Photo: Phobymo (Universal Pictures)
Few directors are as idiosyncratic and successful as M. Night Shyamalan. Dusting the “twist guy” expectations he had after 1999’s The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan has spent the last decade following his whims, taking risks and challenging himself: completing an unlikely superhero trilogy, dipping his toe in found footage, and led an ambitious television project on Apple TV+.
Like 2021’s Old, Shyamalan’s latest thriller, Knock At The Cabin, is a single-location thriller about parents and children, love and sacrifice, juxtaposed with biblical stakes and played with intense sincerity. Armed with another fantastic cast that includes Dave Bautista, Rupert Grint, Jonathan Groff and newcomer Kristen Cui, he’s crafted an unlikely and uncompromising apocalyptic thriller that audiences will be left knuckled through. The AV Club spoke to Shyamalan about his new film, his inspiration for taking risks, and why Bautista was the only man for the job.
The AV Club: So many of your films are about parent-child relationships. What is so crucial about a child’s perspective in the way you construct a film?
M. Night Shyamalan: I feel like they’re the closest I can get to my take on things. In a way, they see things more clearly. Or at least I believe in the version of the world children see. There is something more specific about the way they see the world as wonderful or how they open up to individuals.
If you think of the opening scene of Knock At The Cabin, [Cui’s character Wen] is alone, and then this giant [Dave Bautista] come and sit with her. When we watch as adults, it’s very disturbing. But the child character sees something in Dave’s character that is clear to her, and she sees something else in him. She sees a fellow child.
Knock at the Cabin Official Trailer
AVC: There’s such an interesting back and forth in this scene where the shots match. So you have a connection almost immediately. How did you make that connection for the rest of the film?
MNS: I don’t want to get into the cinema too much. I could bore everyone.
AVC: Not our readers. We want to hear it.
MNS: [Laughs] In this scene, I tilted the camera for extreme close-ups to convey a sense of intimacy between the two. It’s a very unusual sequence because I have her looking into the camera, looking down through the lens, so it’s kind of unnatural how their connection is. They have an immediate kind of soul connection that I convey with it. And I do it again later at the end of the film with two other characters.
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This language of seeing into the souls of the other is this moment. And yet the camera tilts as the information happens because Wen is experiencing two things in that scene, which is, “I’m really connected to this person,” and the second is, “he’s not saying anything very, very bad to me. So while he’s talking to her, something very, very bad is growing, and it’s constantly shifting the axis.
AVC: Your budgets have gone down over the last 10 years. You have made several standalone films that have shown a new side of your work. Why did you take the plunge?
MNS: As I thought about how to continue my career, I realized that I really don’t enjoy being in the system. I think they beat out what’s really good in me. I don’t care about money if it means giving up something of myself to get it. I also realized that most of the films I love are very low key films, so just let me pay for them myself and work with new people and then I’ll do it. And if they want to release it at that point, they can release it, you know? And that’s the relationship I’m going to have with the industry.
I want to take huge risks and what’s wonderful is that my films are usually profitable within three days of their theatrical release. Maybe it’s my “immigrant self” that wants everyone to be okay. A responsibility that my partners, even my distributors, take on every time. And so I can take big risks and they can win and feel safe and support us. I think that’s the healthiest way artists and commerce can coexist.
Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn and Nikki Amuka-Bird’ Photo Credit: Phobymo (Universal Pictures)
AVC: Outside Unbreakable Trilogy, you didn’t do any sequels. Are there other films you’ve made that you’d like to revisit and maybe expand on?
MNS: I don’t know how to do this without giving up the ideas I have in my head. In order to do those last two films, Old and Knock At The Cabin, I had to push the next few films down a bit, and now I’m back-ordered. I have about three film ideas that I really want to make.
I used to be afraid that these have an expiration date, meaning they wouldn’t represent me. But Split talked me out of it. When I made Split, whatever it was, 19 years after I had the idea, it just came out in the new version of me. I realized, “Persuasive ideas are persuasive ideas, and they will revitalize you in your new language, wherever you are.” That at least gives me some peace of mind.
But no, I’m not really upset (sequels). In fact, what usually draws people to sequels is the very thing that puts me off, which is safety. I just – uh. And even when I was talking to myself, like the idea, “Am I doing this because I want to make money or” — God, that’s so repulsive. For me, I want you to tear me to pieces. I want to risk everything – all the time. That’s what’s fun about being an artist and wanting to be a beginner every time.
AVC: Speaking of risks, that’s a huge role for Dave Bautista, who is fantastic in the film. Was there a particular movie where you said, “That’s definitely the guy”? What inspired you to think this role would be for him?
MNS: Blade Runner 2049. That did it for me. I knew it when I saw it; this guy was something special. I wrote it down. Who is this? I looked at the credits and said, “I have to remember this guy.”
I tell everyone; Your actions should be deeply what you believe in. And so, Dave, who’s making this film, fighting to be in this film, begging [director Denis Villeneuve] to be in that movie and then deliver in that moment, he didn’t know it, but that was where his career would take off and be whatever he wanted it to be.
It’s another example, even for myself, of making sure you know what you value. No matter how small, no matter what anyone says. “Why would you do that little thing in that little movie?” Well, it means telling the world what you believe in and then that comes back to you. And in this case, it came in the form of this story. There’s only one person in the world who could play it, a giant who can write 30 pages of monologues. And it’s like, well, who could do that? And it was David Bautista.