My Grade: B+, currently playing in theaters

Plot: While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family choose to avert the apocalypse. -IMDB

Review: What if you and your family had to make the impossible choice of sacrificing one member or the world would end? What would you do? This is the intriguing and morally complex concept behind director/co-writer M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, “Knock at the Cabin,” based on the novel by Paul Tremblay.

Andrew (Ben Aldrige) and Eric (Jonathan Groff), along with their seven-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), are on a seemingly relaxed vacation at their remote cabin in New Jersey, when four strangers, comprised of Leonard (Dave Bautista), Redmond (Rupert Grint), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), and Adriane (Abby Quinn), appear wielding weapons. Leonard is the one to present the family with the difficult choice that needs to be made to save the world.

Shyamalan wrings plenty of tension out of this simple dilemma. In setting the majority of the movie in a single location, he is able to keep the pacing tight and self-contained. The sense of existential dread builds as the movie marches along. Shyamalan adeptly uses the camera, aided by expert cinematography by Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer, in creative ways to utilize the cabin location effectively and create genuine suspense. The score by Herdís Stefánsdóttir is evocative and haunting.

In terms of the narrative, this may well be Shyamalan’s most straightforward. He doesn’t rely on any sensational twists this time around. He’s the better for it by keeping the pacing economically simplistic. Shyamalan is a master at balancing thrills with genuine emotion. The central romance of Eric and Andrew is beautifully fleshed out in flashback and enhances the emotional stakes of the story. The movie is also subversive in portraying a gay couple as the heroes of a mainstream studio thriller, without drawing attention to it.

If there any flaws with the movie, it does lie in certain elements of the script. There are components in the mystery that are never fully developed that do falter the movie in some ways. To be more specific without providing spoilers, there is a subplot involving Andrew that never is fully fleshed out and leaves one with more questions than answers.

Luckily, the movie benefits greatly from a stellar cast of performances. Dave Bautista and Ben Aldridge deliver the strongest performances. Bautista is quite surprising and gentle in his performance as the leader of this apocalyptic group. He tones down his larger than life presence by bringing vulnerability to his role. Aldridge has the biggest character arc in the story and brings a moving gravity to his performance. Kristen Cui provides a terrific child performance by being very natural in her work. The rest of the cast is rounded out by solid performances by Groff, Grint, Amuka-Bird, and Quinn.

Could any one of us make the impossible choice the movie provokes? It’s certainly a difficult one, but in wrestling many of the possible scenarios, Shyamalan and his team provide an engrossing mind teaser that will leave audiences moved, thrilled, and debating the mysteries that lay within.

See you at the movies,

Cristian