Shyamalan delivers hell in a holiday home.

While he may not be your cup of tea, it’s almost impossible to hate M. Night Shyamalan. Sure, this is a director who’s made his fair share of dross through the years, yet, no matter how badly he fumbles the ball, it’s hard not to admire the filmmaking swings he regularly takes.

From peak-Shyamalan with early efforts like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, to the depths of M. Night hell over the following years, to the recent “Shyamanaissance”, the filmmaker has had quite a topsy-turvy career. Yet, through all of this, and despite the wavering quality of his output, you just can’t knock M. Night Shyamalan’s dogged commitment to his art.

Even with his recent uptick in fortunes, where Shyamalan has made the overt decision to return to his roots, there have been plenty of misfires. But where does Knock at the Cabin fit in to all of this? Does it continue his winning back-to-basics approach or has he returned to the Shyamalan of old?

While holidaying at a remote cabin in the woods, young Wen (Kristen Cui) and her two dads, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), are taken hostage by Leonard (Dave Bautista) and his armed, prophecy-spouting accomplices, who demand they make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. Confused, scared and with limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they truly believe before all is lost.

There really are few filmmakers out there today as “Marmite” as M. Night Shyamalan. He’s a director who’s always likely to divide a room, and Knock at the Cabin will almost certainly continue that tradition.

With its confined setup and focused concept, Knock at the Cabin is certainly in keeping with much of Shyamalan’s post-Blockbuster output, a factor that should be cause for celebration for those who enjoy their Shyamalan films on the low-key side. However, this paired down approach and condensed focus highlights a number of issues that have dogged the director his entire career.

Taught and refreshingly steadfast in its approach, the film wastes no time in throwing us right into things, getting straight to the point with little plot fluff or build-up to pad itself out with. In a world of over-bloated, over-cooked big-budget fare, this stripped back approach is appreciated, however, the leanness does lay bare Shyamalan’s writing weaknesses.

Despite its simplicities, Knock at the Cabin often struggles to maintain a clear head, as Shyamalan’s writing frequently fails to significantly build on the plot’s bare bones. More of an ideas guy than anything else, Shyamalan’s scripts do have a bad habit of lacking the nous to follow through on his admirably wild ideas, and there’s certainly parts of Knock at the Cabin that land in this area.

With some shaky character work and a few plot holes here and there, Shyamalan’s scrip, regardless of its compressed nature, occasionally struggles to keep its head above water. However, despite some characters that never quite feel real and a few plot wobbles, what Shyamalan delivers is certainly up there with his best work.

Scattered here and there, numerous flashbacks threaten to derail the plot, however, they are all mercifully brief, and even quite affecting at times. For the most part though, Shyamalan sticks to the task at hand, and the result is a simple yet effective home invasion thriller that lets the filmmaker showcase his envious visual chops and his keen eye for gripping tension, even when little is actually going on.

Taking a surprisingly gentle approach to its horror elements, Knock at the Cabin certainly isn’t the most intense home invasion flick out there, yet that’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments, as bursts of violence and moments of dread slice through the relative calm to keep you on edge throughout. As the outlandish and terrifying intentions of Dave Bautista’s Leonard and his zealous cohorts gradually reveal themselves, so too does the horror, and although it may not go far enough for some, the impact is certainly there.

With a performance that’s both genuinely chilling and surprisingly touching, Bautista once again proves his worth as an actor, managing to elevate a story that could otherwise fall flat, and showing that he’s more than worthy of leading man status. Terrifying and touching, it’s a wonderfully balanced showing for the former wrestler, and supplemented by a small but impressive cast – including an achingly cute, film-stealing turn from young Kristen Cui – lifts the film well above expectations.

On all sides, the film’s tight ensemble do a fantastic job at making the material work, even in its silliest moments, drawing us in to its morally ambiguous conceit and ensuring that we’re kept on the hook. As it twists and turns in the way only an M. Night plot can, it’s precisely this morally grey ambiguity that allows Knock at the Cabin to draw you in and keep you guessing until the very end.

While it’s far more conventional in its narrative layout than your average M. Night Shyamalan effort, and certainly less reliant on huge final act twists than one might imagine, it’s the ambiguities inherent in its thought-provoking “kill one to save them all” setup that will have you flip-flopping from one side of the argument to the other throughout.

Ultimately, it’s the strength of this central plot device that allows Knock at the Cabin to work as well as it does, and while its conclusion may not land quite as accurately as hoped, the results are solid enough to make this a comfortably top-tier M. Night effort.

While Knock at the Cabin is a far gentler beast than one might imagine, with M. Night Shyamalan back in his low-budget groove and squeezing the setup for all the tension its got, the film does a solid job of making its morally ambiguous conceit work. Although character and plot wobbles frequently threaten to derail things, an excellent cast and Shyamalan’s keen eye for atmospheric, tension-building visuals allow Knock at the Cabin to stay well clear of the director’s past apocalyptic mistakes to prove that he’s still got what it takes to keep us locked in.