WARNING! This article contains major SPOILERS for Knock at the Cabin’s ending!The original author of The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay, is being vocal about his reaction to the surprise ending of M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin. Both stories revolve around a small family, consisting of two fathers and their young daughter, as they are harassed by a band of intruders. Told that the world will end if one member of the family doesn’t sacrifice another, they need to decide if they should risk an apocalypse or kill their own family.
While the premise of the story remains the same in Shyamalan’s adaptation, there is one major aspect that differs: The conclusion. With Eric and Andrew ending the movie by having Andrew kill Eric, the story severely diverges from its source material. In an interview with LA Times, Tremblay described how he felt about the massive and dark twist at the end of Knock at the Cabin. Check out his quote below:
“I think the movie’s ending is way darker than my book. I don’t mean to say this flippantly. But politics aside, on a character level, the idea of, “What are Andrew and Wen going to do now?” Not only did they just kill Eric — how will they go on after with that knowledge? — but also with the knowledge that this supreme being that controls the universe was so unremittingly cruel to them? I would never write a sequel to The Cabin at the End of the World, but I’m actually weirdly interested in a story of what Wen and Andrew do now.”
How Knock At The Cabin Differs From The Book
In The Cabin at the End of the World, the ending is an entirely different affair that actually leaves the world itself in danger — if the intruders are proven right. Instead of having Andrew and Wen survive, as in Knock at the Cabin, Wen is accidentally killed as a result of an unintentional firearm discharge during a fight. The movie having Wen survive is one of the biggest changes from the book and completely changes the message from one of queer liberation to one of compliance with bigoted intruders.
Another massive change was the state of the apocalypse. While The Cabin at the End of the World generally raises the issue of whether the apocalypse is real at all, Knock at the Cabin is fairly explicit about the reality of the ensuing Armageddon. The change does massively impact the decision-making of the characters, given the scope of the cataclysm.
A third massive distinction between Knock at the Cabin and its source material is the many unanswered questions it leaves. While Knock at the Cabin does leave some questions, The Cabin at the End of the World, meanwhile, leaves the state of the world entirely open-ended. In Knock at the Cabin, the apocalypse has been averted, but Wen’s unintentional sacrifice cannot stop the end times in the book, and it leaves Andrew and Eric in a shaky place. With that in mind, it’s no wonder Tremblay wants to visit the aftermath of Knock at the Cabin.
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