Knock at the Cabin * * ½

Here comes another bad Knock Knock Joke

I was hoping this might be a good horror film.   I should have done a bit more research.  It's directed by M. Night Shyamalan, which means it's more likely to be a dud of a horror film, which it is.  Along with being really stupid!

A perfect family, being two happy gay Dads with their adopted Asian daughter, are having a little holiday in a cabin in the woods, when four strangers turn up. Indeed the visitors  are very strange as they want to tie up the little family and tell them to decide which one of them is going to die. Way to ruin someone's holiday!

Although each is carrying an implement that crudely imitates a weapon of yore, the four strangers are not what you'd call evil.  They hate doing what they have to do, it's just that they're on a mission.  They know the world is about to end and the only way to stop it is by making a member of this perfect little family sacrifice themself.

The four strangers are quite distressed about what they have to do and keep telling the tied up little family that if they don't cooperate things will get worse - not for them, but for the world.  

To make their point they switch on the wall mounted 85 inch television and we see reports of earthquakes, tsunamis and planes falling from the sky.  

If only one of the little family would kill themselves all this would stop and everything would be alright, don't you see?!

No they don't see. All they see is four nutcases who have broken into their holiday home and tied them up.  

As things progress the four strangers begin to eliminate themselves, using their own crude implements. It's mostly off screen, so don't worry if a mace to the head bothers you.

Like someone making up a camp fire story it begs our patience with it's silly plot as it goes along.  And believe me, your patience will get very thin.  It's like: "You're trying to tell me this is how the world ends?!"

Okay... now for the good bits.  It starts off very well with the invasion. The acting is excellent, especially from Dave Bautista (a man with a TV Wrestler background!).  The sense of shame mixed with determination is well expressed by the other invaders. The flashbacks showing the formation of the little family makes for a satisfying character development.  

But the explanation, and the summation,  and the extremity of the story of the four invaders is so laughably bombastic... well that's pretty well all you can do - laugh at it.