Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), together with their almost eight year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Wui) are enjoying a getaway at a scenic cabin in the woods when four strangers (David Bautista, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint) turn up and demand to be let in.
They're carrying weird weapons, seem kind of freaked out (aside from Bautista's soft-spoken Leonard) and don't seem willing to clearly articulate what they want beyond ominous suggestions that some tough decisions will have to be made. Those inside the cabin don't want to let them in. Those outside the cabin won't take no for an answer.
Actually, later on they will, because their goal is nothing less than saving the world from the apocalypse - but to do that, the family inside the house will be asked a number of times to make a choice. Either they sacrifice one of their own, or the whole world dies and they get to live alone in the ashes. Each time they say no, the quartet (and the world) will have to pay a price.
This should be a gripping dilemma, part Biblical, part conspiracy nightmare. At times it almost gets there, but the word to stress is "almost". For one, dramatically it doesn't quite hang together: while the end of the world is in theory as big as stakes get, in this movie "the world" is the seven people in the cabin. We see news footage of the outside world, but there's no personal connection to it - or at least, not one we can trust.
That's largely intentional. We don't know if the quartet's talk of normal lives and families is real, or they're deranged cult members (either way, their end game is extremely self-destructive). But it means the stakes are entirely abstract. It's a mind game, a "what would you do" dilemma for the audience, a film straining to make the kind of conversation starter people drop into conversations at parties seem profound.
The quartet also make it clear that the family's choice has to be their own. They're not going to force them, and they can't kill them - they have to pick and choose the victim themselves. So we know how this is going to progress: at first the family are going to say no because the quartet are clearly crazy, and then the evidence that they're not is going to mount up.
There's still some tension here, thanks largely to the performances. But outside of a few tight action sequences it's not a lot of tension, because if the four intruders are crazy and the world is safe, then there's no story once they reveal they're not going to kill the family. And if the world isn't safe? Oh wait, we're never given any reason to care about "the world" in the movie. In fact, it'd be a better ending if they did choose to end the world, because at least then we'd get to see some cool devastation.
Shyamalan's movies are traditionally largely plot and concept driven; characters are chess pieces moved around to achieve the desired effect. Here that's actually part of the story, which is a nice twist (aha!), and the increasingly pained performances from the quartet are one of the elements that does work well. The dads, not so much, but that's mostly because their role is to frustrate us: if they say yes right away then there's no story, but while they're saying no they're just dragging things out.
At just over 90 minutes and with the action almost entirely confined to the cabin, this is about as small scale as apocalypses get. It's a fun concept, but Shyamalan usually keeps his humor to a minimum (his cameos at least are always a delight). The result is a silly movie that takes itself a little too seriously, driven by the idea that we'll want the characters to do the right thing rather than the entertaining thing.
How's that worked out for humanity so far?
- Anthony Morris
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