How M. Night Shyamalan's Servant Helped Lay The Groundwork For Knock At The Cabin
This week, M. Night Shyamalan returns to the big screen with "Knock at the Cabin," a one-location home-invasion thriller with an apocalyptic twist that is sure to divide audiences. Despite all the (sometimes toxic) criticism lodged at the filmmaker throughout the years, he still enjoys taking large risks, subverting expectations, and making films for himself rather than corporate machines. Shyamalan mostly works with original screenplays he's written himself and has lately even self-financed his films not just out of necessity, but also to allow as much creative freedom as possible.
"Knock at the Cabin" differs from "Old" and "Glass" in that, for the first time in a long while, Shyamalan's newest film is a collaboration and an adaptation of previous work. The film itself is based on the novel "The Cabin at the End of the World" by Paul G. Tremblay, and the initial unproduced screenplay adapting this work was written by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman. Originally, Shyamalan was interested in just a producing role, but then he decided to re-write the initial script himself.
Desmond and Sherman retain their credits on the screenplay, but interestingly the marketing of "Knock at the Cabin" doesn't actively reference its source material. Perhaps this was a way to deter audiences from finding out too much about the story before going in, selling the film on Shyamalan's name first and foremost.
Looper spoke with Shyamalan about directing "Knock at the Cabin," and what it was like working on a project which he did not develop from the ground up, and Shyamalan noted that developing "Servant" for Apple TV+ set a precedent in his career for collaboration. "Well, to some extent, when you say it like that, it just popped into my head that I guess I was doing that with 'Servant,'" Shyamalan answered. "Which was a set of characters and a premise that was brought to me by Tony Basgallop, who wrote the original pilot for the show."
Collaboration comes naturally for Shyamalan
"Servant," in which Shyamalan takes the role as the main showrunner, is a psychological horror series about a couple in Philadelphia (the filmmaker's current hometown) who find that their dead infant has been reborn in the form of a sentient therapy doll. The show has seen enough critical and commercial success for renewal and premiered its fourth and final season last month on January 13, 2023.
Surprisingly for Shyamalan, an auteur filmmaker and perfectionist who usually storyboards and plans his films meticulously, there was little difficulty adapting to a more collaborative technique. In fact, distance from his own personal vision helped Shyamalan gain clarity and ideas for how the show could move forward:
"[...] For years and years, I had been coming up with ideas based on that premise and based on those characters. So I'd say, 'Oh, I have an idea. Let's have the characters — it's all around the car, outside on the street,' or I would come and [say] 'I want this movement for the characters.' So, I've been doing it for years already, and there is a little bit of freedom in that, [which] makes it feel just slightly separated from me as a human being, that I can actually see it a tiny bit clearer. So it was an interesting mix of taking an author's characters and then going into a new direction with it in this movie. So, it felt like those muscles I've been doing on 'Servant.'"
Is there a collaborative path forward for Shaymalan?
Premiering in 2019, "Servant" might just be one of the more critically praised Shyamalan projects with a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the divisiveness of "Old," and "Glass." While it's too early to tell, "Knock at the Cabin" has received enough positive social media reactions that it might fare better once reviews are officially released.
This begs the question, are collaborative projects like this and "Servant" a potentially successful vehicle for Shaymalan's unquestionably great craftsmanship in the future? Or is Shyamalan more interesting when he takes big swings that might miss for a lot of people, but pay off in big ways for others?
Whichever mode Shyamalan is in, those who have the taste for the slightly off-kilter and surreal way he distorts reality are still going to be satisfied with "Knock at the Cabin," especially in a time where it seems like the low- to mid-budget original movie seems to be extinct in Hollywood.
The film opens in theaters on February 3, 2023.