Knock At The Cabin (2023) VS Book The Cabin at the End of the World

Just a key thing to add about the Trolley Problem: the trolley is going to hit the group of people if the subject chooses not to act. So inaction is still technically an action, even if you feel more removed from the consequences. Similarly with the family here; they can choose to stand by until time has run out, but that is still a choice in itself.

I read the book while the film was already out (& before I saw the film). After I read that Eric saw the figure I was sure it was going to be about aliens manipulating humans like puppets, and I was thinking the whole time that this is right up M. Night's alley, a Signs moment -- but I was wrong of course. On a side note, I think it would've been awesome if the aliens were made of energy and with the performed rituals, the people who were offed would turn into this energy. The "god" people have been worshipping for centuries is an alien.

It wasn’t very clear to me. So the mnight movie twist was the the doomsdayer were actually right?

The book was very frustrating and hated the ending. Like it was a cop out. There are much better ambiguous endings than that one. I liked your suggestion a lot.
I read the book first, then watched it the day after. It's been a week and I still don't know how I feel about it. Weird.

haven't read the book, but i think that m. night probably chose to paint a better picture of religion / religious people in the movie, because the book could be viewed as a cynical or darker portrayal of people and that religion is basically just a man-made cult. again, i haven't read the book, but just basing this from the spoilers. the book could also be an f-u to the idea of human sacrifice to appease a god or gods. it could be a calculated risk assessment that shyamalan decided to NOT paint religion / religious people that way and not get accused of demonizing religion.

dave batista and the kid are the best thing about the movie. i thought it was kinda cheesy that the movie ended with a definitive "the apocalypse was real" and that they "stopped it". also, the ambiguity of the book allows for a more critical scrutiny of the characters.

edit:
all in all, this is still one of shyamalan's good movies. he's either a hit or miss kind of film maker, and this is still a hit even with the flaws. i enjoyed the movie and the casting is pretty good, particularly that of dave batista and the kid actress.

I read the book first, was so distraught when Wen was shot 😢 that it took me 3 or 4 months before I was able to finish, so I didn't want to see the same ending in the movie. I liked your idea for the ending with no diner scene

This is one of the rare books that made my grandma cry, when Wen died it affected her so much she didn't want to watch the movie. She ended up liking the movie more than the book. While this is one of my favorite novels, and shocked me as well, the film is still solid even if it changed the ending in a way I didn't like. I still think it's one of M's best in his late career, but I wish he had stuck to the original ending. Still a solid 4/5 for me though, and just seeing a normal family that happens to have to fathers, it was kind of refreshing. But Bautista was amazing. I even spoke to the author, Tremblay after the film and said while it was good, he did it better. He said he had no input on the adaptation at all, he replied with an emphatic 'THANK YOU!'

It was super Woke, which is a bad thing. But other than that it was OK. I liked that they gave it an unambiguous ending, but I would have preferred it to have all been fake.

This movie sounds homophobic to me, having to kill a gay man to save the world, which obviously turns out to be true, unlike thd book which implies its all a delusion. Even the author claims its a delusion and doesnt like the movie

I'm finally getting around to watching this because I finally got around to watching the movie! Despite it being M. Night, I was not excited about the subject matter so I delayed - and I was right, I did not enjoy the subject matter so much. So, I'm still thinking about everything but I really appreciate your extra insight from the book to add to my thoughts.
The only things I think I can say this early in my thought process is that I felt myself disappointed that I didn't get enough of an attempt at a reason why one of them had to be sacrificed. Now, I know sh*t happens and god's motives are ambiguous so that certainly all tracks, but that was the part that I found the most interesting so I was quite unsatisfied there. There's one statement about maybe their love being pure, but maybe I wanted a peek into god's mind. OR, I actually would have liked more supernatural content around the cabin, like the audience gets to see that this cabin - yes isolated, but is also some kind of supernatural place where if you happen to be unlucky to stay in it, then you are the 'random lottery loser' and that this happens cyclically.
As far as the ambiguous ending, I don't mind the ending and I really am not sure if I would prefer the ending to be different or not. What I would like to have been different is that I wanted to be convinced along the way that this was real and I didn't feel like the tv was convincing enough. I think that certainly was the point - we were on the same journey of questioning that the characters were on, but I didn't feel like I came around like the characters did by the end of it.
Anyway ... more thinking! Thank you so much for this - I love these kinds of videos. I do a little 31 days of horror thing for people every year and my theme last year was book to movie comparisons. I love to compare differences and think about why those differences were chosen, etc.

Yeah the only thing wrong with this movie is there's no such thing as two dads