Knock at the Cabin makes Cabin in the Woods’ twist ending even better

M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin (now streaming on Peacock) and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods are radically different movies, but they’re also variations on the same idea. Both are thrillers with mystery that conceal big secrets behind horror tropes. (Get in touch with the CabinInitial impressions are that of a thriller about a home invasion. Cabin in the Woods It is presuming to be a slasher film. The similarities go deeper. Both movies tell their protagonists that they must die in order to stop the apocalypse. The message is delivered by people who are not trustworthy in both movies. The same question is raised in both movies: What would you do if you were told you had to sacrifice yourself to save people you don’t know? Is it worth dying in the hope you might save the world, even if you’ll never know whether that’s true?

However Cabin in the Woods The question is a lot more entertaining than it sounds. Get in touch with the Cabin. These movies come to very differing conclusions regarding the worth of sacrifice and the trustworthiness required of those who are willing to make it. It’s a double feature. But ultimately, Get in touch with the Cabin’s biggest value may be that it makes Cabin in the Woods — already a clever, twist-filled, simultaneously scary and hilarious experience for horror fans — even better than it was on its own.

[Ed. note: End spoilers ahead for both Knock at the Cabin and The Cabin in the Woods.]

Lionsgate Photo

Cabin in the Woods stands nicely on its own as a meta-commentary on horror movies, a goof on the genre that gets in some solid, creepy scares, while explaining some of horror cinema’s biggest nonsense. Goddard’s film finds reasons for why horny teens in slasher movies are willing to run off into the woods for sex, no matter how many rumors they hear about sex-hating machete-murderers roaming around. And, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visual gag, there’s an explanation for why horror movie characters often don’t hang onto weapons for long.

Here’s the gist: Cabin in the Woods The idea that the wicked gods, who are slumbering deep in the hearts of the earth, demand an annual sacrifice. This is a Lovecraftian notion. Five beautiful, archetypal young women will do the honorable deed. Secret organizations from all over the globe engineer that annual sacrifice. These groups select their victims and lock them in isolation before forcing them into horror-movie scenarios. Every step of the way, sacrifices are closely monitored and manipulated to guarantee their death.

Cabin in the Woods, some of the protagonists manage to see behind the curtain and realize they’ve been lied to, and are essentially being executed in ways designed to maximize their terror and suffering. Dana (Kristen Connolly), and Marty, (Fran Kranz), confront the director behind the American version of the ritual. She explains to them that the trickery and deception is needed in order to stop the monstrosities. (There’s a good strong hint there that the “monstrosities” are a metaphor for horror fans, who eagerly seek out every opportunity to watch people die graphically on screen.)

Lionsgate Photo

Because of the parameters of the ritual, Dana is told she just has to murder Marty to avert the apocalypse, but she’s allowed to live herself — the horror gauntlet sometimes allows for a “final girl” survivor, but Marty, as the comic relief, has to die. Dana can’t quite bring herself to do the deed, though, and in the end, she and Marty both decide that a world that’s fundamentally built on such horrors and sacrifices doesn’t need to endure. They will let the apocalypse occur.

It’s a shocking and simultaneously gleeful ending — and the exact opposite of what happens in Get in touch with the CabinEric Groff and Andrew, along with their little girl, Wen, are held hostage by strangers. The tell them the apocalypse will come unless one family member dies in ritual sacrifice. The movie’s main question is whether or not the intrusions led by Leonard (Dave Bautista) are delusional and whether one family member dying in a ritual sacrifice will really mean anything. But various signs suggest they’re telling the truth, which forces the family into an awful decision that plays directly into the views on faith and religion that M. Night Shyamalan built into some of his earlier movies.

