subtle dynamism. Hartnett is at his peak when his mask comes off in full, capturing a perverted blend of sadism, desperation, and mirth-because-he-really-needs-this-to-be-funny in a grin that has the makings to become truly iconic.

But the most fascinating aspect of Trap is the way that Shyamalan uses Shyamalan; that is, how M. Night employs his daughter Saleka as both an artist in her own right and as a character in the film. Saleka, a singer-songwriter, plays Lady Raven and wrote original music specifically for Trap, which she physically performs many times throughout the film. The technical and collaborative nuances of this are interesting enough, but it goes far beyond that.

For one, the way Shyamalan uses Lady Raven’s musical performances to evoke a sense of limited opportunity/time (Cooper can largely only work on his escape when he’s not with his daughter, and he can only really not be with his daughter if Lady Raven is performing. Plus, the concert gets closer to finishing with every ing song) is utterly superb. Narratively speaking, the juxtaposition of Cooper and Lady Raven invites us to consider how these two characters are operating in this particular, horror-adjacent genre space; Lady Raven is a celebrity with legions of (very) loyal fans, whereas Cooper is shown to have a rather popular following in his own right.

Both have immense power as individuals, but whereas Lady Raven is living very fully and authentically and is bolstered by the cellphone-centric era she lives in, Cooper is suppressing the ultimate darkness, and can’t get away with his impulses as easily as the killers of the 70s and 80s could. Riley also loves them both immensely.

Lady Raven as a character is also given quite a lot to do in the film, and so this abstract matchup becomes even less abstract as time goes on. Unfortunately, the start of Lady Raven’s deeper involvement comes right around the time that Trap transitions into its final stretch of proceedings, which is where the film’s problems begin to roll in quite severely.

For one, Shyamalan begins to get pretty generous about the logic behind Cooper’s evasion of police; this kneecaps the tension and gets us to a place where we’re no longer interested in the “how,” but instead in getting to the note that Trap will ultimately end on. And if you’ll recall, that tension was the effectively the only thing keeping the dialogue from being entirely awful. It helps that we dive into the finer complexities of Cooper’s character here, and the mileage of that complexity should not be written off, but Trap‘s last act proves that Shyamalan still hasn’t escaped his creative limitations.

And yet, setting yourself up in a way that makes your weaknesses creatively nutritious rather than overcoming them might just be the biggest stroke of distinctly Shyamalan genius yet. Trap is at once proof in the pudding that Shyamalan is as top-notch a filmmaker as he’s always been; he can frame a story like no other, he can get the absolute best out of his actors, he’s constantly forging a path in Hollywood that’s all his own, and this time, the film as a whole is exemplary of his capabilities.

Indeed, Trap is the return to form for Shyamalan that we’ve all been waiting for (critics were far, far too kind about Knock at the Cabin), and while we’re all still going to be pleading with Shyamalan to find a screenwriter to collaborate with in the future, this is an accomplishment worth whooping for.

Prolific director M. Night Shyamalan is actively marketing their thriller Trap, but he is also producing another thriller this summer, The Watchers. Some fans might be unsure whether M. Night Shyamalan is also directing The Watchers.

After all, M. Night Shyamalan’s name is attached to both films, and it regularly appears in marketing. Trap is scheduled to release on Aug. 9, 2024, while The Watchers will premiere earlier, on June 14, 2024. After a warmer response to 2023’s Knock at the Cabin, and a promising trailer for Trap, even casual moviegoers are following M. Night Shyamalan more closely right now.

Warner Bros. Pictures first released a teaser trailer for The Watchers last February, wisely avoiding spoilers to emphasize mystery. The film is generating some decent buzz thanks to its stylish imagery and the notable cast and crew, including producer M. Night Shyamalan.

Did M. Night Shyamalan direct The Watchers? 49409

Ishana Night Shyamalan is the director of The Watchers, and the daughter of longtime director M. Night Shyamalan.

Warner Bros. Pictures released another new trailer for The Watchers on April 22, 2024. The trailer confirms that Ishana Shyamalan both directed The Watchers and wrote it for the screen. However, M. Night Shyamalan is still a producer on the film. In fact, the new trailer cleverly uses M. Night Shyamalan’s name as a segue into Ishana’s full name.

