6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.
Starring: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff (II), Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rupert GrintHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 5% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
To call M. Night Shyamalan's career "chaotic" might be an understatement. After a flurry of early success with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs, the director's career has since spanned decades and spawned a plethora of iffy films that have never lived up to the excellence of his early career masterpieces. With Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan attempts to recapture the glory days of his directorial youth with a film adapted from the apocalyptic novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay. The film flirts with some of the best ideas in Shyamalan's career, but the picture fails to resonate, falling flat with less than convincing story lines, characters, and performances. An intriguing premise awaits, but flawed execution prevents the film from capturing the essential essence of horror and hopelessness its material desperately wishes to engender in its audiences.
Universal's 2160p/Dolby Vision UHD presentation of Knock at the Cabin is a classic case of improvements to image finesse over the companion and concurrently released Blu-ray. This is not a transformational experience, but the enhancements that this format provides are clear, and the image (and the overall viewing experience) is better for these gains. As with the Blu-ray, the source is pristine and filmic and the encode is free of any troubling compression deficiencies. The level of clarity is amplified compared to the Blu-ray, offering a stable of enhanced definition characteristics that render faces, clothes, and environments with firmer clarity within every frame. There is no mistaking the improvements to sharpness, even viewing on a smaller 65" screen. Such gains are apparent everywhere, but viewers will particularly notice how the UHD renders pores and facial scruff in close-up with superior clarity and accuracy. The Dolby Vision color grading offers a deeper spectrum range. The picture looks a little darker overall but the gain to depth means superior blacks, more refined skin tones, and more lifelike colors such as the warm woods within the cabin or the bold natural greens outside. White balance is much better here, offering more vivid, pure whites than even the Blu-ray, which was itself exceptional in this area. Bold primaries pack a punch here as well. This is a very strong UHD release from Universal.
Universal delivers Knock at the Cabin to Blu-ray and UHD alike with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. The film's sound design is not prolific, taking place in an enclosed, largely quiet environment inside the cabin where dialogue is the primary audio component. Spoken word clarity is fine, with the broad range of vocal inflections and volume handled quite nicely with firmly grounded front-center positioning throughout. Some support elements are nicely defined as well. The Atmos track proves excellent from the opening moments where woodland insect sounds and various atmospheric cues effortlessly drop the listener into the location with full surround content and lifelike definition. This is one of the high points for total immersion; the track has few other opportunities for this level of layered envelopment, but it does deal in all cues with satisfying balance, spacing, and clarity. Some depth is present across a few areas of need, to speak of which would spoil some of the movie's surprises, but rest assured that depth and power are present as necessary. This is not the most potent or prolific track ever presented because of the somewhat more reserved nature of the original audio engineering and the film's core audio needs, but listeners can rest assured that what is here is clear and faithful to original content.
This UHD release of Knock at the Cabin contains a handful of bonus features. A Blu-ray copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy
code are included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.
Knock at the Cabin is certainly neither a poor picture nor the worst in the Shyamalan canon, but it is one of the most frustrating pictures in the Shyamalan canon. Packed with potential, opportunity for rich subtext, extreme human emotion and duress, and significant drama, the film feels cold and distant with little sense of the very real enormity playing out as a result of what's happening in the isolated cabin. That seems to be so much of today's movie landscape: so much potential, so little excellence. Universal's UHD, however, is excellent, offering tip-top video and audio presentations. A few extras are included. Recommended for fans.
1976
2013
2007
2016
Unrated
2006
2023
1981
2022
2016
2018
2018
70th Anniversary
1953
Collector's Edition
2013
2023
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2016
1988
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2024