Knock at the Cabin is going to be more than your average Shyamalan sci-fi horror film. Yes, we’ll all go into the movie expecting the twist at the end, but we’ve already seen the big twist in the trailer. The most recent trailer for Knock at the Cabin seems to reveal the entire plot of the movie; wherein Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn, Rupert Grint, and Nikki Amuka-Bird are attempting to prevent the apocalypse by forcibly sacrificing a member of a happy family. The trailer has shown us the very moment of devastation that might have otherwise been saved for the end of the movie.

But outside of the plot, there are other things that moviegoers might find particularly surprising about this film. We all might have been a bit alerted when we saw the first trailer which revealed Dave Bautista, that hulking mass of muscle, dressed up as if he were a missionary of the Mormon church. This is one of Bautista’s first dramatic roles, and whether he acts well or not will be a significant surprise for the audience. Knock at the Cabin, surrounds itself with a curious atmosphere, one that will make it stand out among Shyamalan films, and will make it interesting to go see, whether it’s a good movie or not.

Shyamalan and the Source Material

The Happening, by M. Night Shyamalan
20th Century Fox

Knock at the Cabin will be Shyamalan’s first R-rated film since The Happening, which is also an apocalyptic movie. The Happening had more of a political message, serving as an analogy for climate change, but fell flat with viewers. It didn’t have much audience appeal, but to this day the stars of the film stand by their movie. Knock at the Cabin is something a little stranger. Not quite a direct metaphor for anything, the film revolves around a horrifying moral question: would you sacrifice a member of your family to stop the apocalypse? It’s an excellent fulcrum on which to balance the conflict of the show, but the trailers seem to have revealed the entire movie before it was released.

Related: Unbreakable: Why It Is M. Night Shyamalan’s Best Film

Going into Knock at the Cabin, we know that the four home invaders, whether they be religious zealots or possessed by demons, pose the ultimate choice to this happy family: they can either save themselves or the world. In the trailer, we see the tearful faces of her parents when held hostage in this terrible predicament. Their daughter attempts to save them a number of times before she makes a run for it. She’s eventually recaptured by Bautista’s character, and then we begin to see the destruction that might forecast the apocalypse. Then Bautista is shown carrying the daughter away, and a shot of him raising an axe punctuates the scene. It’s as if we know the whole plot of the movie going in.

It’s curious to get these kinds of spoilers, because this film is based on Paul G. Tremblay’s novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, and in that narrative, the characters are never certain if the apocalypse is coming or not. In the movie, it seems that it’s all but happened already. Shyamalan might still be able to turn us with one of his characteristic twists. This movie may still turn out to be a situation like in The Village where the twist was that the characters were just ignorant of their own circumstances the entire time. But that film wasn’t very popular either.

See It For Bautista

Knock at the Cabin
Universal Pictures

Despite all the very detailed foreshadowing, it’s still worth seeing Knock at the Cabin. Largely for the reason that, even though the trailers might give a lot away, it’s still true that no one actually knows what happens at the end of the film. But beyond the plot, the movie serves as Dave Bautista’s first big dramatic role. Though he was originally known for his career in the WWE, a lot of people first saw him as Drax the Destroyer in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s recently expressed in an interview with GQ that he’s become tired of the character and that he wants to move on to become the leading man he knows he can be. He sees Drax as a character that’s sillier than the kind he wants to play. He has a lot of films being released this year, so the actor’s stock is about to skyrocket.

Related: The Best Performances In M. Night Shyamalan Movies, Ranked

Knock at the Cabin will prove the first test of the actor’s chops in 2023. Though his role in Glass Onion was a bit more serious than Drax, a Shyamalan thriller will serve to see how Bautista really does in an atmosphere with some gravity. Filmmakers are excited to see the actor expand his repertoire. And after this, we’re all anxious to see his thoroughly expanded role in Dune: Part Two. Knock at the Cabin might have some surprises in it still, despite giving some healthy reveals before the release date.