The Watchers will also be Ishana Night Shyamalan’s big screen directorial debut. Ishana Shyamalan previously wrote and directed some episodes of Servant, which M. Night Shyamalan executive produced. This may have further caused some confusion ahead of The Watchers. Servant delivered a standout fourth season in 2023, which also concluded the series.

In a recent report by Variety, M. Night Shyamalan explained that the timing was unintentional for dual Shyamalan releases arriving this year.

What is The Watchers movie about? 705bg

Warner Bros. Pictures’ latest trailer for The Watchers teases a psychological, supernatural thriller from director Ishana Shyamalan. The moody footage concludes by mentioning the source material, a novel of the same name by A.M. Shine.

The story centers on Mina, a 28-year-old artist who gets stranded in a forest in Ireland. She quickly becomes trapped in a bunker with strangers, stalked by mysterious creatures that you cannot see. The novel was only just published in 2022 and features a tense, Gothic tone.

Meanwhile, M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap is totally unrelated, though it shares a genre. Trailers depict Trap as a single-location thriller about police trying to catch a killer at a packed pop concert.

Few names in the realm of cinema are as particularly evocative as M. Night Shyamalan; a filmmaker that’s given us such gifts as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, but who maybe played with his reputation as “the twist guy” a bit too recklessly, hence the many issues (mostly script-related) that have plagued his productions since.

Knock at the Cabin was only a marginal improvement of sorts over his previous couple of films, but now with Trap, his latest feature whose trailer made itself known to the world not too long ago, he has a chance to step back into his strength in a big way here. Given that it’s an original script from the filmmaker (his most dire works have all been adaptations, while plenty of his best ones were dreamed up by him), and also one seemingly devoid of any sci-fi or fantasy elements, this just might be the new adventure that Shyamalan needed to get back on track.

What is Trap about? 4r3k2b

Trap tells the story of The Butcher, a serial killer who chains up his victims before hacking away at them with a sharp cleaver, and also a corny, loving father to his tween daughter, whom he’s brought to see her idol, Lady Raven, at a live concert. When he notices a suspiciously large police presence at the event, he learns that they’ve followed a lead that The Butcher (i.e. him) is at the Lady Raven concert, and have the building surrounded in hopes of catching him.

Our Shyamalan senses tell us that the daughter may have a bit of knowledge that she doesn’t want certain people to know. Whether “certain people” could mean her dad or the police is another question entirely, and also hinges on this hunch being correct, which we won’t know for sure until we see the film.

Who stars in Trap? 2c6b3l

Josh Hartnett stars in Trap as The Butcher, while Ariel Donoghue, Hayley Mills, Allison Pill, Marnie Mhail, and Vanessa Smythe also star. Saleka Shyamalan, the daughter of M. Night, portrays Lady Raven.

M. Night directs his own script while also serving as one of three producers, alongside Marc Bienstock and Ashwin Rajan.

When does Trap release? qn25

Trap is set to hit theaters on August 9 later this year, meaning we’ve got a summer full of Shyamalan ahead of us thanks to The Watchers—the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, another of M. Night’s daughters—releasing in June.

You’ve got to hand it to M. Night Shyamalan for reinventing himself and managing to salvage his career just as it was beginning to look as though he’d been written off for good, with the writer and director now in the process of consistently churning out mid budget genre films that can always be relied on to turn a tidy profit at the box office.

That certainly wasn’t the case a decade ago, when a string of critical and commercial disasters had effectively ruined his reputation and almost killed his mainstream career. Avatar: The Last Airbender and After Earth are unquestionably a pair of the worst blockbusters ever made, but it was Lady in the Water that signaled the beginning of Shyamalan’s rapid downturn.

After four smash hits in a row with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village, the modern-day fantasy fable became the first one of his features to score a unanimous drubbing from reviewers and audiences alike, while it also ended up as his first high-profile flop after barely recouping its $70 million budget from theaters.

The preposterous plot basically saw Shyamalan insert himself into the story as the anointed savior of the world as an erstwhile prophet destined to make the planet a better place, which is about as self-indulgent as it gets. That being said, what continues to irk people to this day – at least judging by a recent Reddit thread – is that Lady in the Water was marketed as having hints of the horror and thriller genres, which it most definitely does not.

Misleading marketing is a common practice in Hollywood, but certain TV spots and promos for Lady in the Water were borderline false advertising, which didn’t do its reputation any favors when it wasn’t even particularly engaging to begin with.

