Dir - M. Knight Shyamalan
Overall: MEH
As the second in a two film partnership between Universal Pictures and his own Blinding Edge Pictures, M. Knight Shyamalan chose to adopt another novel with Knock at the Cabin, his second such work in a row following 2021's laughably aloof Old. Shyamalan reworked the sought-after script by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman based off of Paul G. Tremblay's novel The Cabin at the End of the World and while this is a comparatively better offering and thankfully void of many of the writer/director's usual foibles, it is still far from a home-run. On the plus side, there are no head-scratchingly awful performances or aggressive plot holes. In fact, Dave Bautista is downright excellent as a mild-mannered yet hulking second grade teacher who takes the thankless lead on a hopelessly persuasive doomsday task. One of the minor problems is that even though the story focuses on a small number of people, they all seem underwritten which makes it difficult to relate to their decisions. The movie is not just trying to convince Johnathan Groff and Ben Aldridge's couple to make an impossible choice, it is also trying to convince the audience that they would make that choice and this does not carry enough logical weight to work. There is a certain level of ambiguity to the material itself that is balanced about as well as could be expected, but it still comes up short in the end.
Dir - Josiah Allen/Indianna Bell
Overall: GREAT
After a making a handful of short films, Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen deliver their full-length debut You'll Never Find Me as a successful tweak on familiar psychological tropes. A movie that is suffocating in atmosphere, Bell's monologue-heavy script seems perfectly unnatural in such an also unnatural and claustrophobic environment. Set entirely in a dingy trailer where a nameless woman arrives banging on the door to get out of the rain, its occupant is a solemn and humorless oaf who seems to be contemplating his entire existence when he is interrupted. The first two acts play a riveting back-and-forth game between the two, each of whom seems as suspicious of the other as the viewer is of them. Maxx Corkindale's cinematography turns the tight location into an endlessly oppressive one and the sound design makes the entire thing come off like our two protagonists are in the bowls of some sinister netherland, even if it is just some old mobile home in need of contemporary appliances and a paint job. There is such a level of paranoia and dread that by the time that the twist arrives, few audience members will even believe that they are being presented with definitive answers. Things only venture further into an ambiguous abyss of dark justifications and all-consuming inevitability from there, with Allen and Bell subverting an impressive amount of expectations along the way.
Dir - Laurence Vannicelli
Overall: GOOD
Writer/director Laurence Vannicelli's second full-length Mother, May I? is an interesting if still murky psychological horror film that gets points for its unique set-up and execution. The genre pandering is kept to a minimum as Vannicelli takes a slow boil approach to his material. It is heavy on the atmosphere while utilizing no jump scares, with conventional horror motifs like nightmare sequences and supernaturally suggestive visuals only appearing when necessary. This turns out to be not very often as it is essentially a character study between a likeable couple who each suffer from deep-seated issues that only envelope their relationship in more dysfunctional ways as things go on. Both Holland Roden and Kyle Gallner carry the movie almost in its entirety, each taking turns exhibiting closed-off, alarming behavior while the other one pulls their hair out in frustration; something that remains compelling even if it becomes implausible from a logical perspective at regular intervals. Still, the eerie tone, beautiful cinematography from Craig Harmer, and both actor's commendable performances go a long way, plus enough low-key yet oddball surprises emerge as things progress.
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