This film is based on the book The Cabin at the End of the World, and although it was true to the book, this is a classic case of the reader’s imagination being scarier than what the film portrays.
To set the scene, Andrew (Ben Aldridge), Eric (Jonathan Groff), and their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) are at a remote cabin in the woods for a much-needed vacation. Wen is outside playing alone, catching grasshoppers. A big burly man, Leonard (WWE star Dave Bautista), appears from the woods, approaches Wen, asks her to be friends, and tries to build her trust. Leonard is soon joined by his three companions, and Wen retreats to the cabin and locates her dad’s relaxing on the back porch; she pleads with them to join her inside.
The story immediately switches to a home invasion, but once Leonard, a guidance coach for young underprivileged children; Adriane (Abby Quinn), a mother and line cook; Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a nurse; and Redmond (Rupert Grint), an angry redhead with a criminal past, are inside the cabin, they try to introduce themselves in a way that almost feels like watching the actor’s off-screen audition tapes. They then take a very humane approach to explain that the family needs to decide who in their family to sacrifice to stop human existence from being destroyed.
The storyline and characters for this movie had great potential. There was a need for the intruding characters’ backstories to be more developed. Unfortunately, there was no classic M Knight Shyamalan twist, which was disappointing; maybe that’s the twist itself. Every outcome was predictable, and the decisions made by the family were all too relatable and understandable.
Would you sacrifice yourself or a loved one to save everyone else?