M. Night Shyamalan is no doubt one of Hollywood’s resident rubber bands, relentlessly snapping back and forth between some high-profile home runs to borderline unwatchable slogs and everything in between and beyond. Indeed, if any filmmaker so perfectly encapsulated a dice roll, it’s Shyamalan.

Ideally, most moviegoers will know Shyamalan for the psychological thriller The Sixth Sense, the masterpiece that first bestowed him with the “twist ending guy” label — a reputation that mostly hasn’t done him much good since then (see: Old). But, before he hit an ill-fated hot streak that involves a The Last Airbender adaptation we don’t speak of, Shyamalan went from strength to strength following The Sixth Sense, namely in the form of Signs, which a few residents of r/horror were all too happy to pat on the back over 20 years later.

Featuring a young Joaquin Phoenix and a not-yet-off-the-rails Mel Gibson in the leading roles, Signs follows the plight of two brothers, one of whom is the father of two small children, who begin to discover crop circles in the cornfields of the farm they reside at. As the ominous event repeats itself in different parts of the world, one of the brothers begins to worry that it’s only the precursor to something terrifying.

On top of serving up the spook factor that one would want from a Shyamalan film, Signs has the extra merit of just being a solid movie on all fronts, from the cinematography to the performances to even the script — where the filmmaker tends to stumble even in some of his better pieces (we’re still quite insulted by that Knock at the Cabin ending).

Indeed, for all the hiccups he’s had over the years, we’d be remiss to forget the highs that Shyamalan has granted us in his time, and for every The Happening, there’s a Signs waiting in the wings to restore your faith in more ways than one.

In M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, we first meet nine year-old Wen (played with an adult insouciance by Kristen Cui in her first film) collecting grasshoppers in a glass jar. Shyamalan clearly wants these grasshoppers to serve as a central metaphor for the action to come as Wen and her fathers Eric and Andrew (capably played by Jonathan Groff and Fleabag’s Ben Aldridge) are kept captive in the titular cabin by four doomsday cultists who have apparently been led to the family by a vision.

The real metaphor for the film is star Dave Bautista, though, the wrestler-cum-Marvel superstar, miscast here as a supposedly normal Chicago schoolteacher turned leader of the cult holding Wen and her fathers hostage. He informs the trio that he and his compatriots had been led to the cabin by a vision that an encroaching apocalypse could only be stopped if one member of the family kills another.

In a story like this, especially one by Shyamalan, there’s supposed to be a sense of building suspense as the audience wonders if the quartet of unrelated citizens brought together to act as an ad hoc Four Horsemen are telling the truth. We’re supposed to spend Knock at the Cabin‘s 100-minute run time trying to figure out if the quartet are lying for their own nefarious ends, or if they are just a collective of psychotics sharing a delusion.

This is completely undermined by the casting of Bautista, who certainly possesses the deadpan charisma of a dark prophet who might convince a group of strangers to his doomsday cult. However, he is also such a larger-than-life figure with such an off-kilter intensity that there’s never a question that whatever is going on in this world, the otherworldly and bizarre explanation is the only one that makes sense.

Shyamalan, who also co-wrote the script, does his ing cast no favors by giving them little to nothing to work with in of character development. Aldridge’s Andrew spends the entire film insisting that the four are lying in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, while Groff’s Eric plays the voice of reason unless the script arbitrarily calls for him to do a reversal.

Rupert Grint, still best known for playing Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films, steps out of his lane to play a one-note Boston bartender with a flat Midwestern accent. Halfway through, a mystery pops up out of nowhere as to his identity, and it’s resolved almost exactly 20 minutes later with no effect or impact on the story. Just as the grasshoppers are forgotten and never mentioned again after the story proper begins, so too do plot threads appear and then disappear with no impact on the central characters.

While it’s tempting to blame the cast, the truth is that Shyamalan has failed them as well. Which is surprising, because he’s proven in the past that, even in some of his worst films, he knows how to get the most out of an ensemble of actors. If Groff and Aldridge had been meant to be a couple whose marriage looks fine on the surface but reveals its cracks as soon as any pressure is applied, their performances here would make sense, but the extensive use of flashbacks to their courtship and adoption of Wen only prove that they’re supposed to be a model couple.

