Once again M. Night has delivered a film with a strong premise, but an increasingly weak and disappointing denouement. I was on board for religious nutters looking for scapegoats to save them from the apocalypse. But when he asks us to buy into the apocalypse and accept that these horrid people are for real, I'm left wondering if M. Night isn't way more twisted than we already thought - and not in a harmless, creative way. By the time we get to Groff's character accepting that human sacrifice is necessary to save humanity I was moving beyond merely annoyed into thinking it would be kind of cool if some crazed person staged a similar home invasion at M. Night's Hollywood mansion. It would be nothing short of poetic justice. Matters of taste and decency aside, the plot has some mighty huge weak spots. I'll mention just two. When our boys finally turn the tables and take control they choose to lock loopy Leonard in the bathroom. Any intelligent person would have just shot him - in the leg or in the head, either would have worked. But, no, they do the wimpiest, lamest possible thing. I guess because they're gay; there's really no non-homophobic explanation for it. Later, Groff's character buys into the apocalypse/human sacrifice scenario, despite having already established that one of their tormentors is a guy who previously attacked his husband in a bar. There's a huge disconnect there, but it's just ignored. The two stars are for Kristen Cui as Wen, the daughter. She's cute and blameless. Everyone else should be ashamed.
Review of Knock at the Cabin
