Continuing the career resurgence that began with 2015’s The Visit, M. Night Shyamalan delivers once again with Knock at the Cabin. The claustrophobic horror-thriller mixes intensity and spiritual paranoia, resulting in the director’s most assured film since Split (2016).

Based on Paul Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World, the film is Frailty (2001) by way of The Strangers (2008). Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldrige) are vacationing at a secluded cottage with their 7-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) when four strangers break into their cabin and proceed to hold them hostage. Their leader, Leonard (Dave Bautista), tells the family that he and the others have had visions of the apocalypse, and the only way to save humanity is for the family to choose to sacrifice one of their own.

Shyamalan – working from a script he co-wrote with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman – draws tension not only...