The cinematography by the team of Jarin Blaschke (The Lighthouse) and relative newcomer Lowell A. Meyer deserve a special commendation here, as more than anything else their lighting and color choices help build a sense of dread. Unfortunately their work is undercut by director Shyamalan, who constantly makes choices – like keeping Bautista in a tight extreme closeup for most of the first 10 minutes – that theoretically seem sound, but are either distracting or just plain off.

The biggest flaw, as is true with many of Shyamalan’s lesser efforts, is that there is a much better film within the one that Shyamalan presents us here. Much of that lies in the ways in which Shyamalan, in rewriting the original draft by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, chooses to deviate from The Cabin at the End of the World, the original novel that served as source material.

Without giving away any plot points, it’s sufficient to say that Shyamalan not only pulled his punches here, but also displayed a lack of trust in his audience to deal with some of the more upsetting developments in the original story. If Shyamalan wishes to emulate the filmography and career of suspense icon Alfred Hitchcock, in this film he does not display the master’s ability to lead the viewer right to the edge of horror without pushing them over.

More forgiving fans of the director will appreciate it, and it will definitely find its cult following once it slinks out of theaters and onto a streaming service where viewers can sit with their laptops and ignore 50 percent of the story, acting, and dialogue. But for anyone who wishes to pay to lose themselves in a scary movie, they will more than likely find themselves completely checked out by the time the completely unearned ending rolls.

Earlier this week, DCU co-CEO James Gunn absolutely lit up the entertainment world when he announced an array of projects that are set to completely reinvigorate the realm of DC. One of those projects happened to be an Swamp Thing movie — which will properly showcase the DCU taking a monumental stab at horror. And seeing as former MCU superstar Dave Bautista is currently enjoying horror success after starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, DCU stans believe he would be the perfect fit for the lead role in Gunn’s aforementioned spooky project.

Over on Twitter, as the entire community continues to praise Bautista’s shining moment in the horror spotlight, DCU followers have crawled out of the woodwork to express their excitement for Bautista portraying Swamp Thing — an elemental monster with the ability to control plant life. And based on this collection of tweets, fans want the casting to happen sooner rather than later.

Someone get James Gunn on the phone right now.

The fans are demanding it!

Truth be told, we need this casting to happen yesterday.

Without question, Bautista would be the perfect specimen to be cast as Dr. Alec Holland / Swamp Thing — if not for the simple fact that he has the physical physique to pull it off. And with the wrestler-turned-actor recently stating that he wishes to move on from Marvel and Drax, perhaps James Gunn’s DCU is the next potential landing spot for the acclaimed actor. Only time will tell, of course, but it’s probably a good idea to get Dave on the phone before another franchise swoops him up.

The results are in from both sides of the critical fence, and M. Night Shyamalan‘s latest venture Knock at the Cabin has established itself as a much-needed thumbs-up, currently boasting approval ratings numbering 69 and 75 on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and audiences, respectively. This marks the first time since 2016, the year he released Split, that one of Shyamalan’s films received palpable praise from critics, with Glass and Old having both fallen on their faces in the years between.

It’s Shyamalan’s first film to be adapted from pre-existing material, being based on Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World. It’s certainly a more palpable creative route than one’s pure imagination, even one as fascinating as Shyamalan’s, and whether that nuance did most of the heavy lifting for the filmmaker’s latest success is something we may never know.

Nevertheless, the world could always do with a few more high spirits, and if they’re achieved by viewing Knock at the Cabin, then so be it (although, despite the deviation from the woefully-depressing ending of the novel, don’t expect anything feel-good).

Starring Dave Bautista in one of the best performances of his career, Knock at the Cabin follows the plight of a family of three, fathers Eric and Andrew and their adopted daughter Wen, whose vacation is rather violently interrupted by a group of four strangers led by Leonard (Bautista). After breaking into the family’s cabin, Leonard and his associates regretfully inform the three of them that if they don’t select a member of their family as a sacrifice, the world will come to a hellish end.

Knock at the Cabin is now playing in theaters.

Dave Bautista has spent the last decade painstakingly establishing a reputation as a talented actor. He’s proved his comedic and action chops many times over in his appearances as Drax in the MCU, though has also impressed in more straightforwardly dramatic roles in Blade Runner 2049, Dune, and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story.

