KNOCK AT THE CABIN Creative Team Discusses the Dark and Tragic Ending and Why It's Different Than the Book
M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film Knock at the Cabin is an adaptation of author Paul Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World, but the way the story plays out in the film ends up being very different from the book. In a recent interview with Variety, writers Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman talk about the dark and tragic ending of the movie and why it’s different than the book, which was even bleaker.
The movie is getting mixed reviews. While I thought the performances from everyone were great, I was still underwhelmed by the movie. I thought it was ok, but not one of Shaymalan’s best. My biggest issue with it is the lack of common sense with characters. That’s one thing that can bring a movie down for me, is when characters lack any kind of common sense.
Anyway, I’ll jump into it now!
In the film, the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of one family of three - dads Eric and Andrew (portrayed byJonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) and their daughter Wen (played by newcomer Kristen Cui). Their idyllic vacation in the woods is thrown into chaos when they're confronted by four ominous strangers - Leonard (Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint) - who warn of an impending apocalypse and demand a sacrifice from the family.
As visions of the end of the world become a reality, Eric and Andrew refuse to kill anyone and Redmond sacrifices himself. The movie and book diverge as the drama unfolds. In the film, Adriane is next on the chopping block, but Andrew breaks free and grabs a gun from his car, killing Sabrina in self-defense. Leonard locks himself in the bathroom, surviving a gunshot but eventually taking his own life. Eric tearfully convinces Andrew to kill him as the only way to stop the apocalypse, and with Eric's death, the world is saved. Andrew and Wen step outside to find the plagues have ceased in a bittersweet finale.
In the book, Andrew kills Adriane instead of Sabrina, and Wen is tragically shot and killed in the struggle for the gun. Leonard states that Wen's death wasn't a willing sacrifice, and Sabrina abandons her mission, killing Leonard before taking her own life. Andrew and Eric drive off with Wen's body, facing the unknown end of the world. That is so much darker!
When talking about changing the book’s original ending for the movie Desmond and Sherman told Variety:
“We adapted it slightly different than the book, and then [Shyamalan] had a whole new vision for what the ending could be. The book is the book, and the movie is the movie, and we think they both were exceptional mediums. This is a big, wide release movie that is meant for a very large audience. There are some decisions that the book made that were pretty dark and may have been a little too much for a broader audience. That was a decision that [Shyamalan] immediately recognized. It’s a great ending now.”
Actress Abby Quinn, who played Adriane, went on to discuss how while the new ending is still dark, it’s also a bit more uplifting than the book:
“I think it’s dark and terrifying, but uplifting in the sense that it ends with these two people who at least still have each other. There’s the last shot of [Andrew and Wen] in the car messing with the music and you see the flash-forward of them when they’re older and they look happier, so I think hopeful and uplifting in that way. It seems like they make it through and are relatively OK. But real dark!”
While the movie does offer a slightly uplifting ending, author Paul Tremblay says his book is “purposely ambiguous” regarding whether or not the end of the world is actually going to happen, but he explains that the film’s ending is “not that hopeful” either:
“I find it horrific there’s this higher power that is just going to willy-nilly sacrifice humans for everybody else. It doesn’t seem like a very moral thing to do, so I don’t find it that hopeful. I find the idea of what happened in my book — that the two characters reject that, like ‘No, we’re not going to sacrifice. That’s wrong. We’re going to go on.’ That’s a little bit more hopeful.”
Shyamalan shared his two cents about the ending of the movie, but won’t reveal how audiences should interpret it:
“The most important thing at the end is that everybody puts themselves in the characters’ shoes. What would they have done? I feel that genre helps me tell emotional stories. I’m generally an optimistic guy, so I get to do really dark things, and the audience feels held by somebody that isn’t nihilistic. I can push pretty hard because you can feel the vocabulary is not from someone who’s trying to hurt you.”
What did you think about the way the movie ended? Did you read the book? Do you think they should have stuck with the original darker ending?