It seems that the aims of both films are directly incompatible. Get in touch with the CabinThis demonstrates the value of faith to face the ineffable. Cabin in the Woods answers that it isn’t wOderth keeping faith in people or Gods can have bad intentions. They make an excellent double feature due to the way that they interact. Get in touch with the Cabin raises a lot of questions it doesn’t answer, and leaves so much room for interpretation that it’s easy to see it as anything from a warning about environmental disaster to a coy expression of homophobia disguised as a love story. Cabin in the Woods reads like a response, somehow released 12 years earlier — and its answers to Knock’s questions are pretty funny.

Universal Pictures Photo

Everything is important Get in touch with the Cabin It leaves the entire structure open to interpretation. It’s never clear what idea or force is behind the “kill each other or the world ends” business. It could be the Christian God testing his followers again as in the Old Testament where he requires Abraham to sacrifice his son. Are they the gods or pantheons or religions? Is it the Devil? It’s just a cosmic quirk. These answers were almost certain to be left out by Shyamalan (as Paul Tremblay did in the grimmer version of his story). This was done to prevent viewers from arguing over religious dogma. Both men want the simplest version of the question to be answered. What if you could save many people by killing someone you love?

So, what about the survivors? Knock characters at sea in a cruel wOderld where they’re expected to respect the sacrifice of the one who died, without really having any idea of why it was necessary, or who to blame, appeal to, or question. In effect, they don’t know what to feel except grief. Arguably, that’s not so different from anyone who loses a family member and wonders why it happened, and where to put the anger and frustration that so often occur alongside grief. But it doesn’t make for an entirely satisfying horror-thriller or An entirely rewarding philosophical experiment. The story and characters are left on an unambiguous, even nihilistic, note.

Cabin in the WoodsTo make the situation more tangible and satisfying, it dials in the details. It puts a face on the torments Dana and her friends are facing — a very human face that’s actively chosen to lie to the victims and cover up why they’re dying. When the victims die, they are lied to. Cabin in the Woods survivors decide it isn’t worth propping up such a deceptive and vampiric world, they aren’t just resisting fate or evil gods, they’re fighting back against the cowards who sent them to die in the first place.

Lionsgate Photo

That’s another interesting way the two Cabin movies intersect: In Shyamalan’s version, the intercessors setting up the sacrifice tell the full and absolute truth as they know it. Leonard and his cohort regret the pain they’re causing, and they’re as kind about it as they can be. It is because of their honesty that one protagonist decides to save the planet. (It helps that Leonard and his crew clearly have their own skin in the game — they’re willing to sacrifice themselves too, even if they’re reluctant and afraid, and don’t understand why it’s necessary.)

In Goddard’s film, by contrast, intercessors like the director and her minions Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford) deceive, manipulate, and secretly mock their victims, leering at their bare bodies and betting money on what will finally kill them. The annual ritual is not about putting themselves at risk. It’s all about protecting their skins and killing unwitting victims. When Dana and Marty decide to let the whole world fall apart in hopes that something better will rise out of the ashes, they’re mostly just resisting their tormentors’ self-serving cruelty. The ultimate bad guys aren’t the evil gods — they’re the people feeding them.

Cabin in the Woods is a darker, bloodier version of the “die to prevent the apocalypse” story than Get in touch with the Cabin, and its version of uplift is grim and even snide — a raised middle finger to the cosmos, saying “You ain’t the boss of me.” But it’s still satisfying to revisit in the wake of Get in touch with the CabinIt is a reaction to the film’s muddled elements that intentionally abandons many of their most essential components in an ambiguous fog. It suggests a rebellion against punk-rock. Get in touch with the Cabin And its scared, downcast characters lack the ability to ask who designed such a terrible system and to refuse to follow it. Shyamalan may intend Get in touch with the Cabin as a study of faith and belief, and a story that makes a hero out of a man who’s willing to die for the people he loves. But Cabin in the Woods winds up feeling like that man’s well-deserved vengeance — an act of resistance by people who resent being puppets, no matter who’s holding the strings of the world.

Get in touch with the Cabin Available exclusively via Peacock The Cabin in the WoodsYou can stream on HBO Max and rent or buy at Amazon, VuduOther digital platforms.