Today’s release of M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin looks set to add another string to his bow, with critics praising his performance as mysterious stranger Leonard. We won’t go further into his character as we don’t want to spoil the movie, but let’s just say he knocks his role out of the park.

As such, many are drawing comparisons to Bautista’s long-time wrestler-turned-actor rival Dwayne Johnson, whose much-hyped DC superhero adventure Black Adam stumbled out of the gate and ended up disappointing at the box office. Folks on social media are having a field day:

Well, at least Bautista has more range:

Is there higher praise?

The gauntlet has been thrown down:

A bit unfair as Johnson can act, though almost always plays the same kind of character:

We don’t want to bag on Johnson too hard, as what he does he does very well. That said, it’s been widely noted that Johnson not only plays the same kind of character but usually looks pretty much the same:

We’d love to see Johnson take this as a challenge and try to expand the type of roles he takes. Black Adam was arguably a step in the right direction as he’s something of an antihero, though it’s more of a shuffle to the side than moving into unknown territory.

But, with Knock at the Cabin, Bautista has set a high bar for wrestlers-turned-actors. Let’s hope it pushes Johnson into taking riskier roles.

Knock at the Cabin hits theaters today.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin has finally arrived in theaters, serving as the filmmaker’s next nail-biting step in a filmography that’s famously been of two extremes. There’s one occupied by the likes of The Sixth Sense and Signs, the other inhabited by Old and a Last Airbender film that makes us ashamed that movies even exist.

We’ll play coy on where we think Knock at the Cabin as a whole falls for now, but rest assured that Shyamalan is working with some top-notch talent here; a slew of energized performances, including a fascinating, haunting turn from one Dave Bautista is certainly a shiny high point for Shyamalan’s latest.

Bautista’s case is an especially interesting one; his character of Leonard, one of the four intruders to break into the cabin and apparent leader of the group, quickly shows himself to be a gentle giant, despite his intentions being regretfully morbid, making for an infinitely empathetic menace that would be a tough act for anyone to put on.

Luckily, in attempting to break free of the boneheaded combatant-adjacent roles that he often finds himself in, Bautista dove headfirst into Leonard, revealing to ComicBook that while it was certainly a challenging character, the combined persistence of himself and Shyamalan ensured that he’d stick the landing.

“It’s always a different experience but with Night, with this role, because it was a difficult role and Night is… very specific about what he wants. So I was constantly trying to, you know, have the conversation with him and relying on him. There was very much an inner struggle with the performance of Leonard because he was so multi-layered and I just wanted to make sure this was right. And we also had the pressure of being on one camera, on film, so in all this dialogue and it was just really tough.”

What a landing he ended up sticking, too. Bautista stole just about every scene that was handed to him, demanding a watchful eye as the leader of such a suspicious, friendly, yet ghoulish group of characters. It’s up to the individual to decide if Knock at the Cabin is a step in the right direction for Shyamalan, but it’s safe to say that the film is a huge step forward for Dave Bautista.

Knock at the Cabin is now playing in theaters.

Avatar: The Way of Water is about to be knocked off the number one spot by M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin if predictions for its opening weekend are to be believed. The thriller, starring Dave Bautista, will soon be released in 3,600 theatres, and is apparently on track to make $15 million to $17 million.

Avatar: The Way of Water has held onto the number-one spot for the past seven weekends, but with Shyamalan’s latest thriller that box-office domination is about to come to an end. The film has grossed a whopping $2.118 billion since it was released on Dec. 16, 2022, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, so losing out in its seventh week isn’t really a massive failing on its behalf.

There have yet to be any reviews written about Knock at the Cabin to give audiences any idea of what to expect. Shyamalan is one of those directors who is a little hit or miss when it comes to his films. His last film, Old, received extremely middling reviews with Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer landing at 50 percent, with its audience rating not much higher at 53 percent. With that being said, it won’t be until audience reviews start coming out for his latest film that we will know whether or not he above box office predictions will hold true.

The film is based on the book The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay. The story follows a girl and her parents who are on vacation in a cabin in the woods (very classic thriller stomping grounds) when they are taken hostage by a group of armed strangers. The strangers demand that they make a choice to avert the apocalypse. The stars include Batista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint.

Knock at the Cabin will hit cinemas on Thursday, Feb. 3.