March Movie Reviews (Knock at the Cabin, Nocebo, All Quiet on the Western Front)
After three bad movies to close out February, I was happy to start off a fresh month with three better films, two of which I’d definitely recommend, and a third that’s still not a bad way to spend an evening.
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
Universal Pictures, 100 minutes
M. Night Shyamalan has had a roller coaster of a career as a a director and writer in Hollywood. He’s created some truly great films, like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, but also wrote and directed The Lady in the Water and The Last Airbender, two zero out of 10s. Shyamalan gave us the surprise hit thriller Split in 2016, but then followed it up with Glass, a turd of a film, in 2019. Currently, I’ve been watching Servant, a show he has a major role in producing, on Apple TV+, which has had its ups and downs, but has been a fun ride so far.
The bottom line is, when you sit down to watch a Shyamalan movie you’re really rolling the dice as to what sort of quality whatever you’re watching is going to be. Well, I’m happy to report that Shyamalan’s latest film, Knock at the Cabin, is actually pretty good.
Knock at the Cabin is a horror/mystery/thriller/drama that feels a lot like a spooky short story come to life. The film is actually based off of a 2018 award-winning horror novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, though it has a few major differences. Audiences who want a nonstop, thrilling horror slasher or terrifying ghost story, should look elsewhere, but if you enjoy a horror story set in primarily a single location that feels like the sort of tale you’d tell over a campfire, I think you’ll appreciate Knock at the Cabin.
The entire cast does a good job in this one, though the clear standout is Dave Bautista. Bautista, despite being a hulk of a human, has evolved to the point career-wise where he can excel at playing characters that don’t rely solely on his physically intimidating size, but actually require him to be a good actor. As far as ex-wrestlers go, he’s already surpassed The Rock when it comes to his acting chops.
Ultimately, Knock at the Cabin might not be a fantastic movie, but it’s still suspenseful and will keep you guessing as to where Shyamalan will take the story.
Grade: 8/10
Nocebo (2022)
RLJE Films, 97 minutes
Nocebo is a psychological horror-thriller that can best be described as “fine.” This is a film that’s largely pretty forgettable, but I also don’t think it’s necessarily a bad movie either.
Here, we follow a fashion designer who’s suffering from a mysterious illness, when a mysterious nanny arrives and attempts to heal her using folk remedies. Eva Green stars as the sickly fashion designer, and I think her performance is worth mentioning as she’s good in this – delivering the strongest performance in the movie. I wish she was offered/took better roles overall as a quick scroll down her filmography listing reveals she’s mostly been in stinkers.
The movie is well-made, which is more than can be said for a lot of horror movies produced nowadays; I just didn’t connect with it, or find it to be profound, on any sort of deeper level. Still, there are a lot worse ways to spend an hour and a half than Nocebo, as long as you don’t expect anything great going into it.
Grade: 5.5/10
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Netflix, 148 minutes
All Quiet on the Western Front is an extremely well-crafted adaptation of the 1929 novel of the same name. This is a film that doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to showing the brutality of war, as we witness the trench warfare between the Germans and French on the Western Front depicted both realistically and graphically. Told from the perspective of a young German soldier, this is a story that’s important for its historical significance as well as its relevance to the world today, particularly the war with Russia and Ukraine.
The movie is well acted, but what really stands out is the atmosphere the film creates. The visuals of this movie are just fantastic, as is the unnerving musical score. The composer of the film’s soundtrack won the related British Academy Film Award, and its clearly deserved.
My one major complaint about All Quiet on the Western Front is the movie’s length. I’m not sure that a 200-page novel needs to translate into a film that clocks in at over two and a half hours. The movie still simply feels long, which could definitely be in part to the fact that it’s not an easy (or really an enjoyable) watch. Despite this, All Quiet on the Western Front is very much an important film to see and one of the best produced Netflix releases.
Grade: 8/10