Knock on the Door: Shyamalan thriller entertains but disappoints (review)

Imagine that four strangers invade your home, take everyone hostage and determine: you must choose one person from your family to be sacrificed at that moment. The reason? Prevent the apocalypse and secure the future of humanity. This is the dilemma of the protagonists of knock at the door, new film by M. Night Shyamalanwhich arrives today (2) in theaters across the country.

With a thought-provoking synopsis and first positive reactions, the film was highly anticipated by fans of suspense, especially those who expect a grandiose work from the famous director of plot twists. Anyway, if you include yourself in this group, I don’t bring good news.

As with most of the Indian filmmaker’s films in recent years, the premise of knock at the door generates a lot of curiosity. It starts intriguing, develops a tense plot and reaches the end in the greatest Shyamalan style in his last works: disappointing.

Spoiler free review

Knock at the Door starts well, but ends with confusing “explanations” (Photo: Disclosure)

The feature begins by introducing little Wen, daughter of Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge). She is playing outside the house the family rented for a holiday when she meets the big guy Leonard, played by Dave Batista. In conversation with the girl, the character soon gives a preview of what is to come. He and his three “work” colleagues must enter the cabin and make the family decide among themselves who they should sacrifice to save the world from the apocalypse.

A few minutes later, the film soon comes to life and tension in the greatest home invasion style. Among the invaders, there are unlikely people: an elementary school teacher, a nurse, a cook passionate about fast food and a violent character (who has no other characteristic besides that, believe me). The four claim that they saw visions of the end of the world and that the sacrifice of that one family would save humanity.

With an original idea, a good cast and everything to work out, knock at the door follows the opposite path by delivering a superficial plot that decides not to delve into anything.

The course of the film has its high points, as the director is great at building tense nail-biting scenes. But everything is lost in a few minutes, when the ending delivers a laughable explanation (something involving the horsemen of the apocalypse, perhaps?), extremely thrown in the viewer’s face and without explaining the connections of this with the rest of the plot.

Dave Batista, Rupert Grint, Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff are in the cast of the new film

In addition, the “moral” dilemma of the family only happens at 45 in the second half. In this case, we even understand the choice of characters, but that doesn’t mean the plot wasn’t repetitive and a little dragged out.

Where are you, M. Night Shyamalan?

The truth is that the feature even makes an effort, but it falls like a bucket of cold water on those who were anxiously awaiting a film with the beloved twists of M. Night Shyamalan. Maybe because it’s an adaptation of a book — The Cottage at the End of the Worldby Paul Tremblay —the film does not seem to follow the same path of plot twists adopted in other productions of the director.

• See also: 9 horror movie twists that will mess with your head

Not that this is a problem, of course. After all, a filmmaker with many years in the business has the right to innovate. The big question is that, over the course of almost two hours, the viewer finds himself increasingly immersed in the expectation of finding “something else” in the whole plot. The ‘spice’ that was missing, however, never arrives and the feeling that remains is of swimming a lot and dying on the beach.

As a fan of movies like Signals, Fragmented and The village, my expectations in new Shyamalan films are always high (and the fall, consequently, always worse). We keep waiting for the good old M. Night Shyamalan of yesteryear to come back and deliver that special “something” that only he knew how to offer. For now, we continue with another film that will probably fall into oblivion pretty quickly.